Page 50 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet50These marketing plans and objectives are wholly centred on the work and on the artist’s recogni- tion. Therefore, when I speak of old marketing, I am referring to how, in the cultural world, the market approach has not taken into account the people who come into contact with the work or with the artist.Centring digital activity on promoting cultural products or services means not thinking about the receptor of your messages or – what amounts to the same thing – interrupting, as sales messages or action are the chief concern. This has led to budgets being directly invested in buying traffic... in buying customers.Without a doubt, this way of working in the digital world has reaped very good results for the cultural world in the past. The results were immediately apparent, and you knew that ifyou invested one euro you could easily earn five euros. However, these results have been shrink- ing year after year and nowadays it is not hard to find that an investment of one euro earns you only 0.8 euros.What is happening?The development of the Internet has radically changed our way of buying... and of consuming cultural products and services.Only a few years ago, purchasing depended almost totally on the commercial activity of one person: the company’s salesman. Today sucha situation seems almost inconceivable, butup until not long ago, companies’ commercialactivity depended solely on the talent and skills of their sales team. Not only were this team important for their ease and skill in completing business deals: they were of paramount impor- tance to companies, as they were the only ones to gauge people’s opinions; it was they who had direct contact with them.Today 70% of the purchase process is performed without any direct contact whatsoever with the company.Today, however, nearly 70% of the purchase process is performed without any direct contact whatsoever with the company. This buyer’s journey – the process from the moment we identify a need, problem or opportunity until we make the decision to purchase – has been transformed by the proximity of the digital world, by the possibility it grants us of making our own decisions, seeking, comparing and sharing experiences with other people.It might be said that we are in control as consumers. We often know even more than companies’ sales team.As consumers of culture, we want to take the initiative. We seek, compare cultural leisure plans and are capable of making a comparative decision. Today we can no longer say that digital plans should be based on buying attention; rather, we must focus our strategy on how to make ourselves significant.Inbound for the cultural world