Audience strategy & development

Seniors on the zipline

What a visitor attraction learned from its visitors

Sometimes new audience development opportunities can come from simply noticing who uses the spaces and how.

This Tourism New Zealand case study from Christchurch Adventure Park shows how insight into how visitors used their offer made a tourism business change their strategy and plans.

“Our reservations team spoke with a potential customer asking about the age restrictions for the zipline… She was 92 and wanted to bring her children with her for her birthday. It took a few seconds to realise her children would be seniors too, but they came and had a fantastic time! For us, it really opened our eyes to a whole new world of customers we hadn’t previously engaged with”.
Christchurch Adventure Park

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The local audience is the central audience

As museums have slowly been reopening, their strategies are evolving to smaller and more local. While some institutions are going ahead with planning blockbuster shows, others are pivoting to more modular programming: smaller, nimbler shows devised to directly engage the communities in their immediate surroundings.

The local audience is really the central audience, says Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art about Museums Without Tourists, it’s an audience that has grown up with the institution and comes to you again and again. They have a much closer connection, because they enjoy and notice constant changes within the institution.

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Manifesto for Audience Focus

The experience of no (physical) audience during lockdown made even more obvious how central audiences are for our cultural organisations. Now is the time to really develop our audience centricity.

I have reflected on what I learned from my different experiences as a consultant, working at Tate and, before that, working in branded consumer goods, as well as from engaging with human-centred design more recently.

The result – a Manifesto for Audience Focus. Read and/or download the Manifesto here.

Do you have any thoughts about the Manifesto? Suggestions what should be added?Any questions? I welcome your feedback, please get in touch.

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7 things data-informed organisations do differently (3/4 and 4/4)

4/4 of Colleen Dilenschneider’s steps to a data informed organisation

Here is the forth post of Colleen’s path to becoming a data informed organisation: Seven Things Data-Informed Organisations Do Differently.

The 7 things are:

Bring everyone to the same level of understanding;
Incorporate data into all planning processes (not just marketing);
Develop measurable objectives and metrics for success;
Continuously gather market data and update plans accordingly;
Take advantage of the predictive power of data;
Look at market research as an investment rather than a cost; and
Are actively shifting the organization’s culture

For me no7 is bringing it all together – a culture change. This is about attitudes to data, but I think behind this needs to be a positive attitude and approach to people – eventually it is not about data, but about our visitors, audience, customers, whatever we choose to call them, and about understanding them and showing empathy.

BTW, I realise I didn’t post Colleen’s third blog, here it is if you want to complete the series and hear about common cognitive biases to data: Accepting Data Can Be Hard

5 things that are everyone’s job in cultural organisations

A great post by Colleen Dilenschneider highlighting the importance of cross-departmental collaboration for developing audiences. Her 5 things are:

1 – Understanding audiences is everyone’s job
(Not just Marketing/Communications)

2 – Inspiring people around your mission is everyone’s job
(Not just Education)

3 – Creating a satisfying experience is everyone’s job
(Not just Visitor Operations)

4 – Reaching new audiences is everyone’s job
(Not just Programs or Community Engagement)

5 – Cultivating a community of supporters is everyone’s job
(Not just Membership)

Read the article Stepping out of silos

Perceptions Matter – How Welcoming Are Cultural Organizations?

Cultural organisations as “places for people like me”

Younger audiences are more likely to think that cultural organisations are not ‘for people like for them’, says Colleen Dilenschneider in this KYOB post.

“There’s a lot to the ‘negative attitude affinities’ conversation. It’s wrapped up in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as age, physical ability, interest, income, being a parent or not, and self-identity. And because people are many things, there is no single magic bullet,” she argues.

The solution (and challenge) – an organisational culture that is consistently welcoming and to people of various different backgrounds and needs.

4 trends to keep in mind if you want to develop and sustain new audiences

Do you want to develop and sustain new audiences? Then cross-functional collaboration is essential.

Here is a great post from Know-your-own-Bone about it:

4 Trends That Cannot Be Delegated To Departments Within Cultural Organizations

These trends are:

1) Integrating market research is not up to the Marketing Department

2) Achieving diversity and inclusion is not up to the Human Resources Department

3) Underscoring your mission is not the sole responsibility of the Education or Programs Departments

4) Securing philanthropic support cannot be achieved solely by the Development or Membership Departments

I am sure you can name more examples – leave a comment if you have any thoughts.