Data & Analysis
It’s a trick question. Museums need them both in equal measure. Here’s why this perceptual showdown jeopardizes success.
Engaging audiences both onsite and offsite is absolutely critical to an organization’s viability because these aspects of engagement make an even more important imperative possible: Carrying out your organization’s mission.
At IMPACTS Experience, we have the great pleasure of working directly with board members and executive leadership within cultural organizations throughout the world. In the United States, it is not uncommon to encounter tension between the relative importance of curation and the “onsite experience” and marketing and the digital “offsite experience,” as if one of these departments is necessarily more important than the other and worthy of more consideration or prioritization. (At your own organization, you may feel that, indeed, one department is held more sacred than the other.)
This is a false dichotomy. And the tension can be toxic given the Visitor Engagement Cycle and the roles that these departments play within the overall experience. Prioritizing one over the other is shortsighted. The research is clear: Successful organizations balance them both.
We need them both not only for their own sake but because they both work together to support your raison d’être – your mission.
The onsite experience (curation) dictates importance
This statement may seem axiomatic in and of itself: Of course an educational and engaging onsite experience is critical! The case for excellent onsite operations is clear – higher visitor satisfaction scores correlate with an increased likelihood of returning to a museum, endorsing that museum, or otherwise supporting that institution.
Curation is far from the only department influencing the onsite experience. Operations plays a driving role here as well. The first imperative to providing a satisfying experience is to not provide a dissatisfying one. Interestingly, we’re observing more sensitivity to dissatisfying factors within cultural organizations in the United States. These factors include parking and logistical access issues (such as traffic or ticketing); crowding perceptions; and customer service issues, including rude staff and volunteers. (While customer service issues can break the visitor experience, they can make the experience, too.)
When we pick up on tension between the value of the onsite and offsite experience, it’s most often around exhibitions or curatorial staff. And this makes sense, arguably. These folks tend to be high-achieving content experts who have spent years in their field of study. Many are celebrated for their scholarly achievements, likely the very reason why they have such an important role in our museums today. No doubt about it, these staff members are important to the visitor experience and the educational value our experiences provide.
Research shows that the educational value of museums justifies a visit. It is a unique differentiator between the decision to attend and museum and to, say, have a picnic in the park or go see a movie. This differentiator is even more important given the competition that we’re currently observing for out-of-home leisure time in 2023.
When it comes to exhibitions, curatorial staff are often able to declare or define importance. They are substantive experts who know what matters in the context of history and academia. They are the learned topic experts among us. They can inform current and potential visitors of what’s most important, and they would know.
But here’s where the partnership with the communications department becomes critical…
The offsite experience (marketing and communications) underscores relevance
Curatorial staff may be able to declare importance, but it is potential visitors who determine if what is deemed important is relevant to them. And that’s where marketing and digital engagement can be a critical bridge to actually getting audiences onsite and inspired. These staffers are the purveyors of the critical messages related to your organization’s mission.
Internal experts cannot decide if an exhibit or topic is worthy of someone’s time. People decide that for themselves. If people don’t think the subject matter is relevant, they are unlikely to spend their time and money attending. The understanding that museums cannot decide for people what is relevant to them is so critical for successful museum engagement that we’ve even made a video about it.
“If we build it, they will come,” is a nice movie line, but it isn’t how encouraging attendance to a cultural organization works. Simply existing isn’t enough. In today’s competitive market, an organization must prove it is worthy of someone’s time and attention above other things. Simply preferring an alternative leisure activity instead is the top reason why people with interest in attending do not actually go to cultural organizations. They want to go! They are interested! Given their precious free time, they simply prefer to do something else more.
Good marketing, smart campaigns that underscore relevance beyond your walls, and understanding active and inactive visitors bridges the gap between importance and relevance. The marketing staffers are your museum’s megaphones. And with so much to do out-of-home these days – yes, your museum needs those megaphones! This is why cutting marketing budgets during tough times often has such dramatic negative consequences for museums. It’s also why the entities recovering most quickly from the pandemic are those that understood the importance of marketing over the last three years and remained in-market.
Consider, too, that people are even more connected to the web now than they were before the pandemic. The couch remains a growing competitor for cultural institutions. Marketing and digital engagement can bring us into the homes of those folks on the couch browsing the web and social media with messages related to our programs and experiences – and why they are relevant to them.
Connection to your mission matters most
Museums are more trusted now than they were before the pandemic. Most excitingly, people think museums should recommend behaviors to support their missions and causes. We know that people believe that they are better friends, neighbors, and parents when they choose to visit a museum. We know the public perception that museums are an asset to the community has increased. We know that even in our divided country, people are looking to museums to recommend behaviors. People believe museums can help them make the world a better place.
The Visitor Engagement Cycle relies upon both onsite and offsite engagement to get people in the door, take action, tell friends, and come back. Both aspects of engagement are incredibly important because they work in partnership to underscore your mission and what your museum stands for. The departments that facilitate these aspects of the cycle are like a museum’s head and heart – we need them both to be a complete entity. Both are playing an important role in both education and inspiring audiences.
If you think marketing and communications is only Instagram posts and ad buys, think again. This team engages in several critical functions that bring people through museums’ doors and keep our lights on and connection to our missions going strong.
If you think the curatorial staff is toiling away in an academic corner, think again. This team helps create the experiences disseminating critical information to make our communities more informed and inspired.
The offsite and the onsite experience are critical partners working together to help an organization be as successful as possible. These departments are important collaborators. When they are viewed as competitors or one is undervalued, an organization jeopardizes its success. The partnership between the onsite and offsite experience is how museums can show relevance within their four walls – and beyond.
Curation and marketing are both important because they directly serve the same goal: To help museums educate and inspire their audiences.
IMPACTS Experience provides data and expert analysis to many of the world’s leading organizations through its workshops, keynote presentations, webinars, and data services such as pricing studies, market potential analyses, concept testing, and Awareness, Attitude, and Usage studies. Learn more.
We publish new national data and analysis every other Wednesday. Don’t want to miss an update? Subscribe here to get the most recent data and analysis in your inbox.
