Museum Marketing Research: From Denial to Discovery?

Abstract

Museum marketing has moved from denial to discovery. Not until the 1980s was marketing recognised as important to museums’ sustainability. This leads to the question of whether museums can afford not to see their audience in a marketing light. This paper presents results of a research project that seeks to understand the use and impact of audience research in the New Zealand museum sector. The analysis focuses on the marketing implications of audience studies. Many audience studies have been completed in museums but were possibly not used for marketing advantage. The contribution of this paper is a critical review of museum marketing research activities of five New Zealand museums. There are implications derived from this study. Namely, research often studies visitor and sometimes non-visitor profiles but should extend further beyond demographic information towards psychographic and attitudinal measures. Second, marketing research should include an ongoing reassessment of the effectiveness of marketing instruments in use to allow a continuous improvement of marketing strategies and the marketing mix. Finally, the underlying dimensions of audience studies suggest that they are of great value for policy and marketing analysis and therefore can help museum sustainability in fulfilling their cultural mandate.