The San Diego Chorus

The San Diego Chorus performs award-winning, 4-part a cappella harmony in the barbershop style. We are committed to local entertainment and international competition. Dedicated to musical excellence and education, the San Diego Chorus holds a multitude of regional championship titles. Led by Master Director Kathleen Hansen, each rehearsal is a lesson in vocal and performance skills.

Along with musical development, this member-led organization offers many opportunities for leadership development and creative contribution in areas like communications, choreography, costume design, and show production. Members travel from across southern California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii to participate.

SECTORS

Barbershop, Choral

Performing Arts, Entertainment

Nonprofit, Education

PRIMARY LEADERS

Kathleen Hansen, Musical Director
Pam McMurray, Team Coordinator
Claudia Cannon, Communications

ENGAGEMENT

Fractional CMO, 3 years

AREAS OF FOCUS

Brand, Story and Message Strategy
Event Creation and Launch
Event Marketing
Branded Merchandise
Promotional Partnerships
Media and Public Relations
Ticketing Strategy

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

BRAND

Founding Board Member and part of the creative ideation and development of the Buddy Holly Music Festival, including brand strategy, marketing, contracting and logistics.

PUBLIC RELATIONS & MARKETING

Development of multi-year public relations and marketing campaigns designed to raise awareness, drive ticket and merchandise sales, engage international tour and travel wholesalers and garner media attention.

MEMBERSHIP MARKETING

Comprehensive member recruiting campaigns that integrate A/B testing, affinity marketing and new market aquistion to build brand awareness and grow membership.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

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SCOPE & WORK

Award-Winning 4-Part A Cappella Harmony

The San Diego Chorus is a pro-bono client of Nicknox Communications. In this capacity, Nicknox has facilitated brand clarification, organizational positioning, message strategy, and the creation and content development supporting a reimagined digital and social presence. The scope of work for this client has also included communications and social media strategy, e-commerce, event marketing and branded merchandise and apparel development.

Reimagined Web Presence

The San Diego Chorus website was migrated to a new web platform. Design and content was completely reimagined to create an engaging brand-centric presence. Content strategy supports the primary goals of the chorus by showcasing membership opportunities, promoting events and featuring videos and news. The new site also supported e-commerce integrations that improved customer and administrative experience in ticket sales. Throughout the COVID crisis, the site enabled the chorus to deliver online performances and offer customized virtual singing grams.

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Membership Recruiting

Membership is the primary engine of organizational growth and success for the award-winning San Diego Chorus. With a year-round, self-paced "soft" audition process, welcoming and orienting guests is an ongoing need. A full campaign of member recruitment tools was developed including video content, a New Singer Guide and marketing campaigns promoting Guest Open Houses and audition process.

Apparel & Promotional Items

The San Diego Chorus maintains a steady collection of branded promotional products and apparel as well as creating unique items for special events. Apparel included special event shirts for milestone anniversaries and concepts for a chorus unity shirt. Membership swag included branded tote bags, water bottles, sticker packs, car decals, collateral and binder covers. Chorus display elements include pop-up banners, table covers, tabletop signage and photo props.

Organizational Communications Strategy

With a steady stream of activities, events and fundraising needs, the San Diego Chorus was missing a consistent communication channel to engage audiences. Creation of a monthly e-Newsletter called "The Scoop" gave them a simple, device friendly tool to showcase news, events, performances and competition results.

Production & Social Media

San Diego Chorus needed strong brand alignment in both visual and content strategy across all social media platforms. Once this was in place, the organization saw growth in engagement and follows. A key strategy in this arena was developing a steady stream of video content in addition to static posts. The introduction of recurring social campaigns like #YouCouldBeSinging and #WeirdThingsOurDirectorSays became audience favorites. A combination of boosted and paid ads proved successful in raising visibility and increasing engagement and sharing across all platforms.

Media Kit

Creation of a digital media kit offered a powerful tool to support public relations efforts and media requests. Featuring short bites of facts about the chorus in key areas, the kit was a key step in solidifying message strategy. This also equipped the chorus with an easy tool for members to pull approved copy and imagery from in support of booking requests, grant applications and other uses.

Show & Event Promotion

The San Diego Chorus performs in a steady stream of competitions, shows and community events in addition to private performances. Developing a structure around creative development and marketing strategy was essential for the organization. Nicknox created a marketing roadmap to guide campaign timeframes, channels, message and frequency in support of event marketing.

Marketing Roadmaps

A key element of sustainability and growth for volunteer-led organizations is operationalization of best practices. Actionable road maps with tactical checklists, timeframes and documentation is one way that Nicknox has put structure in place to empower volunteers and support succession planning.