6 Museum Marketing Strategies to Attract More Visitors

Many museums, historic sites and cultural attractions find themselves facing a common misconception held by locals and tourists: I visited once 10 years ago, and there’s nothing new to see or do, so why plan a return visit? After all, history and art don’t change, right?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Museums are dynamic and engaging community gathering spaces with ever-changing exhibits, immersive programs and popular events.

Whether you’re developing an internal marketing and communications plan for your historic site or utilizing a museum marketing agency as an extension of your team, your attraction’s marketing and communications strategy should take an integrated approach like the PESO Model developed by Gini Dietrich.

Not sure where to start? Here are six tips from museum marketing experts for attracting new and return visitors.

Research

Research isn’t only for historians and curators; it’s an essential step in developing your museum’s marketing strategy. Before diving into specific strategies and tactics to attract visitors, start by gathering as much data as possible on your current visitor demographic. Look at social media analytics, website traffic and exhibit and event attendance. Is there an audience you’re not currently reaching? Consider growth areas such as Gen Z or a minority or underserved population in your community.

Go beyond collecting basic demographic data of your visitors and seek to discover their “why” for visiting your attraction and gather information on “how” they are experiencing your museum. Are there certain sections of exhibits that attract the most visitors? Is there a program or event that routinely has higher attendance than others? Ask yourself how you can replicate those aspects elsewhere in your exhibits and events.

Tips for Conducting Visitor Research:

• Dedicate Staff to Data Collection: Visitor studies is not a new museum concept; however, more and more museums are recognizing the value of having an internal evaluation department. If working with a museum-focused evaluation company or hiring a dedicated museum evaluation professional isn’t within your budget, consider starting small by creating a graduate position or internship focused on evaluation, or explore ways to involve your existing visitor services team in collecting data.
• Utilize Tried and True Methods: Simple tactics like surveys distributed at an exhibit’s exit or after a program, focus groups, comment cards or a feedback wall are all easy ways to collect data.
• Make Data Collection an Experience: How can your team develop interesting and unique ways to engage your visitors while collecting the information you seek? Consider creating a mini exhibit like the Vision Lab developed by the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis to involve visitors in future exhibit development and discover what your audience is most interested in learning. Or use survey gamification to offer an interactive quiz at the end of a visit to your museum or attraction.
• Industry Support: Connect with organizations like the American Alliance of Museums and inquire about participating in surveys like the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.

Knowing who your target audience is and what motivates them will help you develop appropriate strategies and tactics to get them in the door and keep them coming back for more.

Host Unexpected and Immersive Events

Museums and cultural attractions are for more than school field trips and college professors. Museums can serve as a third place, bringing the community together to learn, discover and have fun.

If you have the staff and resources, consider a monthly or weekly program that features live music, a cash bar, lectures, gallery games or other hands-on experiences. Free Fridays at the Saint Louis Art Museum or the Saint Louis Science Center’s First Fridays are good examples to get you started. Outdoor film series are another great public programming option.

“After Dark” events have grown increasingly popular as well, such as Adler Planetarium’s Adler at Night, Shedd Aquarium’s Shedd After Hours and City Nights at the City Museum in St. Louis.

Programs and events that offer a unique and interactive experience are a great way to encourage repeat visits and generate awareness of your museum.

Tips for Marketing Events and Programs:

• Conduct earned media outreach to ensure local newspapers and TV stations are aware of your event(s). Add your events to community calendars.
• Create a Facebook event or event series to promote your program. This allows users to say they are interested or going, resulting in the event showing up on their friend’s timelines.
• Invite local influencers to your event(s) and provide them with a behind-the-scenes tour of an exhibit or another perk. This can help foster relationships that could lead to your institution having unofficial brand ambassadors or grassroots champions.

Targeted Advertising

There are a variety of options when it comes to targeted advertising.

Geofencing is a location-based advertising strategy that uses GPS, Wi-Fi or cellular data to create a “fence” or virtual boundary around certain locations. You can then serve ads to anyone who has been in the targeted area. This can be an effective tactic for driving foot traffic to your museum or historic site. Conduct geofencing around your building to serve your visitors ads reminding them to return for upcoming exhibits or events. Place the geofence around competing attractions to serve ads to their visitors, reminding them of your institution and what you have to offer.

Social media advertising is an effective, budget-friendly tactic. Maximize your dollars by targeting only audiences who are highly likely to be interested in your museum or event. You can select your budget, how long you want the campaign to run, and who you want to see your ads by age, gender, location, income, interests and more. Additional benefits of social media advertising include instant feedback. You can see how your campaign is performing and adjust in real-time.

Tips for Targeted Advertising:

• Check your advertising analytics, social media data or website traffic to see if spikes in engagement correlate with periods of higher foot traffic.
• Social media advertising allows you to create ads from scratch in a variety of formats including photo ads, video ads and carousel ads. Another great option is to boost existing organic posts that performed well.
• Start small and try ads in a variety of formats. Look at how each performed and determine what type of ads your target audience seems to engage with the most.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) isn’t only for B2C companies. UGC content reflects the experience of your visitors. Research shows UCG is cost-effective, trusted more than traditional brand advertising, and feels more authentic to consumers.

Tips for Incorporating UGC Into Your Communications Strategy:

• Develop exhibits and programming with social media in mind. Create visual, “Instagram-worthy” spaces in exhibits and at events that can serve as photo opportunities for visitors.
• Create and share an exhibit or program hashtag.
• Share UGC on your social media channels or create a UGC gallery in a lobby, exhibit or on your website.
• Photo contests or giveaways are great ways to encourage UGC.
• Partner with other area attractions to host a FAM (familiarization) Trip.

Secure Op-Eds and Thought Pieces 

Your organization’s president or CEO, historians and curators are all subject matter experts. One way to demonstrate your organization’s relevance to a modern audience is to secure op-eds or thought pieces in local or even regional and national media.

Care should be taken before weighing in on a controversial topic or issue facing your community. Identify your goal for the piece with leadership and be certain your organization has a valuable perspective or possible resolution to add to the discussion. For example, can the community history your organization shares inspire audiences and boost civic pride when it comes to discussions of urban and economic development? Or can a historian or curator provide historical context to a present-day issue facing your local community?

Tips for Op-Eds:

• Avoid jargon, but don’t underestimate the reader either. If they are reading your op-ed, odds are they are informed on the issue at hand, but they likely aren’t subject matter experts. Strike the right balance between approachable and informative.
• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Community conversation evolves quickly. While you want to carefully consider your response and have leadership and board buy-in, the moment may pass you by if you wait too long.
• Have a backup publication or two in mind. You may be hoping a specific publication will run your piece, but they decide to pass. This doesn’t mean your work was wasted! Consider bringing your idea to another local outlet or trade publication. Note that you may need to change the initial news hook when approaching a different publication.

Tap Into Trends

Whether it’s trending in news or trending on social media, you might be surprised at the number of culturally relevant topics your organization can connect with. Monitor the local news and social media landscape and identify what has people talking. Think creatively. Can one of your subject matter experts provide the history behind a new Taylor Swift song? Can you film an ASMR video highlighting items in your collections?

Tips for Capitalizing on Culture: 

• Having a strong rapport within your organization goes a long way. Reach out to your subject matter experts and programming team with examples of how other cultural institutions and historic sites have been able to tap into trending conversations. Encourage them and their creativity. Let them know they can share ideas on how your organization’s exhibits, collections or programs connect to trending topics.
• Create a blog or social media post around a trending topic. Include your content as a resource when pitching traditional media to help extend its reach.

Need help? The CGPR team is passionate about supporting museums, national parks, historic sites and other cultural attractions to achieve their marketing and communications goals. Visit our Contact Us page to get started today.