Getting to know visitors has long been a priority for the cultural sector. But today’s competitive funding environment makes it even more important for museums to collect good-quality visitor data.
Many institutions are under pressure to monitor the impact of admission charges, create work that illustrates their public value and demonstrate to funders that they can attract diverse audiences and have a social impact.
Attracting diverse audiences is not easy. Research commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that nearly three-quarters of “consistent” visitors to museums and galleries in England were from the highest socio-economic group.
The findings were part of the Taking Part longitudinal survey, which interviewed museum and gallery visitors annually from 2012 to 2015. Consistent visitors were also more likely to be homeowners (75%), rather than private or social renters, and less likely than other groups to have a disability or long-term illness.
Glasgow Museums – comprising nine local authority-run institutions – is particularly conscious of gathering data on its audiences (including postcodes) that allows it to measure levels of deprivation and inequality in line with the indexes produced by the Scottish government.
“We’re local authority museums, and are accountable to the Scottish government, so we have to be very mindful of priorities for the city and for the country, and make sure we’re meeting those,” says Susie Ironside, the visitor studies curator at Glasgow Museums and committee member of the Visitor Studies Group.
“We are a museums service but we are a civic museums service, and have a responsibility to the people of Glasgow – and part of that is obviously tackling poverty,” she adds.
Glasgow Museums does not just use surveys to measure levels of deprivation across its visitor base, and also collects feedback on paid-for exhibitions and people’s experiences of the venues and their facilities.
In 2015-16, Glasgow Museums ran surveys across its nine venues at the same time, so it can identify which institutions are the most successful in attracting certain types of visitors.
The survey data, which is primarily collected using facilitated paper-based surveys, underpins the museums service plans, audience development work, exhibition content and written interpretation and outreach projects.
Sometimes, however, it is necessary for museums to drill down into specific service areas by conducting research on an ad hoc basis. Bristol Culture collects data on pricing in its exhibitions surveys via its questions relating to value for money.
But it found that the data on pricing varied according to the exhibition and decided that further information on pricing was needed. In 2015 Darren Roberts, a researcher at Bristol Culture, undertook a two-week exploratory research project into exhibition pricing.
Surveys were conducted over four days during Bristol Museum and Art Gallery’s Hogarth exhibition, in July. A total of 39 surveys were completed by a random sample of museum visitors.
The questions were focused to reveal the price point of an exhibition that directly appeals to the visitor, as well as to assess which promotions would help to incentivise exhibitions with less appeal. The aim was to understand how pricing and promotion relates to exhibitions.
“In line with the previous visitor feedback on ‘value for money’, the results from the survey suggest that paid entry is not necessarily a barrier to visitors, nor is the current price point of £5. Moreover, the results potentially suggest that a higher price point would not always negatively affect the decision to pay for a temporary exhibition,” wrote Roberts in a blog post.
While it might be tempting to bombard visitors with multiple questions, it is important to ask only what is strictly necessary. Harriett Foster, a museum consultant specialising in evaluation, says one side of A4 or two sides of A5 is a good rule of thumb for a paper-based survey, adding that even the most simple questions can lead to valuable insights.
“You can get a really good idea of what people think of a museum by saying ‘choose three words to describe your experience today’,” she says.
It is also important to establish what a survey is designed to achieve, how visitors will be encouraged to fill it in and how the resulting data will be disseminated and used, as museum consultant Laura Crossley explains in her article.
Administering surveys sounds simple enough but there are several factors museums have to consider in order to get meaningful data. These include format (print or electronic), facilitated or self-completed and whether they are filled in during or after the visit.
Apps, mobile devices, on-site kiosks, social media and online survey tools can all be used to collect visitor data. Despite this, however, a surprising amount of institutions advocate the traditional approach of planting clipboard-wielding interviewers on site.
Crossley recently conducted a consultation for Holkham Walled Garden in Norfolk. For visitors, this included on-site and online surveys, promoted via the venue’s website and social media accounts. Meanwhile, non-visitors were reached through local libraries and groups.
“It’s all about thinking about whom museums want to answer a survey, and what the best way to reach them is,” she says.
Many institutions are under pressure to monitor the impact of admission charges, create work that illustrates their public value and demonstrate to funders that they can attract diverse audiences and have a social impact.
Attracting diverse audiences is not easy. Research commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that nearly three-quarters of “consistent” visitors to museums and galleries in England were from the highest socio-economic group.
The findings were part of the Taking Part longitudinal survey, which interviewed museum and gallery visitors annually from 2012 to 2015. Consistent visitors were also more likely to be homeowners (75%), rather than private or social renters, and less likely than other groups to have a disability or long-term illness.
Glasgow Museums – comprising nine local authority-run institutions – is particularly conscious of gathering data on its audiences (including postcodes) that allows it to measure levels of deprivation and inequality in line with the indexes produced by the Scottish government.
“We’re local authority museums, and are accountable to the Scottish government, so we have to be very mindful of priorities for the city and for the country, and make sure we’re meeting those,” says Susie Ironside, the visitor studies curator at Glasgow Museums and committee member of the Visitor Studies Group.
“We are a museums service but we are a civic museums service, and have a responsibility to the people of Glasgow – and part of that is obviously tackling poverty,” she adds.
Glasgow Museums does not just use surveys to measure levels of deprivation across its visitor base, and also collects feedback on paid-for exhibitions and people’s experiences of the venues and their facilities.
In 2015-16, Glasgow Museums ran surveys across its nine venues at the same time, so it can identify which institutions are the most successful in attracting certain types of visitors.
The survey data, which is primarily collected using facilitated paper-based surveys, underpins the museums service plans, audience development work, exhibition content and written interpretation and outreach projects.
Sometimes, however, it is necessary for museums to drill down into specific service areas by conducting research on an ad hoc basis. Bristol Culture collects data on pricing in its exhibitions surveys via its questions relating to value for money.
But it found that the data on pricing varied according to the exhibition and decided that further information on pricing was needed. In 2015 Darren Roberts, a researcher at Bristol Culture, undertook a two-week exploratory research project into exhibition pricing.
Surveys were conducted over four days during Bristol Museum and Art Gallery’s Hogarth exhibition, in July. A total of 39 surveys were completed by a random sample of museum visitors.
The questions were focused to reveal the price point of an exhibition that directly appeals to the visitor, as well as to assess which promotions would help to incentivise exhibitions with less appeal. The aim was to understand how pricing and promotion relates to exhibitions.
“In line with the previous visitor feedback on ‘value for money’, the results from the survey suggest that paid entry is not necessarily a barrier to visitors, nor is the current price point of £5. Moreover, the results potentially suggest that a higher price point would not always negatively affect the decision to pay for a temporary exhibition,” wrote Roberts in a blog post.
While it might be tempting to bombard visitors with multiple questions, it is important to ask only what is strictly necessary. Harriett Foster, a museum consultant specialising in evaluation, says one side of A4 or two sides of A5 is a good rule of thumb for a paper-based survey, adding that even the most simple questions can lead to valuable insights.
“You can get a really good idea of what people think of a museum by saying ‘choose three words to describe your experience today’,” she says.
It is also important to establish what a survey is designed to achieve, how visitors will be encouraged to fill it in and how the resulting data will be disseminated and used, as museum consultant Laura Crossley explains in her article.
Administering surveys sounds simple enough but there are several factors museums have to consider in order to get meaningful data. These include format (print or electronic), facilitated or self-completed and whether they are filled in during or after the visit.
Apps, mobile devices, on-site kiosks, social media and online survey tools can all be used to collect visitor data. Despite this, however, a surprising amount of institutions advocate the traditional approach of planting clipboard-wielding interviewers on site.
Crossley recently conducted a consultation for Holkham Walled Garden in Norfolk. For visitors, this included on-site and online surveys, promoted via the venue’s website and social media accounts. Meanwhile, non-visitors were reached through local libraries and groups.
“It’s all about thinking about whom museums want to answer a survey, and what the best way to reach them is,” she says.