Museum Audience Insight

Got MAP?

Back when I was the director of a small historical society in New York State, I was always looking for help from whatever sources I could find it.  Consultants, books, you name it and I pursued it.

Fortunately, the American Association of Museums (AAM), through a cooperative agreement with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), has a terrific program designed to help small and medium-sized museums strengthen and grow. And I am going to quite shamelessly promote it to you, our dear readers, because yes, I think it is just that important.   

The Museum Assessment Program (MAP) is designed to be a cost-effective (as in, for really tiny museums, as inexpensive as free!) way to improve museum operations and reach via three assessment programs:

• Organizational
• Collections Stewardship
• Community Engagement

In the program, museums conduct a self-study and consults with a museum professional, all to gain expertise, knowledge, and tools to help work through things from how to get your organization’s governance and operations ship-shape to advice on what to do with that collection of arsenic-laden stuffed rodents you have in the back room.  And the people I know who serve as MAP assessors are fabulous.  The best.  Curious, interested, friendly, and pragmatic. 

So no excuses.  If you are a small or mid-sized museum and could use some help, check it out.  All museum types welcome.  Go to www.aam-us.org/map to learn more, and if you want to apply, the postmark deadline is Feb. 18^th.

MAP staff at AAM are available to answer any questions at map@aam-us.org or 202-289-9118.

- Susie

A Thank You Note To Write Home About, Take Two

Wendy Landman did it again.  She sent me another stellar thank you note.

Last year, I blogged about a wonderful thank you note I received from Wendy, the Executive Director of WalkBoston.  So when I renewed our membership this year, I wondered what would happen.  In addition to a formal gift announcement, I received this:

 

So why do I like this note?  Here goes:

    1 - Once again, it is handwritten.  From the Executive Director.  And it is a full-fledged note.

    2 - She thanks me (and, as we have seen, sometimes a simple thank you, which you think would be a no-brainer, doesn't appear). 

    3 - She brings me up-to-date on policy issues important to the organization, and brings national policy issues to a local level. 

    4 - She once again invites me to a specific event that is coming up soon.

It wasn't hard for Wendy to write this note.  My hunch is that she probably does a few a day, and they probably all say the same thing.  That's OK.  The point is, she makes a personal effort to thank her donors, engage them, and invite them to become more involved.  It's lovely. 

We would love to hear your stories of fantastic (or abysmal) thank yous.  To share, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

- Susie

Geeking Out Over a Fun Quiz (or, just why you are what you are)

Sometimes, organizations go out on a limb and do goofy things.  If you give the correct prompts on a specific Nestle customer service number, for example, you can learn that cootie catchers are just not as effective as we might have hoped (and what you can do instead if infected with boy or girl cooties).  And GE allows their NBC program 30 Rock to poke fun at them all the time. 

Similarly, we decided to do something goofy and fun . . . and over 500 of you came along for the ride.  We developed a short quiz designed for museum professionals to determine if they were a Museum Dork, Museum Dweeb, Museum Geek, or a Museum Nerd.

Why did we do it?  For a few reasons.  First, it was a fun diversion.  Second, we wanted to run an experiment on viral marketing to test a tracking system in our survey software (more on that below).  And third, Susie wanted a chic "Museum Geek" button (more on these below as well).

Spoiler Alert!  If you have not taken the quiz and want to do so before reading how we determined the categories, go to:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22A2YE5M69F&MAIB=1

 

Quiz Design

Before we could design our quiz, we had to define our terms.  Online research helped us define the following categories: 

 

• Museum Dweeb – a definition from the 1980s indicated that a dweeb was an East-coaster, particularly those of the Ivy League persuasion.  We expanded it to include the Seven Sisters.  So if a respondent attended either an Ivy League school or one of the Seven Sisters, they fell into the Museum Dweeb category.  Unless they were a Museum Dork, which trumped the Museum Dweeb designation.
• Museum Dork – hmmm . . . how to gently say this.  First, we love Museum Dorks.  Don’t get us wrong.  Museum Dorks love museums.  But there is also an affinity for things of, well, less academic rigor.  So if respondents indicated they enjoyed a good reality-television marathon, or vampire books (or other, let’s say, very light fiction), then they fell into the Museum Dork category. 
• Museum Nerd – Museum Nerds love museums.  Perhaps a little too much (though is that possible?).  Based on our definition research, we determined that respondents who would spend a leisurely Saturday catching up on museum reading/research are Museum Nerds. 
• Museum Geek – Basically . . . . everyone else who loves museums.
• None of the above – Those poor souls who, gasp, actually don’t enjoy visiting museums.
  

The Viral Experiment

We wanted to see what methods of dissemination yielded the most responses, and our survey software had a new mechanism for allowing us to that.

The quiz was sent out in the following ways:

 

• Susie’s Facebook Friends – Susie sent it to 49 of her museum friends.  They, in turn, did some forwarding of their own (thanks, LeAnne!).  102 responses came in via this path.
• Museum Audience Insight blog – 347 respondents clicked over to the quiz from this blog.  Although this is only a fraction of our readership, the blog provided the majority of respondents. 
• Museum Audience Insight e-newsletter – 60 respondents clicked over from our e-newsletter even though it may have a wider readership.  Now granted, the e-newsletter came out about a week after the blog post . . . and it was not the sole focus of the e-newsletter.  
• All other – 4.  

 

In short, quiz-takers were predominantly people we knew fairly well.  But a few broader implications:

 

• Don't underestimate the ability to use Facebook for viral marketing.  Note that we got more responses than the number of invites sent through Facebook.
• Even though we have thousands on our e-newsletter list, note that our Museum Audience Insight blog still drew more responses.  In part because of the timing, but also in part because messages with a call-to-action do better in freestanding announcements rather than when buried with other messages.  
• As a result, we can't recommend enough that museums determine which vehicles they can create to establish channels of communication with their fans, and provide a good flow of information for the audience to keep reading amidst the glut of information out there.   

 

The Survey 'Analysis'

So how did the 'results' break down?

 

• Museum Dweebs – 14%
• Museum Dorks – 17%
• Museum Nerds – 13%
• Museum Geeks – 56%
• None of the Above – 1% 

 

But upon further examination, there were some amusing differences.  For example:

 

• Dorks are more likely to arrive at a museum conference wearing hyper-trendy glasses and somewhat uncomfortable shoes
• Nerds are more likely to question if what they wear at a conference matters
• 100% of Dweebs will pick a trip around the world over going to a museum
• Overall, 47% of respondents were willing to take a drink from the Fountain of Youth over going to a museum, but Dorks and Dweebs were less likely to do so
• Dweebs are less likely to have pets of any kind, while Dorks are more likely to have cats

We hope you enjoyed playing along with our fun quiz and viral experiment.  If you didn’t win a button that proclaims your type, well, there is still hope.  Just track down James or Susie at any of the upcoming annual meetings listed below, and they will have stashes on hand, while supplies last:

 

• Ohio Museum Association (Susie)
• Association of Children’s Museums (Susie or James)
• Canadian Museums Association (James)
• American Association of Museums (James or Susie)
• Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (Susie)
• More conferences - TBD

Thoughts?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

- James (Dweeb) and Susie (Geek)

Free Research Opportunity (or at least some more details)

Over the past few years, we have worked with nearly 150 museums across the country, surveying over 30,000 museum-going households about their motivations, expectations, and experiences with museums.

This research, which we have shared widely through this blog, has told us a lot about our repeat visitors.  But it has also raised far more questions. 

Now, we want to dig deeper. We want to figure out if there are certain experiences in childhood that are crucial for the development of what we call Museum Advocates.  We want to understand the different types of Core Visitors, who visit museums often but don't seem to be as engaged as we would like.  Are there ways to engage them more deeply? 

To find out more, we are launching a nation-wide research project.  We'll be looking for a lot of museums, representing a wide variety of genres and from all parts of the country, to apply to participate.  Each participating museum will invite their e-mail lists (and Twitter feeds, and Facebook fans, etc.) to take a survey, and in return, each museum will receive their results, with the overall comps for benchmarking purposes. 

Best of all, for the museums it will be free.  Free data they can use about their museum, and we'll, of course, share the overall results widely with the field.  

Look for more information via this blog, and our e-newsletter, the first week of January.  Mark your calendars so you don't miss it!

A Really Good Rejection Letter

We've posted examples of the best and worst thank you notes in prior posts, but we have an interesting twist today:  A really good rejection letter.  

 

As some of you know, part of the team here focuses on museums, while others also work on other community-based enterprises such as municipalities.  We're working on tourism development strategy for one of them, and for that work we approached a potential partner since they had an event that fit a piece of our client's strategy.  But...the pitch didn't work.  Instead, we got a rejection letter.  And it's the best I've seen.  

 

Why did this rejection letter stand out?  

• First, it created a real connection.  It was clear that someone actually gave it consideration and cared.  
• Second, it showed that there's a real strategy behind their thinking, one worth respecting.  
• Third, they left the door open in case there's a more logical fit down the road.  
• Finally, they left me feeling even better about their brand, even though they said no.  I'm now a fan.

 

We realize this is a bit of a diversion from our normal posts, but we thought it would be an interesting example for those who have to turn down solicitations from the community, and those who want to see how a really effective marketer thinks.  (If you're interested in knowing who they are, just email us.)  Here's their (slightly edited) rejection letter:

 

Hey James,

___ passed your email along to me…I’m our events director here at ___, so I’m hopefully equipped to answer your questions!

First off, thanks for thinking of bikes, number one, and us number two. Glad to hear that you and ___ are getting more butts on bikes. That’s great. As I guess you’ve figured out, we like to do the same.

I’m guessing you’re close to right that ___ could provide a very friendly town for us to bring our bling to. We’ve spent some time in that neck of the woods as a sponsor of several other great events, and know that we’re a pretty like minded pairing.

Unfortunately, we’ve already had the hard conversations with many, many folks regarding our lineup for 2010. The toughest part of that annual discussion that we’ve had to tackle as of late has been the shift from ___ to larger urban locations. Two things have driven that for us. One, as this ballyhoo gets bigger, it’s becoming less and less cost effective to do it in ___ (not simply for day of attendance, but the power of advertising it to a broader market). Secondly, the message has become more and more about commuting (as you seem to know) and, although ANYONE can commute, we’re able to dive much deeper with that message in an urban location. I’m sure we’d end up preaching to an impressive choir in ___.

So, alas, I’m not sure that we’ve got much to offer the ___ riders this upcoming summer from the ___ vantage point. Thank you for thinking of us though. We are currently developing other events, as well as always looking for the right sponsorships, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us anytime you see something that might be a fit.

Thank you for doing so in this instance as well! Good luck!

Meredith

 

We would love to hear your thoughts.  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

Okay, you have GOT to check out that bathroom!

This summer, when visiting the Newseum for the first time, I stepped into the restroom.  And it ended up being one of my favorite spots in the museums.  Why?  It was tiled with giggle-inducing headlines like this one: 

Restrooms.  We all have to have them, we all have to use them.  We have talked about restrooms before on this blog, primarily in the context of how clean they are.  Totally important.  (The Newseum's restrooms were very clean.)  But is there an opportunity for engaging our audiences more deeply . . . in the loo?  

Well, yes.  In some recent research we conducted on behalf of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, one young woman made the case for also having a remarkable restroom:

Everyone loves a clean restroom. I like an interesting restroom. It bugs me when I go to an art museum, for example, and the walls are bare white. It's like a blank canvas - couldn't they even find a university student to come in and do a mural for them or something? Or maybe even put some of the collection that's rotated out in the ladies' waiting area (and gentleman's equivalent, if they have them). Or at a science museum - paint the periodic table on the walls, tile in the Fibonacci sequence. It just shows such attention to detail, and how neat is it to come out and tell your friends, "Okay, you have GOT to check out that bathroom!"

                                                        - 25-year-old woman

The USS Constitution Museum has been using their restroom as an interpretive tool for years (an interpretive panel can be seen in the image below; why my beloved dog, Shadow, is posing with it wearing a holiday scarf is a completely different story).  Asking, and answering, where the sailors "went" is educational, funny, and gives people something to talk about. 

Yet there is something else about this restroom that makes people talk.  As Robert Kiihne, the museum's Director of Exhibits, recently posted on their excellent Family Learning Forum, their restrooms are also ". . .  dark, grey . . . and poorly ventilated. Visitors complain about them - even when the restrooms have just been cleaned. I am sure that for every visitor that complains 10 more are just turned off."

Which takes us back, of course, to cleanliness.  So clean restrooms, yes.  You do not want to be remarkable for your dirty (or just dimly lit) restrooms.  But now that you have that covered, what can you do to make your restrooms remarkable in an exciting and creative way? 

(Finally, the excellent Elizabeth Merritt of AAM would likely badger me if I neglected to mention the splendid Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art.  Check it out.)

Are the restrooms in your museum remarkable?  Why?  Or have you seen particularly remarkable restrooms?  What makes them so?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

And if you do have remarkable restrooms in your museum, send us a photo and we'll post it for you.  Send photos to susie (at) reachadvisors (dot) com.

-Susie

Check out these fantastic photos from the Pacific Science Center.  These Grossology restrooms are truly remarkable.  Felicia Maffia, the Director of Exhibit Development, shared with us, "It's really fun for staff to overhear some of the great conversations that happen when visitors encounter these two restrooms."  Thanks, Felicia, for sending these along!

 

 

How Does Your Restroom Rank?

We didn't really mean to continue in the cleanliness theme this week.  Really.  But when this floated across my desktop just moments ago, I knew I had to share.

We have mentioned more than once on this blog how important cleanliness is to the current generation of parents.  My Gen X peers who are parents are just more likely to be germaphobic (and I am too, despite not being a parent). 

Turns out, there is a website, www.sitorsquat.com, complete with an iPhone applet, that combines ratings of restroom cleanliness with a mapping tool.  So you can always find a clean restroom nearby. 

So I started playing with the site, out of professional curiosity (of course - though I had to share it with my sister first!).  After checking my hometown, Quincy, I started checking to see if I could find any museums.  The Met gets 4/5 stars and a "sit" recommendation, while the National Museum of Natural History in DC gets 5/5.  But most of the museums I searched for were not listed at all.

People notice restroom cleanliness, and it is important to them.  It indicates that visitors are cared about.  For some people, it can make or break a visit.  And now they have a way to share where the "best" ones are.  Or where the "worst" ones are. 

Yes, the site is a little goofy.  But if I were running a museum, I would make sure that my clean restrooms were added to the site.  And I would not turn away people who come in just to use the restrooms either.  They might end up staying . . . or coming back.  Because the more people we get in the door, the greater the chance we have to reach people, touch them, and engage them.  Even if it starts with our clean restrooms.

- Susie

The Worst Thank You Note Ever

A few weeks ago, I was blown away by the WalkBoston thank you note I received (and shared on this blog).

Well, now I am completely underwhelmed.

 Or maybe blown away by this extraordinarily poor acknowledgment I just received from another organization.  So bad I had to, once again, scan and share in its entirety (the blackouts are sparing the identity of the sender).

 

 

Oh, where to begin.  First, how impersonal.  I have no identity.  I am simply “member.”  I just spent a lot of money renewing, and they cannot manage to address me by name?  Additionally, no one signed the letter.  No one.  It would have been nice to have someone, anyone, sign off on it.  

But here is the big, honking problem.  Something is missing.  The most important thing of all.

They never said thank you.  

Not once.  

Nada. 

Ok, sure, the benefits are nice, and yes, I like benefits.  

But no thank you?  Come on!  

The culprit?  I am going to spare the organization by not naming it, but suffice it to say it is not an American museum or museums association.  

But a thank you would have been nice.

- Susie

A Thank You Note to Write Home About

I am pretty jaded when it comes to fundraising appeals . . . and to gift acknowledgements.  I have written more than my share of both during my career.  And my husband and I try to give as generously as we can to a number of organizations.

So it is not often when I am impressed by either.  Yet I was pretty darn gob-smacked by the recent thank you note I received from WalkBoston (it came with a more formal gift acknowledgement).  So impressed I had to scan the thing and share it.

OK, here is why I was so impressed:

1 - The note is handwritten.  By the Executive Director.  Not just a note scribbled on the top of a form letter (though that is noted and appreciated as well).  But an actual separate piece of paper with a full note on it.  This made it personal. 

2 - It invites me to become involved immediately.  Not by giving more money (getting hit up again in the same envelope as a thank you is a pet peeve).  No.  They want me to get involved in their advocacy efforts.  They want ME, not just my money.

3 - They are already asking me for my feedback.  They want to know what is on my mind . . . and what I think is important for them to look into.  Not only do they want ME, they want MY OPINION!

4 - They sent me a nifty guide book.  Which I was not expecting and was surprised and delighted by.  (AAM also recently surprised and delighted me with a sticker for our car that says Support America's Museums.  We are not car sticker/bumper sticker people, but it is SO going on the station wagon whether my husband likes it or not!)  Kudos to both WalkBoston and AAM for giving me unexpected warm fuzzies.

5 - They invite me to a specific program.  Warmly. 

My husband was the one who wanted us to make a contribution to WalkBoston, and I happily went along with it.  But now I really want to know more about it and feel a hundered, maybe a thousand times better about our gift, and the organization, because this note made it personal.  And gave me warm fuzzies. 

How much time did it take Wendy Landman, the Executive Director of WalkBoston to write this?  Maybe two minutes.  The impact?  At a minimum, an easy renewal.  But likely a couple of advocates and long-term supporters.

Has a thank you note ever bowled you over?  Or are there ways you try to create personal connections like WalkBoston did?  We would love to hear about it!  To share your stories, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

- Susie

How Bazaar!

Last weekend, Museum Audience Insight editor and contributor Susie Wilkening found the epicenter of young Extremely Creative Consumers (ECCs) in Boston at the Bazaar Bizarre (this is event is what you might call an “alternative” craft fair.  Its tag line:  not your granny’s craft fair!).  One week earlier, Jennifer Caleshu, Director of Communications at the Bay Area Discovery Museum (and occasional Museum Audience Insight contributor) had a similar experience at the Bazaar Bizarre San Franscisco.  Over the past few days, they compared notes.

 

Jennifer:  My husband reconnected with an old friend recently, and she was a vendor at the SF Bazaar Bizarre, so we went.  We’re also pretty crafty people – both my husband and I knit, among many crafty pursuits – and we love seeing the ingenuity and beauty of work by individuals.

 

Susie:  I went because my colleague, Sally, and I are very interested in young Extremely Creative Consumers – especially those in their 20s.  And wow!  This event had them, both as vendors and shoppers.  So I had to wait 40 minutes (in the cold and snow, mind you) to get in.  It was that popular.  There were thousands there.

 

Jennifer:  The Bazaar Bizarre SF was pretty busy - there was a bit of a line much of the day.   I could definitely see who the popular vendors were – big crowds around the stuffed body parts people.  We definitely saw lots of ECCs – and parent, too – there were a lot of strollers. We would absolutely classify ourselves as ECC – and I’m interested to see how our crafty generation grows up, and how we raise our kids. The parents we saw at the SF Bazaar Bizarre are definitely looking to raise kids who do not conform to the traditional artist model.  My children’s museum (baykidsmuseum.org) has recently repositioned ourselves around childhood creativity, building on this interest in art and craft through open-ended play and nurturing the next generation of creative thinkers and innovators.  

 

Susie:  I noticed a lot of people in their 20s and early 30s, some with strollers, as well.  In fact, my friend and I estimated that the average age of attendees was about 26 or 27.  That is incredibly low for a craft fair.

 

You know, ECCs feel more strongly than non-ECCs that their stuff reflects their personality, and one of the things I noticed was that a lot of the vendors had tapped into that, and the life stage of a very youthful crowd.  They were much more likely to be selling one-of-a-kind personal adornment items, such as jewelry, scarves, fashion accessories, and hand-printed t-shirts than you would see at a traditional craft show.  There was not a lot in the way of home furnishings, which may reflect the young life stage of so many of the attendees.

 

Jennifer:  I think the one-of-a-kind personal adornment items – they’re part of the larger movement towards owning a personal brand – as we’ve talked about before re: Facebook and other social marketing sites. If you’re constantly curating your own online brand, it only makes sense that you’re also curating a physical brand that is one-of-a-kind, not mass market, made by yourself or other individuals with whom you create a connection by supporting.

 

Susie:  I think you are right.  This is a young generation all about personal expression and personal branding, and for whom personal creativity (whether their own or purchased) is a way of standing out from the crowd.

 

There was something else that kept niggling at me at the Bazaar Bizarre.  Here I was, surrounded by literally a couple of thousand of young ECCs, and literally tons of creative output being marketed by and to young ECCs.  Yet museums, the repositories of mankind’s creative effort, were missing.  It seems like such an incredible opportunity to reach an audience that is interested in artistic endeavors yet not going to museums in large numbers.

 

Jennifer:  So true – I absolutely feel that, by and large, museums have a top-down authority reputation that just does not sit will with young ECCs.  And by not attending something like this, they just reinforce the fact that they’re out-of-the-loop and out-of-touch with this generation of makers.  One of the local museums here currently has a participatory art exhibition that would have been a perfect fit for the Bazaar Bizarre.

 

I’m also interested in how the ECCs view art vs. craft vs. design – how the young, alternative handmade market in person and online (think etsy.com) relates to the traditional craft fair – what we’d call “crappy-craft” – or a curated Museum store.

 

Susie:   That is interesting.  I wonder what the young, hip, and very cutting-edge vendors I saw at the Bazaar Bizarre think about museums, the art and craft in museums, and whether they see museums as places of inspiration or part of the establishment they are creatively rebelling against.  Which is why I would love to see museums recognize their work because it can open up creative possibilities and help these young crafters share their work more broadly.

 

So maybe a lost opportunity for this year, but I hope to see some kind of museum presence next year.  By the way, I am definitely going next year (though maybe I will pay extra for an early-bird ticket – it was crowded!).  You?

 

Jennifer:  Yes! I will be there – in fact, I’m a bit inspired to set a goal of being there as a vendor! Stay tuned…

 

Susie:  Hmmm  . . . I am not as ambitious as you, but it did inspire me to tackle this year’s handmade Christmas gifts with new gusto!