Here are five critical insights into the millennial mindset (and increasingly, the general public’s mindset) that should be integrated into an organization’s public relations strategy.

Here are the top reasons why those with interest do not attend – cut for millennials and non-millennials. Over the last several weeks, I’ve been sharing market research cut by millennial and non-millennial members, visitors, and potential visitors to cultural organizations. We’ve covered the three, strategic keys to reaching and retaining millennials, the top benefits of membership for all audiences, and the profiles of both current and potential visitors to cultural organizations. As usual, the cultural organizations in these data sets include nonprofit visitor-serving organizations such as museums, zoos, aquariums, performing arts organizations, botanic gardens, and historic sites. I have

The sheer size of the millennial generation makes them a critical target audience, but data suggest that millennial visitors may actually be the best visitors. Here’s why. Millennials are the largest generation in human history. We know that they are a critical audience to engage now in order for cultural organizations to exist later. And, quite frankly, you’re probably tired of hearing about this public-service motivated, connected, social, educated, super-duper-special, hierarchy-hating, everyone-is-an-MVP bunch. (Heck, I’m a true-blue millennial and I’m right there with you!) However, all this talk about the need to engage millennials seems to still be met with an

These two, simple mental shifts are the foundation for engaging millennials (and everyone else, too). This week’s Know Your Own Bone fast facts video is the result of a simple question that I was asked during a workshop with a client organization: Overall, what are the most important “big-picture” things to keep in mind in regard to engaging millennials? Darn. Good question! There’s so much information going around about how to engage millennials within cultural organizations right now – and for good reason. Millennials are both the most underserved age demographic visiting (or rather, not visiting) museums, and millennials also manage

Don’t have many millennial members? Maybe you aren’t offering a membership program that millennials actually want. If millennials (folks born between 1980 and 2000) are the largest generation in human history, why don’t they make up a vast majority of members for cultural organizations? Today’s Know Your Own Bone Fast Facts video dives into research about the kinds of membership benefits that this generation actually wants. If you think that millennials just don’t want to be members to cultural organizations, think again. IMPACTS data reveal that millennials report more interest in joining many cultural organizations as members than do their Generation

Here’s what your organization needs to know about why this is happening. This week’s Know Your Own Bone Fast Facts video takes a look at the onsite food, beverage, and retail purchasing habits of different generations at cultural organizations. You may be surprised by the findings. Check out this chart from IMPACTS that is based on data from the ongoing National Awareness, Attitudes and Usage Study of 98,000 adults and counting. The chart indicates the respective percentages of visitors who make an onsite retail or food and beverage (F&B) purchase while visiting a cultural organization in the U.S. Millennials spend

Cultural organizations may be overthinking millennial engagement to their own detriment. I write and talk a lot about millennials. I have access to a heck of a lot of data on why engaging millennials is so important for cultural organizations, why millennial board representation matters, millennial giving gripes, and – self-important millennial bias disclaimer – I’m a millennial myself. Fellow millennials (born 1980 – 2000) may cringe at the thought of belonging to this generational cohort. A Pew Research study reveals that 60% of (actual, birthdate-verified) millennials resist identifying themselves as millennials. Whether it’s because we want to distance ourselves

The weighted values that go into a satisfying visitor experience are a bit different for millennials compared to non-millennials. It’s no secret: Visitor satisfaction is critical for the success of visitor-serving organizations such as museums, botanic gardens, science centers, historic sites, and performing arts entities. Satisfaction not only drives repeat visitation, it also plays a major role in endorsement which, in turn, entices new visitors to attend. Some organizations measure overall satisfaction with a single metric. (“How satisfied were you with your visit?”) But at IMPACTS – a big data and predictive technology company – we use a composite metric

This is what you need to know in one, single article. Millennials are a hot topic. While I consider “millennials” but one topic in the file of “pressing issues necessitating the evolution of visitor-serving organizations,” it turns out that there is a lot of information to point out and underscore.  No doubt, I’ll be adding to this list with future posts and there’s more where these came from, but these nine Know Your Own Bone Posts make up a helpful set list for engaging this new and important audience. I’ve been on a millennial-related post roll recently. Let’s keep it

Organizations mistakenly identify underserved audiences based more on ethnicity and race than what these audiences consider their most distinctive attribute – age.  Cultural organizations (i.e. museums, performing arts organizations, aquariums, historic sites, etc.) are experiencing a phenomenon known as negative substitution of their historic visitors. Simply put, more people who share qualities with historic visitors are leaving the market than are being replaced. In essence, the US market is running lower and lower on older, white people. This means that organizations need to update and broaden the profiles of our typical visitors now in order to thrive in the future.