Kevin Eitzenberger is director of marketing and Joshua Schwerdtfeger is director of sales for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. The two have been working together for just over a month now. In addition to working for the Allen Organ Company, Eitzenberger studied abstract expressionism at The Art Students League in New York City. Schwerdtfeger attended Kent State University and is a native of Ohio. The two met recently with Daily Record staff writer Monica Chamness to discuss several symphony-releated issues.
Question: How are ticket sales?
Schwerdtfeger: They’re OK, but there is definitely room for improvement. We’re projected to do just under our goal. The economy in general has provided us with a little setback at the beginning of the season. It’s the simple fact that snowbirds don’t get to Jacksonville until October. They can’t come to it if they’re not here. We try to compensate for the lack of snowbirds. The biggest impact since Sept. 11 has been the lack of small donations. People are donating their dollars somewhere else.
Q: Is your target market snowbirds?
Schwerdtfeger: Traditionally, yes. As far as the demographics of the city, the upper income people are all snowbirds. The vast majority of them live in Ponte Vedra Beach. That is where our highest patron base is. Part of the struggle we have is that lots of people stereotype the symphony as being stuffy, highbrow. We have family concert tickets as low as $5. Developing a younger, newer audience is a challenge sometimes. Our group salesperson is in charge of OPUS, an extension of the young professionals group.
Q: What changes are you making?
Eitzenberger: As far as marketing to prospects, we’re focusing on a slightly different approach to radio advertising this year. It’s going to create awareness of the symphony as more approachable. We’re going to do some different things with the radio ads such as getting to know the players, the musicians. The main reason for the radio campaign, and hopefully a television campaign, is to drive people to the website. Because we have a complex product, it is impossible to communicate that through a 30-second spot. Our target market invariably has Internet access. We’re going to be using the Internet to educate people as to what our product is and make it simpler.
Q: Have you considered collaborative promotion?
Eitzenberger: I plan on working with the media closely, working with the artists in the area, JMOMA [Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art], talking to people at the Cummer, working with the downtown restaurants and Clay County people. They’re interested in putting together some type of symphony support group down there. I’m meeting with Concert on the Green this week about how I can help promote their concert and at the same time how they can help promote us.
Q: Are you going to start soliciting patrons from Clay County?
Eitzenberger: I believe Clay County is an untapped resource, especially with all the growth going on down there. There are people down there starving for culture.
Q: What response do you get from the community?
Schwerdtfeger: The community overall is very supportive. The local media has been very helpful. We have some of the best coverage.
Q: What events do you compete against?
Schwerdtfeger: We’re competing for that entertainment dollar. Anything from an FCCJ Broadway Series show to a movie in the theaters.
Q: What other obstacles do you face?
Schwerdtfeger: Getting more awareness for what we’re able to spend.
Q: Considering your patrons are clustered in Ponte Vedra Beach, will downtown revitalization have an impact?
Schwerdtfeger: Absolutely. A lot of people want to come downtown. Berkman Plaza called me and they have an ad in our program book. They have already sold one of their condos because of our ad. I think there will be a tremendous impact, especially with The Shipyards and Berkman Plaza. Because those condos are upscale, higher-priced units, it leads to an individual with more disposable income and they can walk to us.
Q: How different is what you are doing now, different from your previous responsibilities?
Eitzenberger: As creative director, I was involved in the creative process when it came to anything that had to do with advertising. I worked closely with the marketing director in concepting campaigns for various series in the orchestra. In Pennsylvania I had done for the Allen Organ Company what they wanted me to do for the Jacksonville Symphony, and that is to bring all of the work in-house. In a nutshell, it’s taking more ideas and running with them in promoting the symphony and not getting bogged down in production.
Q: What is your job description?
Schwerdtfeger: Traditionally we’ve run a marketing director and marketing department, which incorporated the box office, all sales aspects, all marketing aspects, graphic and creative art design. We’ve divided that into two areas of expertise: sales and marketing. Whereas he [Eitzenberger] can now focus on our overall impact on the community on a marketing level as well as our media relations and public relations, I can in turn focus on how many seats we fill each week and what we need to do above and beyond advertising to fill concerts that are lagging behind. He does our themes and ideas on a marketing perspective. He gets the material ready and I’ll put it in the group salesperson’s hands and get it out to the people we contact.
Eitzenberger: I’m a one-man advertising agency. I give it to you [Schwerdtfeger] and you go out and sell it. Josh takes care of the sales budget. He is building and maintaining the telemarketing department and the box office or patron services. We’re setting a trend in the [non-profit symphony orchestra] industry. Rather than lumping sales and marketing together, it’s being split up.
Q: What are the benefits of this approach?
Schwerdtfeger: A little sharper focus on both aspects.
Eitzenberger: Josh is excellent with numbers. He has created a proprietary database for tracking. For the first time we’re going to be selling tickets online, starting probably next week, for Starry Nights, which is coming up in May. Josh is helping to streamline the ticket purchasing process through the phones.
Schwerdtfeger: We try to use every sales avenue that is out there. It’s tougher trying to be ahead of technology when you’re a nonprofit. We have to sell tickets as a real-time transaction.
Q: Why were you two chosen for these positions?
Eitzenberger: The reason why we are of value is because we have diverse talents in our particular focus. Because we are involved in so many facets of sales and marketing, we have to have an encompassing knowledge of those fields. They [their talents] dovetail well. My strengths are Josh’s weaknesses and vice versa.
Schwerdtfeger: I can’t stand designing anything and writing a letter, I hate it. “Dear dude, buy tickets because it’s good.”
Eitzenberger: I don’t like numbers.
Schwerdtfeger: The board thought we asked too much of one single marketing director and if you promote from within, you avoid a big training curve. I was here a year before the promotion as a subcontractor. I ran the telemarketing campaign for the new season tickets acquisition. They bought out my contract and hired me full time.
Q: How long have you been with JSO?
Eitzenberger: It’s been since July 1999.
Q: What are your business backgrounds?
Eitzenberger: I’ve been in advertising for 20 years. During college, I was working in advertising. I worked for several advertising agencies, working really closely in multi-color, high-volume printing. I decided corporate would be ideal for me because of the diversity I wanted to create.
Schwerdtfeger: I went from college to the Navy. I was stationed on a cruiser in Mayport. After that, I went immediately to selling life insurance. Then I went to Waste Management as an account executive.
Q: What are some of the changes you’re making to the website?
Eitzenberger: One of the things I implemented was Search Ingenious, a database search engine that will make it easier for someone who may be culturally aware but is not particular adept with classical music composers. They don’t know what to see. If you like piano, vocals, Broadway or Brahms, all you have to do is type in the word and it will give a cross-section that is not series-specific of any concert which features piano. There is a link to purchasing tickets. Next season, more so than now, there is a link called Hear It Now. You click on the box and it downloads a 30-second snippet of the concert in near-CD quality sound for the person to review. People don’t want to drop $40 a ticket and have to pay a babysitter if they’re worried about being put to sleep or being bored.