Creative industries in Washtenaw County add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy. In the weeks and months to come, host Deb Polich, the President and CEO of Creative Washtenaw, explores the myriad of contributors that make up the creative sector in Washtenaw County.
ABOUT SARA BILLMANN:
Sara Billmann is Vice President, Marketing & Communications for the University Musical Society (UMS), a 144-year-old presenting organization at the University of Michigan, where she oversees the strategic and creative campaigns for a robust season of programming in classical music, theater, dance, jazz, world music, as well as learning and engagement events. She has combined her strong arts background as a former oboist and her interest in analytics to develop new models for understanding audience behavior. Billmann received a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. with certification in public management from Stanford University. For the past seven years, she has also taught a course on DIY Marketing & Social Media at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
RESOURCES:
University Musical Society (UMS)
TRANSCRIPTION:
Deb Polich: Welcome to creative:impact on 89 one WEMU. Thanks for tuning in each week to meet another creative guest deeply rooted in Wastenaw County. I'm your host, Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw. And I ask you to join me to learn how their work, products, programs, services, and talents impact and add to our local quality of life and place. Sara Billmann is one of our local creative superstars. Some of it you may never have seen on stage, but truly, she makes a difference. Sara, welcome to creative:impact.
Sara Billmann: Thank you. You certainly have never seen me on stage.
Deb Polich: Well, but you are integral to everything that the University of Michigan's musical society does or known as UMS. And so, we know, those of us that work behind the scenes, how important the work that you do is. So, thank you for doing that and driving so much.
Sara Billmann: Oh, my pleasure.
Deb Polich: So, you know, before we get to what you actually do, I want to ask you a question as a fellow arts administrator. You know, I found my way to this role through studying costumes in college and then found my niche in arts management. How about you? Did you go directly to that, or did you find your way by some other route?
Sara Billmann: No, it's a great question. And I think when I was in high school, I always imagined I would work for a symphony. I was actually an oboe student for one year at the School of Music here at Michigan, and very quickly realized that if I spent the rest of my life scraping pieces of bamboo to make reeds, I was going to lose my mind. So, at that point, I switched over into an internship at UMS and, save for three years living in California, where I did a graduate degree and worked for San Francisco Opera, that's been the path ever since.
Deb Polich: Wow. And may I ask how many years ago that was?
Sara Billmann: Oh, I started at UMS in 1988 as an intern and worked until '93. And then '93 to '96 when I was out at Stanford and San Francisco Opera and then came back in the fall of '96. It's been a while.
Deb Polich: Right. We've both been playing in the sandbox for about the same amount of time.
Sara Billmann: Yeah, I think it's been 31 years, all told with UMS that I've been here now.
Deb Polich: So, you are really an extraordinary arts marketer. Your role as VP of Marketing and Communications for UMS really makes a difference. There's a lot of people that really kind of believe in our world that if you build it, they will come. But this isn't really a path for success, right? So, how would you say communications, including marketing, promotion, and public relations works? And is it an art or a science?
Sara Billmann: Well, actually, I think it's a little bit of both. And to be completely honest, I never really imagined that I would pursue a career in arts marketing. I thought I might go down a different path in the performing arts world, and I'm actually a complete product of my parents. My mother was a music teacher, and my father was a math teacher.
Deb Polich: Okay.
Sara Billmann: So, for me, what I found to be really interesting about marketing is that it is that exact middle of art and science. There's a lot of time spent thinking about how to create campaigns and position artists and events that we're doing in a way that makes sense to the public. But there's also a lot behind the scenes and digging into who's coming, where are they coming from, what are the patterns that we see, and how can we look for more people like that who have come to something and then they might be interested in something completely the opposite, just based on their past performance and attendance history. So, it's both. It's art and science.
Deb Polich: Sure, sure, sure. Hey, before we dig into this a little bit further, I want to assure our listeners that UMS and pretty much every other cultural organization is really protective of our lists. We don't sell or share information with others unless given permission by the person. And even that is really rare, wouldn't you say, Sara?
Sara Billmann: Absolutely. Very rare. And, in fact, the privacy of our patrons is paramount to everything that we do.
Deb Polich: So, data-driven analysis of audiences and who's buying what tickets, you know, probably evolved since you started in this field. Would you say that's true?
Sara Billmann: Absolutely. UMS was a pretty early adopter of computerized ticketing. At least, we started doing that back in the late 1980s. But it's really been the last decade, maybe 15 years, where that kind of work has become pretty much standard for sophisticated arts organizations. We now can track, you know, when people purchase tickets, so that we're able to look at those--who likes to buy closer to the event versus people who like to plan farther in advance. And the tools that we have now are much more sophisticated in helping us to, frankly, deploy our resources more wisely and figure out where we can get the most bang for the buck, so to speak, when we're spending money on marketing and communications.
Deb Polich: 89 one WEMU's creative:impact continues. I'm your host, Deb Polich, and my guest is UMS's marketing guru, Sara Billmann. So, Sara, I'd like to talk if we could, a little bit about before COVID and after COVID. So, what worked before COVID probably isn't working today. And audiences are, I mean, everything's kind of still in an upheaval now, what, two and a half years into it. How has your systems, your strategies, how have you had to adapt?
Sara Billmann: Well, I think there have been a couple of things that have changed. One thing is that certainly during the COVID period, we expanded our performing arts presentation model and really replaced it for a year with largely digital work. And we discovered that there's a big audience out there for digital presentations as well. So, post-COVID, we've continued to present digital concerts alongside the live events that we do. We've definitely seen audiences, I would say, buy a little bit later, a little bit closer to the event, but we're definitely seeing people coming back, especially this fall. We've had three performances, at least, that have had over 3000 people in a whole auditorium, and people seem to be pretty comfortable now making their own decisions about whether they're going to mask or not and really taking care of what makes themselves feel the most comfortable.
Deb Polich: Sure.
Sara Billmann: So, we're excited to see people coming back. I think the other big change that I've seen, at least in terms of the day-to-day work that I do, is a much greater focus on the communication side rather than the marketing side. And, by that, I mean that it's become increasingly important for us to really put ourselves in the shoes of the audience member and find out and think about what do they not know that they need to know, as opposed to just spewing out all of the information that we know about the artists. Because now, it's not just about the artist. It's also about what is the parking situation going to be like. What is the safety consideration? What is the refund and exchange policy? And all of those things need to be presented upfront before people are ready to dive in and make a ticket purchase.
Deb Polich: So, you're really using people through the entire experience from start to end?
Sara Billman: 100%.
Deb Polich: Is streaming still part of what you're doing?
Sara Billmann: Absolutely. Absolutely. We can't stream every show. Obviously, there are licensing and royalties and rights of artists, but we do make a commitment to do a couple of livestream events a year. And last year, we premiered a new program called UMS Live Sessions, where we'll take artists who are in town for a tour and film them in a smaller studio or other space, kind of like the NPR Tiny Desk concerts, although we usually have a little bit more room than they do. And then, we release those for a period of about a month, and those are always available free of charge.
Deb Polich: So, I know you're involved through the university, and I believe also still through the National Arts Marketing Project in helping develop and teach the up and comers in our fields. What's that like for you, rewarding-wise?
Sara Billmann: You know, it's interesting because I learn as much from the students that I'm teaching as I probably impart to them. The social media landscape especially is changing so rapidly. And what younger people today are using compared to what they were using even five years ago is vastly different. So, that requires all of us on the marketing side to really be on our toes and thinking about where we're going to be finding the new audiences.
Deb Polich: It puts a new spin on the idea that 50% of all marketing is wasted. It's trying to figure out which part of that is, right?
Sara Billmann: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Deb Polich: It's true. Well, behind the scenes or on the stage, it takes those, like you, Sara, with remarkable talents to make arts and creative businesses thrive here. Thanks for spending some time here with us on creative:impact. We really appreciate it.
Sara Billmann: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Deb Polich: That's Sara Billmann, UMS's arts marketer extraordinaire. Find out more about Sara's work and UMS at WEMU dot org. You've been listening to creative:impact. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host, Mat Hopson is our producer. Join us every Tuesday to meet another creative Washtenaw guest. Celebrating 45 years of jazz broadcasting, this is 89 one WEMU Ypsilanti. Public Radio from Eastern Michigan University.
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