FAIC ONLINE: MARKETING FOR CONSERVATION

 

Whether you are in private practice or part of a conservation laboratory doing outside work, you need customers. How do you reach them? How do you keep them? How do you decide where to use your limited time and money most effectively for marketing?

 

FAIC is pleased to offer an online course, “Marketing for Conservation,” to meet the needs of conservators who own or manage a professional conservation business or laboratory.  In this course, you will encounter readings, case studies, work sheets, presentations, and exercises to get you thinking and planning for ways to define what services you offer, and then to connect those services with customer’s needs. Online discussion forums allow you to draw on the combined experience of other participants, the course facilitator, and select outside experts. Best of all, “Marketing for Conservation” comes to you. All you need is a computer with Internet access and you are ready to learn.

About the Course

 

The fee for this course is $200 for AIC members, $300 for non-members. To register, complete and return the registration form, which is available on the AIC website or from the AIC office. The registration deadline is June 19, 2011. Participants will be accepted in order of receipt of paid registration. Enrollment is limited, so early registration is advised.

 

“Marketing for Conservation” is a four-week course. The course will begin on Thursday, June 16, and continue, with new activities and discussions each week, through July 14. The course site will remain available for reference and downloads for two weeks after the course ends.

 

What the course will cover:

 

    How to define your business

    Advantages and drawbacks of various marketing methods

    How to research your environment and potential customer base

    Strategies for networking

    Principles of effective printed materials

    How to track results from marketing effort

    Legal and ethical issues involved in marketing

    How to leverage new business from your existing client base

 

 

By completing the exercises in this course, participants will develop many components of a workable strategic marketing plan for their practice or laboratory.

Time Requirements:

 

Expect to spend at least six hours per week on the course – roughly the equivalent of attending a full-day workshop each week. You will use this time to complete exercises, and to read and respond to the work of others in the course. You choose when, according to your own schedule--at noon during your lunch break, in the evening with a cup of coffee by your side, or at 6 in the morning in your favorite jammies. (Although the timing of your participation is flexible, we have found that participants have difficulty keeping up with the course during extended trips.)

Is Distance Learning Right for You?

 

We’re glad you asked! We all learn in different ways. Take our interactive quiz, found on the main "Take a Course" page, to see if this type of course is a good match for your learning style. Take our quiz>>

Technical Requirements:

 

PC or Mac with Internet access.

 

Browser: if using Microsoft Windows, you will need either MS Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later, or Mozilla Firefox. If you are using Apple MacIntosh, you will need Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari.

 

Technical support (by email or phone) will be available while the class is in session between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific Time.

Registration

 

About the Facilitator:

 

Sarah Lowengard, Ph.D., has more than twenty years’ teaching experience in both formal university classrooms and informal education programs. She has developed, taught, or led courses, workshops, and tutorials in art conservation, collections care, history, academic research and materials analysis. A private-practice art conservator since 1979, she initiated the Conservation Course Syllabus Web pages for Conservation OnLine and served on the AIC Education and Training Committee.

About the series

 

“Marketing for Conservation” is part of FAIC’s online education series, “Business and Management Practices for Conservators.” Funded by The Getty Foundation, the series focuses on basic business skills that conservators need to know.

Credits

 

Course Content: Sarah Lowengard. Instructional Design: Roberta Westwood. Project Management: Eric Pourchot. Hosting and Course Support: iCohere. Contributors and Reviewers: Jeff Brechlin, Susan Burke, George Schwartz, Colin Turner, Hollis Walker

 

This course was created with funding from the Getty Foundation. It is presented with funding from the FAIC Endowment for Professional Development, which is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by gifts from members and friends of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

For more information, contact:

 

Abigail Choudhury, Development and Education Associate

Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works

1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 320

Washington, DC 20005

202-661-8070

Fax: 202-452-9328

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