Museums and Marketing Techniques

Abstract

The present day museum is a far cry from the original concept but is it what the public wants?

Marketing Museums: An Empirical Investigation Among Museum Visitors

“…Although some evidences demonstrated that the museum research had been poorly designed and conducted (Yorke and Jones, 1987), this study was designed to discover the needs and wants, interests and satisfaction level of all visitors so that the 24 museum sites around the state of Pennsylvania can serve them better. In addition, it aimed to determine service quality in Pennsylvania's Museums and Historical sites, and to be able to reach the target visitors and communicate with them through various broadcast, electronic and print media such as radio, television, magazines, newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and Internet.…”

“…They offer an informal environment for learning and fulfilling educational needs of visitors (Yorke and Jones, 1987). However, museums should spend time, money and effort for identifying the needs and wants of their visitors.…”

“…The first survey of this kind was conducted in 1920s by behavioral scientists interested in assessing the power of various displays and exhibits both to attract and hold the visitor's attention. However, surveys in recent years took the form of interviews, head counting and the direct observation of the reactions of museum visitors (Yorke and Jones, 1987). Among those, a six year survey (1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981) of British Natural History Museums, Public Participation in the Arts survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census with design assistance from the University of Maryland Survey Research Center, and Children's Museum of Indianapolis are discussed in the literature (Alt, 1980;Griggs and Alt, 1982;Hendon, 1990;Umiker-Sebeom, 1992).…”

“…However, there is an expressed fear that actively promoting public museum services will only result in stimulating excessive demand which could not be met from existing resources or from future development as there are no funds available to finance them. The fear continues that such excessive demand, if unsatisfied, would result in a large dissatisfied audience, other than a satisfied segment of the market as it exists currently (Yorke and Jones, 1987). For this reason, museums should emphasize and improve the quality of museum products and services, attitudes and knowledge of museum personnel, promotion tactics and location decision, and admission fee.…”

The evolution and development of arts marketing research

“…I have been researching arts marketing since 1993 when I was completing my Masters thesis at the University of Ulster. At that time, the majority of work was North American in origin, with activities elsewhere in their infancy (Diggle, 1976;Raymond and Greyser, 1978;Diggle, 1984;Skinner, 1985;Yorke and Jones, 1987;Bradford, 1991;Cooper and Tower, 1993). Marketing had already been applied widely across profit and non-profit sectors in the USA for many decades (Kotler and Levy, 1969;Hunt, 1976;Shapiro, 1973;Kotler and Andreasen, 1991;Kotler and Scheff, 1997).…”