Samenvatting

This research paper has been conducted for X. It presents a new communication strategy for the fund in order to improve its information and increase its effect towards the target audience.
Since the First Rutte cabinet (2010) the Dutch cultural sector has been increasingly under pressure from government budget cuts. As the government is withdrawing itself as a financier, the cultural sector should broaden its own market and look for other potential financiers. X helps the cultural sector with this challenge, by stimulating other sectors to work with, and subsequently invest in, the cultural sector. In order to reach these other sectors, X mainly uses the personal contacts of the director, but fails to make use of other communication methods. X would like to make use of more focused and effective communication methods in order to reach their target audience. Therefore, the following research question was formulated:
"How and through what media and message, X will be able to inform the target group 'other sectors in Leiden’ and encourage them to consider a cooperation with the Leiden cultural sector?"
In order to answer this research question, this paper uses the central theory of Shannon & Weaver (1984). The model of Shannon & Weaver explains the process of transmitting and receiving a message, and identifies six elements that are important in tracking this message. These six elements are: transmitter, noise, message, medium, receiver, and feedback. This particular theory is used for this research paper because X lacks a basic communication strategy for communication focused on its target audience.
The three hypotheses have a direct relationship with the central theory, since they are based on one or more of the elements of the Shannon & Weaver model: message , channel , medium and feedback.
 "If the transmitter uses the communication methods ‘personal contact, social media , newsletter, website, press releases and free publicity’, the target audience is not reached."
 "If the transmitter informs the target audience about the general objectives of X, the organization will receive positive feedback from its target audience."
 "If the transmitter encodes its messages using triggers, the receiver will always unpack te message.”
The research was conducted by doing desk research and semi-structured interviews with the target audience ‘other sectors in Leiden’ and the director of X. There are interviewd 15 respondents in total
This paper concludes that the current message of X towards its target audience, “X is a starting point for organizations that want to collaborate with the Leiden cultural sector” , must be conveyed more effectively in the future. X should expand its current communication methods with new platforms such as video and business gatherings. The messages should be provided with an introduction and finally, all messages should have encoded triggers, which would allow the target audience to interact and provide feedback to X.
The entire conclusion can be found in the chapter ‘conclusion’. The paper provides fourteen different recommendations, some of which are used in the new communication strategy for X.