How to Manage a Small Theater Marketing Team: 8 Strategies for Nonprofit Arts Leaders
Theater marketing teams are operating in survival mode. Personnel costs at nonprofit cultural organizations dropped 28% from 2023 to 2024, with performing arts organizations losing an average of 3.2 full-time staff positions. Small teams are expected to do more with less. You’re managing social media, email campaigns, print materials, press releases, and patron engagement with half the people you need. The question isn’t whether your team is overwhelmed. It’s how you lead them through it.
The answer lies in building systems that protect your team while delivering results. These eight strategies won’t eliminate the pressure, but they will create structure, sustainability, and breathing room for small theater marketing teams.
1. Create Clear Job Descriptions That Establish Team Roles
Over the past month, I’ve had three separate conversations with Communication Directors asking for the same thing: sample job descriptions. Their teams had drifted so far from their original roles that no one knew what they were responsible for anymore. When everything feels urgent and other duties assigned” leads to wearing multiple hats, clear job descriptions become your foundation.
Job descriptions help establish that our Marketing Coordinator is responsible for the creation of all of our social media content, graphics, emails, printed material, etc. While the Marketing Manager is there to ensure everything is moving properly by planning, implementing, and overseeing the strategy. The Marketing Director is there to advocate for the department while establishing the strategy and responsible for achieving the business goals. Simply by having clear job descriptions, each person knows how their role plays a part in pushing forward the mission of the organization.
Not only does this establish team roles, but it does give you leverage when another department may try to pull on a team member for work and skills that they aren’t responsible for.
Feeling out of sorts as a team? Review your job descriptions and together review it with one another at least twice a year. Check out my other article, Defining Marketing Team Roles.
Once your team knows their roles, the next challenge is helping them decide what to do first. When three people are responsible for twenty projects, clarity on priorities becomes survival.
2. Establish Priorities and Filter Department Noise
I was recently in Barnes and Nobles and saw a daily task list that separated the tasks into “What To Do” and “What Not to Do.” I actually thought this was brilliant because when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. As the Marketing Director, you must be clear on what is the high priority, mid-priority, low-priority, and no priority of the week. Make it clear that we need to work on the marketing for the upcoming season release. We do not need to work on the marketing for the open mic night. I personally would appreciate that directness because now I don’t have to decide what to work on, I already know.
You may not know this, but your Marketing Coordinator and Marketing Manager are getting emails from the Director of Patron Engagement asking if the signs are done for tonight’s performance. They are being stopped in the hall by the Director of Education asking for social media posts for the upcoming kid’s ballet classes. They feel the pressure to please everyone by meeting all of their needs. It is important for you to filter out the noise of other departments and be the guiding voice for your team. When needed, step in and be the “no” that they need. The best way you can serve them is to guide them by establishing priorities.
Priorities only work when you have time to execute them. That’s where planning comes in.
3. Develop a Marketing Content Calendar
You know the biggest enemy of efficiency? Lack of planning! I have seen countless teams feel less stressed and be more productive just by taking time to plan. Most marketing teams should be working at least 6 weeks out, but many are actually working hour by hour.
Planning out emails, social media, printed material, press releases, etc, give you the opportunity to put creative energy into the work rather than being responsive. Nobody writes a good email in 20 minutes in-between meetings. One organization I coached planned all their next month’s emails at the start of each month. The Marketing Coordinator wrote five emails in one afternoon. Not only did the emails have better continuity, but all were scheduled to send weeks before.
This method allows you to find time through the month to sit and create content, which allows you to reach, what do the cool kids call it these days? Being in a flow state? We get more accomplished in a shorter amount of time because we are actually able to focus.
It’s not fun, but you have to plan. Looking for a marketing content calendar? Let me know 😉
4. Establish Open Communication Channels
If I could have any superpower, it would be mind reading. Why? So I can fill in all the gaps between what has been told to me and the full context. Communication amongst a small team is key to our success (and mental health). As a unit, we need to know what one anothers’ workload is, what they are working on, along with the deadline pressures they are feeling.
As someone who has worked remotely for the past five years, I have seen how easy it is to demonize another teammate or coworker, purely due to a lack of communication. There really is something powerful about having free and open communication with someone. It is where perceived motives are confirmed or denied. It is where empathy is built when you have been waiting for an asset for what you thought was a bit too long. It is where everyone feels safe and able to do their job well.
Here are a two of my favorite tools to accomplish this:
Project Management Software Options (Asana, Monday, Trello, Notion)
Project Management systems offer a bird’s eye view on how far along each individual is on any given task. For someone who might get overwhelmed with the details, it lays out each individual step and allows you to assign a team member to a specific task. Not only does this reinforce team roles and responsibilities, but gives an overarching view of how much is one someone’s plate.
Likewise, Project Management systems allow for establishing deadlines. What is ahead of schedule, what is right on time, and what is running behind. This ensures nothing is falling through the cracks.
Communication and Collaboration Platforms (Slack, Teams, Google Chats, ClickUp, Discord)
Each department should have a designated platform for communication that is not text message or casual conversation over lunch. Communication platforms provide a place for updates and to get quick answers, all while keeping the email inbox a little lighter. Creating separate channels for each production or project allows the right people to be in the conversation.
Feeling tight on budget? Allow your Project Management Software to be your Communications Platform if the feature is available.
5. Schedule Effective Team and One-on-One Meetings
Although sometimes inconvenient, weekly team meetings give the chance for each person to share updates, provide encouragement, and realign one another on the direction needed to take that week.
Tips for Productive Team Meetings
- Establish the purpose of the meeting. What is this meeting, and more importantly, what this meeting is not.
- Have an agenda and send it out ahead of time. Nobody likes being caught off guard.
- Keep the meeting and its topics consistent and predictable.
- Limit meetings to 45 minutes (it’s okay if you don’t use all of the time)
- Avoid conversations that do not have to do with everyone in the group.
- Facilitate the meeting, don’t dominate it. This is a time for everyone to share, ask questions, and get their needs met.
- Document action items and send out a brief recap afterwards.
There is also value in being able to have one-on-one check in’s with your team. As a Marketing Director, your time can be monopolized. This gives designated time for your team to pick your brain, get answers, and share where they are at. This is also a great time for you to also get the pulse on the team, what are their stressors, needed areas of training, and how YOU can roll up your sleeves and support them.
Best Practices for One-on-One Check-Ins:
- Make it consistent and NEVER be the one to cancel, this is a non-negotiable on your calendar.
- Be on time! If you are always late, your team sees that they aren’t a priority for you.
- Allow time for personal conversation, but never force it. Do they want to talk about their dog? Let me see some pictures! If they aren’t comfortable opening up about personal details? Respect that boundary.
- This time is about them, don’t dominate the conversation.
- Co-own the agenda. Allow them to add to the agenda.
- Ask open-ended questions such as, “how can I support you” or “what is the challenge you’re facing and how can I resource you?”
- Create a safe and neutral space. Whenever possible, get out from behind the desk and conduct the meeting in a space that does not inherently have power dynamics. It could even be as simple as pulling up a chair next to them.
6. Build Reusable Documentation and Marketing Templates
Meetings help you execute week to week, but documentation helps you stop reinventing the wheel season after season. Ever find yourself asking when did we start running ads last year? How much did we spend? How long did it take? Save yourself the brainwork and create documentation of your system and process, along with templates that you can reuse.
Essential Templates Every Theater Marketing Team Needs
- Production social media schedule
- Press releases
- Press contact list
- Video and Image B-Roll
- Marketing Plan for Productions, Events, General Awareness, and Season Launch
- Social media content
- Opening night press kit checklist
- Media buy tracking spreadsheet
- Print specifications
7. Communicate Resource Constraints to Leadership
Templates and systems make your team more efficient, but they don’t create more hours in the day. At some point, you have to protect your team by managing up. It is easy for the marketing team to be inundated with last minute requests and unrealistic timelines. As the Director of Marketing, we must protect our team from these well-meaning, yet audacious requests. We understand these requests cannot be done due to time constraints, but all the other departments figuratively hear is “I don’t care about your event” or “I don’t want to do my job.”
The more productive way I have found to squelch the tension is to provide context. Recently I was talking with a Communications Director who that morning received a request to have four or five full length testimonial interviews, along with social media snippets. Want to know when they wanted it done? The next week. We both know that it is impossible, but to the requester, isn’t this a simple ask? I encouraged the Communications Director to talk with their co-worker and not say “no,” but bring the context to them. Let them know that this project requires a studio that has already been fully booked for the next two weeks, two camera operators, a producer, a video editor, AND volunteers to discuss the impact of the organization. The first miracle would be to even get all of those individuals in the room together within the next week. Then also communicate that studio set up takes about two hours, filming would be around 4-5 hours, editing would take close to 30 hours, and then add in several more hours of unpredicted interruptions. You are looking at about 40 hours of labor to make this work. Now, provide context of how many hours of work you are already committed to. It is not that we don’t want to bring the vision to life, we just need to find the right time to do it.
This isn’t about being the bad person, it is about keeping context in check for our leadership teams so they are able to match their expectation with our output.
8. Protect Your Team’s Culture and Wellbeing
This one is the most important on the list. As a Marketing Director, we play a massive role in the health and wellness of our team. We are able to make it a wonderful workplace where everyone genuinely enjoys coming to work, or a place where our team loses sleep because of the dread of having to wake up and do it all over again. The way the former is achieved is through the culture of the team. We can’t control the entire organization’s culture, but we can control our tribe’s.
There are a few non-negotiables that must exist within the team to protect the culture of the team.
Core Team Values to Uphold:
When Someone is Drowning, We Save Them
As a team, we rise and fall together. Practically speaking, if a team member is overwhelmed with tasks to do and the capacity exists, we jump in to provide support. Ask leading questions such as “what is one thing I can take off your plate today?” Let them answer genuinely and write that press release for them.
Never Throw Each Other Under the Bus
I once had a boss who would walk into leadership meetings and brag on all of us and what we have accomplished. She made a point to celebrate her team. On the flip side, she would defend her team when their name arose. I cannot begin to tell you the level of safety and security this offered me in the workplace. She didn’t take credit for our achievements to steal the spotlight, but elevated our names every chance she got. That does not mean we don’t address the issues, but we do that privately as a team. We never point fingers at one another, nor let anyone else do that. If you implement this, watch your team breathe a little bit deeper.
Invest in Individual Growth and Career Development
On our first one-on-one, that same boss asked me what my goals were. She prefaced it by saying she didn’t want it connected directly to our workplace. I told her I want to direct marketing and communications in the theater industry. From there, we discussed ways that I could be evolving and growing to get me just a bit closer to it. She recognized that my skills and abilities transcended our current context, and she wanted to make sure that when the time comes, I was set up for success.
How to Invest in Your Team’s Professional Growth:
Every one-on-one asked what they are doing to progress.
She wanted to know what I was reading, listening to, researching, and who I was networking with. She was a true advocate for me to step out into that space. She even came prepared with resources that would be of value for me.
Show them behind the scenes.
Even when it wasn’t my job or within my job description, she brought me into conversations and showed me what I needed to know. She would review budgeting with me. She would ask how I would approach a specific project, and then challenged me to think bigger and more strategically. She let me see behind the curtain because even though it wasn’t relevant to my current position, it was preparing me for my future.
She connected what I was doing to the theater industry.
When I would discuss social media strategy for a client, she would ask afterwards, now how would you do this in a theater context? What parallels are there in this industry and the theater industry? What can you pull from your current knowledge to add value into the arts that may not exist already? This equipped me to be able to see the knowledge I already possessed was actually a benefit to something else I was passionate about. It healed the imposter syndrome I had and allowed me to see my unconventional background as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
This mentor was not doing this at the detriment of the current company. She wasn’t advocating for me to go and leave. She was expanding my horizon, leaning into a dream and a goal, that allowed me to serve our clients much better.
Build a Healthier Theater Marketing Team
Managing a small theater marketing team means skipped lunches, late nights, and mental exhaustion. You’re doing the impossible with half the resources you need. But you show up. Your team shows up. And together, you create work that matters.
These eight strategies won’t eliminate the pressure, but they will give you systems that protect your team while delivering results. Start with one. Clarify job descriptions this week. Plan next month’s content in a single sitting. Have an honest conversation about resources with your executive director.
Small changes create breathing room. And breathing room creates sustainability.
If you’re ready for support, I’ve partnered with hundreds of mission-driven arts organizations to improve their workflows, strengthen their content, and build healthier team cultures. Book a free coaching session and let’s talk about what your team needs.
