The COVID pandemic dealt a major blow to museums around the world. Deprived of admission revenue and dealing with increased competition for other funding, most museums found themselves in a deficit that they’re still struggling to recover from.
Two-thirds of museums are still dealing with reduced attendance
Average attendance is 29% below pre-pandemic levels
30% of museums are dealing with decreased net operating performance
Fortunately, there are affordable marketing solutions that can help reconnect with past visitors and attract new people to the fold. Email is the most popular communication channel across all age ranges, with more than 360 billion emails sent daily around the globe. Given this universality, plus the simplicity and impact of email marketing, it offers an impressive ROI of $36 for every dollar spent.
What does this mean for museum marketing teams? Email is a major asset in your efforts to regain pre-pandemic numbers or potentially hit new records. But it’s definitely not the only option to consider. This guide provides a wide range of museum marketing strategies to help you build stronger connections and drive growth.
Before you begin pursuing various strategies, you need to have a solid plan in place. Your museum marketing plan gathers all the elements of what you’re trying to accomplish into one cohesive document that serves as your North Star and helps you assess results.
Follow these five basic steps to create the plan for your museum marketing strategy:
Start by assembling your team and answering these questions to develop the framework for your plan:
What goals are we hoping to accomplish?
What is the value of our goals?
What resources will we need?
What audiences are we trying to reach?
What channels will we use?
What is our timeline?
How will we measure success?
As you can see, the answers to these questions will inform the rest of your plan. By getting everyone on the same page from the onset, you’re setting the stage for more efficiency and better results.
In order to measure and refine your campaign, you’ll need to identify the key marketing metrics. Each metric should be tied to the campaign’s success, laddering up to your overall goals.
Examples include:
Impressions
Cost per lead
Marketing ROI
Conversion rate
Value per visit
Ensure all your metrics are measurable and processes are in place to track these metrics and then share them with your team.
You’ve already identified your target audience(s) for the campaign, so now it’s time to choose the best methods for connecting with them. And remember that cross-channel integration is essential.
For example, let’s say that your audience prefers email and social media. Those two channels could be pillars of the campaign, but you also might incorporate SMS, digital ads, and live events to reach more people and reinforce your message.
Your campaigns need to balance the dynamic of standing out from the competition but remaining cohesive across all channels. Dedicate the time needed to write engaging subject lines, headlines, and body copy.
The imagery of your campaign may very well be its most important component. Choose photos, artwork, or videos that grab the viewer’s attention and reinforce the key elements of your brand.
Finally, make sure that you have everything set up on the back end to gather campaign data from day one. Schedule consistent check-ins so that everyone knows how your campaigns are performing and can refine their efforts based on that information.
There you have it! Five quick steps to start bringing your museum marketing ideas to life. Add in more steps as necessary, ensuring your process remains optimized. The important thing is that your team agrees on a consistent approach to marketing, and everyone understands their unique role within it.
There are no cookie-cutter solutions for museums. Even when thinking of other museums within your city, there are likely huge differences in your collections, size, priorities, and financial situations. What works for you could be ineffective for the art museum down the street. And what attracts record visitors to the natural history museum across town might be a dud for your team.
That being said, these five marketing ideas have nearly universal application and are bringing success to all types of museums. If you’re not doing them, consider starting soon. And if you’re already doing them, look for new ways to improve those efforts.
The daily engagement and image-rich nature of social media make it ideal for connecting with current, past, and prospective visitors. Find creative ways to create value amidst all the noise on social channels. For example, you might post a behind-the-scenes video that shows how much expertise and effort goes into preparing your new exhibit. Or you could share some of the most impactful quotes from a guest lecturer. Another option might be running a contest that awards a pair of VIP tickets to the person who can solve a riddle based on your current exhibits.
What’s that? You don’t have a “VIP tier” in your ticketing structure? Create momentum and excitement for the contest by thinking up some special perks that would be part of this new type of ticket you just invented.
Remember that engagement is a two-way street. When someone comments on a post, respond promptly. If someone asks a question, give them a memorable answer. These efforts highlight your brand, provide substance, and build trust.
Your social media communities can become extensions of your marketing team as you put user-generated content into play. Each photo, story, or video that highlights your museum is a potent form of social proof that can recruit new visitors that you’d never be able to reach otherwise.
Low-hanging fruit here might be a hashtag campaign that spurs visitors to post photos. Promote the hashtag through your exhibits, increasing the odds that it will be used. You could also feature some of the best user-generated content on your own channels, encouraging more people to participate.
A more ambitious project would be tapping your community to actually help create an exhibit. Perhaps you display a gallery of users interpreting iconic art through a different medium. Or you could tackle a controversial topic with artificial intelligence by having your supporters create AI images that showcase their own unique stories.
There’s undeniable power in thanking someone. With members already showing their commitment to your museum, it’s time to return the favor with a loyalty program.
Imagine how excited your supporters would be to get invited to an exclusive sneak peak of your newest exhibit. Or maybe they’re able to attend a hands-on workshop with one of your resident experts.
Whether your rewards are big or small, as long as they pack a punch, they’ll get people talking. And there are few things more impactful than a happy person telling other people about what’s making them happy.
Many of the ideas we’ve shared to this point involve social proof and getting people talking about your museum. But you should also focus on the source that most of us turn to for information: the internet.
Search engine optimization is crucial, as it will boost your presence in search engine results. Use targeted keywords to catch the attention of those who are searching topics relevant to your offerings.
And don’t forget to create a profile on Google Search and Maps. This way you can share information and respond to users who are using these popular tools. While you’re at it, create profiles on Yelp, Tripadvisor, Foursquare, and any other platform that makes sense for your museum.
One of the most reliable and affordable ways to connect with visitors is through their email inboxes. Use this channel to provide updates, offer perks, share resources, and deliver surveys. By segmenting your audiences, you can personalize the messaging with things like following up with people who visited during a certain exhibit or offering a special gift on the recipient’s birthday.
Unlike social media and search engines, there aren’t any major algorithms you need to crack in order to succeed with email. As long as a person has opted in to receive your emails, you’ll be able to consistently reach them exactly when you want to. And thanks to your ability to segment email lists, you’ll have insights into the recipients’ age, geographic location, preferences, and other details. This added control makes it easier to predict performance and foster strong relationships with your audience.
We know how many responsibilities you’re managing on a daily basis, so we’ve built a marketing platform that handles many of those tasks in order to reduce stress and boost productivity.
Our responsive templates are easy to use and help you quickly create professional-grade emails that reflect the latest museum marketing trends. With Marketing Campaigns, you can then set up automations that handle all the details.
Sign up for a free Sendgrid account today to see how the right partner can truly help you take your marketing efforts to the next level.
