What is the ?proof of the pudding? when it comes to research and evaluation? asks Ylva French.
That?s the question which a number of eminent speakers will aim to answer at the Campaign for Museums? next marketing conference on September 23 at the Museum of London. My own view is that research should be useful and relevant, helping us as marketers to understand our visitors and our non-visitors, as well as how our performance compares with others inside and outside the sector.
It?s vital to know where to find published information on the external market, and the Office for National Statistics collects a wealth of general data which is available online. More sector-specific information is available from the new DCMS Evidence Toolkit, an online interactive statistical resource for the Cultural sector, which will be presented at the Conference.
Why do people visit museums and galleries? Individual visitor surveys may provide some useful answers but how do you find out why they don?t visit? MORI surveys carried out for the Museums Libraries and Archives Council provide a range of answers from ?there is nothing there to interest me? to ?no time?. For a thorough examination of barriers to visiting museums and galleries you need to dig deeper, as Arts Council England has done in its New Audiences Survey. Audiences London is taking this a step further by examining attitudes of staff and structures.
Focus groups and evaluation of visitors in situ seem to be increasingly popular. These frequently raise as many questions as they answer about motivations and behaviour. What are the drivers that bring frequent visitors to museums and galleries? Certainly some come with a thirst for knowledge; others may be there for social reasons; and some seek something spiritual, perhaps lacking in their everyday life. The conference will hear from leading consultants including Andrew McIntyre and Susie Fisher, as well museum practitioners.
Your survey may ask visitors how they heard of you and what influenced them to visit on a particular day. This may help to pinpoint the results of a particular campaign. Tourism South East has developed a sophisticated geodemographic marketing programme which will measure responses. This works particularly very well for large collaborative campaigns.
Collaboration is certainly the way forward, and the conference will look at how the well established benchmarking programme run by ALVA (Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) benefits museums in Bath, how Yorkshire Attractions plan to survey non-visitors, and how IPF (Institute of Public Finance) is helping museums with its standard survey MUSE.
Ylva French is Executive Director, Campaign for Museums. Download a conference booking form at http://www.campaignformuseums.org.uk; or to reserve a place, t: 020 7233 9796; e: info@campaignformuseums.org.uk