Success Story | A Resounding Revival: A Noise Within’s Post-Pandemic Marketing Reboot

A Noise Within is an artistic triumph in the Los Angeles area. Having started with a small production of Hamlet in 1991, the renowned theatre company now resides in a beautiful theatre complex in Pasadena and serves more than 50,000 audiences each year. Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, the founders of the company, are still proud artistic directors and also act and direct in several of the company’s plays every year.

Navigating the Post-Pandemic Landscape

Like many theatre companies in early 2022, A Noise Within was working to reboot its marketing department following the pandemic shutdown. It needed to reorganize and reinvent its marketing processes, acquire new staff, and (most importantly) bring audiences back to the theatre. Knowing that companies of similar size and artistic taste had worked with JCA Arts Marketing before, the artistic directors reached out to us to support its marketing reboot.

Strategic Solutions: JCA Arts Marketing’s Two-Phase Approach

Our team worked with A Noise Within to power up its marketing department through two project phases:

Project Phase 1: Marketing Organizational Review

In the first phase of the project, we completed an audit of marketing efforts at A Noise Within. We interviewed staff, reviewed marketing materials and processes, and evaluated the company’s marketing goals. We then created recommendations related to:

• departmental organization and roles (including job descriptions for each role and key collaborations),
• meeting structure and purpose within the department,
• timelines and processes for the creation of marketing campaigns,
• enhanced documentation, and
• empowering front-line staff.

The next step, following the delivery of our recommendations to the leadership team, was to help the organization hire key roles in the marketing team and begin putting the recommendations into practice. This started the second phase of the project.

Project Phase 2: Interim Staffing (Director of Marketing and Marketing Manager)

While A Noise Within began the search for a new marketing director, JCA placed interim staffer and consultant Kate Brandt as Interim Director of Marketing & Communications to provide strategic leadership and execute marketing efforts. Kate worked in the interim role for almost a year and a half.

During that time, Kate helped the team reach several key accomplishments, including:

• hiring and onboarding four full-time marketing and audience services staff members,
• increasing the number of full-season subscribers relative to pre-pandemic levels,
• revamping their single ticket marketing strategy, resulting in setting new single ticket sales revenue records for the holiday show, Shakespeare show, and a drama, and
• creating a suite of reports inspired by leadership’s desire to take a more data-driven approach to marketing.

During Kate’s tenure, JCA also placed interim staffer Amanda Cantlin as Interim Marketing Manager to aid in marketing efforts while Kate and the A Noise Within team searched for a permanent placement.

A Noise Within now has a dynamic and multi-functional marketing team to keep audiences rushing to the theatre. The team is thriving with its new Director of Marketing & Communications, Lauren Marks, placed by Tom O’Connor Consulting Group, and we can’t wait to see what they do next.

See a trailer of A Noise Within’s delightfully festive and inspirational annual performance of A Christmas Carol here:

Thank you, A Noise Within, for trusting us to help you reboot your marketing team!

Keep Your Team Running Smoothly

Whether you’re working towards fully staffing your team or filling a gap while someone is on leave, we can help you stay on top of your marketing efforts and keep your team moving while you’re in transition with our interim staffing services.

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