In the first of what promises to be a series of posts, Vicki Allpress Hill of The Edge wrote on the NZ Live blog today, under the title 'Smart marketing: the answer to the recession', that:

... most local organisations just can’t hope for the kind of budget that their counterparts in North America and Europe have access to. Without doubt this impacts on your ability to deliver successful marketing through the online channel, because you need money for web development, email management systems, online advertising creative and placement and staff resources to maintain it all.

The good news is this. Some forward-thinking arts marketers here are already doing it well. And the success of online marketing depends more on the things we down under have in spades: creativity, resourcefulness, collaboration, empathy with customers, attention to detail and follow-though.

Allpress Hill doesn't give any examples yet, but if you want a one-stop introduction to successful (and low-to-no cost) online relationships with your customers, check out this interview with Shelley Bernstein, web guru at the ultra-networked Brooklyn Museum.

One of the things I like about Bernstein's approach is that she treats online communication and interaction as a logical extension of what the museum has always done. From the article:

“There’s someone on our staff who goes to community centers and reaches out to people—it’s the same on the Web,” Ms. Bernstein said. “We really, really, firmly believe that we should be going to them, not expecting them to come to us. And also that their message is way more powerful than ours on these platforms.”

You shouldn't be thinking about starting to talk with your audience online because you can't afford print advertising. You should be thinking about it because it's your job.