Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

This post was written by IMA Public Affairs intern Margaret Sutherlin. She is a senior at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, and plans to graduate as a double major in English Writing and Political Science. Post graduation she hopes to find a job before attending graduate school.

Working at the IMA for the past few weeks has only seemed to heighten this nagging observation I noticed years ago. There are two types of people when it comes to any, but especially, an art museum visit: those willing visitors and those who would simply rather not. Each side is a simple preference, like cats over dogs, or vanilla over chocolate, Cubs or Cardinals. The preference exists in our families and friends, each side representing itself at one time or another. But this ‘preference’ to go or not go visit an art museum, seems to be a bit of an annoying, elusive thing to solve or make sense of. I have rarely heard of a middle ground on the subject, nor experienced it, and it always seems to be people either do or do not want to go to an art museum. In a recent 4th of July adventure to St. Louis I experienced the two-sided argument once again.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a junior in high school we got the internet at home . Every night while watching tv, I would check my email. After 5 minutes of whistling and whining while our PC attempted a dial-up connection, I would hear the computer exclaim “You’ve Got Mail!” WOW! Email is amazing I remember thinking. It was so fun and new that even SPAM email was okay because I like to hear the computer was greet me in such an enthusiastic way. Just knowing that there was something waiting for me in the inbox made me happy.

Email has certainly evolved in the last 10 years. I now receive upwards of 100 emails a day. With that many messages streaming into my inbox morning, noon and night, I no longer have the same tolerance for junk mail that I once did. I don’t have time to sort through SPAM. I don’t even have time to read eNewsletters that I have signed up for. I just can’t spend my time sorting through long eNewsletters looking for information that might interest me.I’m not saying that eNewsletters are useless. I’m pretty sure that I’d read them if they interested me, but they typically don’t…not even from organizations that I adore. Instead, I think that marketers, like myself, need to attempt to engage audiences through email in more unique and perhaps, direct ways.

In recent months, the IMA has tackled how to make our eNews more interesting, exciting, and interactive. We’ve included more imagery, more links to the Web sites, more calls to action, and more videos. We want our subscribers to look forward to receiving IMA eNews. We want subscribers to feel the same excitement at seeing an email from the IMA that I felt years ago when I heard the phrase “You’ve Got Mail.” Read the rest of this entry »