Audience development is about identifying who you want to engage with and knowing what steps to take to attract and retain their interest.
Audience development is a key part of how heritage projects, museums, galleries, theatres and art centres operate.
These cultural organisations will have targets in place, which are often affected by a number of common barriers. Tackling these and making visitors feel welcome enough to want to return is all part of their work.
Each organisation faces it’s own issues related to their size, remit, geographic location and budget. The following three heritage organisations share their experiences of audience development and offer advice for others:
-
Laura Bedford, Education Officer for Access and Public Programmes
The Geffrye, East London -
Phil Olsen, Marketing & Audience Development Officer
The Bluecoat, Liverpool -
Sam Howard, Marketing and PR Co-ordinator
Imperial War Museum North, Manchester
1. Make your collections accessible
"An ongoing difficulty is converting casual daytime visitors into fully-engaged event attendees, who come back in the evenings."
There will always be people who visit you because they are genuinely interested in what you do, while others may pop in out of curiosity.
In order to appeal to both sets of visitors, your collection needs to sustain visitor interest, and it will only do this through accessibility.
The Imperial War Museum North (IWM) is an example of a heritage centre that keeps innovation at the heart of their exhibition to engage visitors.
Sam Howard, IWM
"The museum focuses on personal stories from the First World War to the present day using innovative display techniques. This includes the Big Picture Show, a 360-degree light and sound show.
"There are also regularly changing displays and a packed programme of events for visitors of all ages."
Location is an obvious benefit and has proved successful for The Bluecoat, an arts centre in Liverpool.
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"Given our unique placing within the city centre, we get hundreds of thousands of people passing through the building each year, partly helped by the fact that we are situated next to the Liverpool ONE retail centre."
Yet the centre still faces issues in how they can harness these visitors. "An ongoing difficulty seems to be converting some of the many casual daytime visitors into fully engaged event attendees, who come back in the evenings."
On the reverse side, the centre has such a varied range of activities (art exhibitions,
literature events, heritage trails, live art, music and dance performances) there is enough to sustain visitors with different interests.
2. Organise outreach programmes
The main benefit of outreach work is being able to engage with people who would not ordinarily visit a venue. The Geffrye runs several outreach projects for older people and family learning groups. Laura explains why forging these links is so important.
Laura Bedford, The Geffrye
"Sometimes people are not physically able to come to the museum, so we try and bring it to them through object handling, craft activities or multi-sensory sessions.
"Additionally there are groups that do not feel confident about visiting a museum so we start out by going to them and then encourage a reciprocal visit."
Recent projects have included two projects with local Asian women and African-Caribbean elders, which has involved recording oral testimonies about their homes. Yet while outreach work has positive outcomes, it has it’s challenges.
"Going out to audiences can be challenging as the environment you’re working in is not in your direct control. Therefore having several plans up your sleeve is a good idea."
She also warns of the unpredictability of working with third sector partners, if this is the kind of group you work with. "Their circumstances change due to funding levels which means they can drop out last minute so it’s useful to have other partners at the ready."
3. Know what will make your audience happy
From adequate baby-changing facilities to ample parking, audiences have standards they expect to be met when they choose to visit a public place.
"It’s a great idea to try something new with an audience. Some people find it intimidating at first, but by the end of the session they are usually enjoying themselves!"
This can be more important to them than the subject matter. Engaging families to visit the IWM has been historically difficult because of the content, yet with the right approach, they have turned this around.
The museum set up a family learning action group to challenge people's misconceptions of what they were about.
Sam Howard, IWM
‘Whenever we have a special exhibition aimed at an older audience we will make sure our visitor programme or our small display area caters for younger audiences too – this has been the case for Horrible Histories and All Aboard: Stories of War at Sea.’
One of the Geffrye’s approaches is to make their visitors feel comfortable and Laura believing this can be as simple as ‘a smile and a cup of tea.’
She also explains the benefits of getting visitors to try something unexpected which they may not realise they will like.
Laura Bedford, The Geffrye
"It’s a great idea to try something new with an audience. For example, we’ve introduced craft sessions to many of our adult audience development programmes, which some people find intimidating at first, but by the end of the session they are usually enjoying themselves!"
4. Partner with local organisations
Having local knowledge is crucial to the success of most projects especially when it comes to engaging local residents.
Laura Bedford, The Geffrye
"Local partnership organisations know their audiences and can therefore can help with attracting new audiences and offer advice on what works best with different ones."
Sam Howard, IWM
"Our main partnerships are with Manchester Museum's Consortium and The Quays consortium. The Quays in becoming increasingly important with the development at MediaCityUK which will help us promote our destination."
The Bluecoat works closely with other arts organisations in Liverpool LARC (Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium) and general tourist attractions through LAG (Liverpool Attractions Group).
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"It helps us keep on top of what everyone else is up to in the city. Liverpool’s year as European Capital Culture in 2008 highlighted the sheer number of museums, galleries, theatres and cultural events we have.
"It showed us that it would be far more beneficial to share each other’s audiences rather than fight over them. In this respect, we’re currently working on a Family Engagement plan with our various partner organisations."
5. Partner with local businesses
Phil believes it’s also useful to work closely with other partnerships who can provide assistance in different ways, for example help with sponsorship.
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"Our current display on evacuees is sponsored by Stowe Family Law a groups of family lawyers who were interested in the exhibition because it’s to do with families."
Local businesses are an ideal place to find donors, sponsors and patrons who can also assist in publicising what you do.
6. Offer incentives
When cultural heritage centres face funding cuts, it’s hard to know how many museums and activities can continue to have ‘free entrance’ policies. This itself already restricts what special offers can be offered, even though incentives are a classic way to attract returning visitors.
Sam Howard, IWM
"Being a free museum, it can be hard to set up special offers, though we do try groups discounts in the café."
Phil believes that discounts haven’t proved to be the best choices for them, but that offers on refreshments are popular.
7. Conduct regular market research
This is the most accurate and up-to-date way to find out what your audience is thinking and is a major part of how IWM monitors success.
Sam Howard, IWM
"We conduct market research every month, over 100 questionnaires carried out on site and we receive the results of these every quarter."
The museum uses Morris Hargreaves McIntyre to carry out the research who have drawn up specific audience segments. As exhibitions and displays are planned a number of years in advance and visitor programme events four to six months, this data helps plans for audience engagement.
8. Comprehensive events programme
Aside from the plethora of activities offered at The Bluecoat, the venue boasts a bistro, garden, print studios and a courtyard of independent retailers.
So rather than attracting visitors to do just one activity, the aim is to engage them with as many as possible.
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"We see it as important to get people to try a variety of things. For example getting someong going to a music gig to check out the galleries, or a literature lover to have a go at print-making."
9. Marketing and PR campaigns
One of the benefits of building virtual relationships is that it’s instant and resourceful.
Marketing boosts visitor figures at all five branches of the IWM.
Sam Howard, IWM
"Recent marketing and PR campaigns have included a regional generic advertising campaign including posters at train stations within the region and also within the city centre and suburbs."
They also undertake outdoor advertising, leaflet distribution and online marketing. According to Phil one of the benefits of building virtual relationships is that it’s instant and resourceful.
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"Social media might seem like a fad, or something only geared to a particular audience, but it is free, and so even when resources are stretched, you can post web-links, photos and tweets to potential audiences.
"In this way, someone who never visits your building or attends your event can still appreciate and engage with what you are doing."
10. Know what works for you
Knowledge of what works is important but it’s just as vital to respond to changes.
Laura Bedford, The Geffrye
"Even well established audience development programmes seem to have periods where problems exist, such as numbers dropping off.
"When this happens we reinvigorate them again by changing how we do things or attracting new people. Audience development is fluid and it’s about constantly adapting to these changes."
At The Bluecoat, the challenge is to keep up the innovation.
Phil Olsen, The Bluecoat
"Keep trying to engage in every way that you can. Try not to make too many assumptions or take your existing audience for granted. If you’re going to try different approaches don’t do it all at once. Try one thing at a time so that you can better measure how successful it was."
Sam Howard, IWM
"Audience development is essential us though we don't place greater emphasis on either new visitors or repeat visitors; both are important.
"As long as we remain true to our remit, to educate visitors while making sure everyone feels as though they’ve enjoyed their visit, we can say we’ve been successful."
