How can a museum encourage visitors to keep coming back?

Ahhh, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? 💰

In a post-pandemic world striving for economic recovery and growth, finding viable solutions to increase museum attendance has become urgent.

Most art institutions have had a drop in visitor rates higher than 90% and an average financial loss of over $791,000. (Only in Europe, 75% of museums have reported an income loss from 1,000 to 30,000 Euros per week!)

But the good news is… all isn’t lost!

With the right plan, you stand every chance of overcoming this predicament and attracting broad audiences to your museum’s doors again.

Content marketing makes this possible by focusing on targeted online strategies that help you encourage interest, drive conversions, and generate new streams of income.

It’s a game-changer!

With the power of compelling, quality content that resonates with your existing and prospective visitors, you:

Assure unique experiences.
Boost engagement and brand awareness.
Build strong connections.

In other words, you give your audience a good reason to stay loyal to your brand and support you long-term. 🎯

Today’s blog will show you nine tried-and-true content marketing methods to successfully impact your audience and grow your attendance numbers.

Let’s jump right in!

Why Should Your Museum Invest in Content Marketing?

If you’re wondering how to improve your museum and make it more attractive to your audience, start implementing a well-structured content marketing strategy.

Why?

Look at these stats:

80% of marketers see content creation as a top priority. (Hubspot)
70% of consumers feel closer to a company as a result of content marketing. (Demand Metric)
More than 70% of B2B marketers confirm how content marketing has increased audience engagement and their number of leads. (CMI)

When executed correctly, content marketing sets you on fire!

It’s efficient, persuasive, and also less expensive than traditional marketing. Plus, it’s the best tool to bond with your audience and fulfill their needs/desires through useful content.

With it, you:

Educate, inspire, and engage your online community.
Drive organic traffic to your website.
Rank high in search results.
Build brand loyalty.
Expand your reach.
Reinforce customer retention.
Grow your business sustainably.

Like any other strategy, it requires patience, consistency, and skills to work efficiently. But the outcome will pay off all your efforts - guaranteed!

9 Proven Content Practices to Increase Museum Attendance

So, how do you attract more visitors to your museum?

The following nine content practices outline a surefire way to drive up visitors’ engagement, increase museum attendance rates, and build a customer-centric action plan that converts.

Let’s begin!

Optimize Your Website

Your museum’s website is where many potential visitors go to learn more about you.

When they find you online, through organic search, social media, or from other sources, they quickly assess your brand image and identity. That’s why it’s crucial to make a great first impression and deliver the best user experience or UX.

This means to:

Optimize loading speeds.
Create a responsive web design adapted to all screen sizes and resolutions.
Make your site attractive, functional, and easy to navigate.
Produce mobile-friendly content.

Excellent UX design requires a strong understanding of your brand, clear objectives, and, most of all, empathy for your users - the last thing you want is to see them bounce off your site because it’s confusing and full of fluff.

What’s more, you must hone in on valuable content if you hope to drive more traffic, boost engagement, and eventually increase museum attendance.

A few recommendations:

Keep your website updated and resourceful.
Share stories about your institution, collections, work team, etc.
Highlight your offers and services with attention-grabbing visuals.
Entice your audience with the latest news, fun facts, and other informative content.

Remember: your website is where you share your best content and build trust - by investing in it consistently, you’ll motivate people to visit your museum on-site!

2. Build Your Mailing List

To expand your online audience and increase museum attendance, you need to double down on email marketing.

79% of B2C marketers rely on email to spread their content, being a powerful and cost-effective tool to attract leads, grow conversions, and improve sales.

By delivering exclusive, personalized content to your subscribers, you:

Form deep relationships with them.
Keep them involved and committed.
Fulfill their curiosity and needs.
Encourage them to share your content with others.

Focus on subscription incentives (aka lead magnets) to get your target audience to trade their email address for free easy-to-access resources (ebooks, guides, webinars, etc.).

The more helpful your incentive is, the more likely users will join your newsletter to connect with you.

Also, segmenting your email list into groups based on subscribers’ interests, demographics, or previous purchases will help you build a customized newsletter that guarantees an ongoing high engagement.

With targeted email content, you’ll nurture personal interactions that will turn subscribers into loyal supporters and ultimately into repeat visitors.

3. Share UGC on Social Media

How do you engage museum visitors on social media?

Catchy images, entertaining videos, trending hashtags, you name it, are effective tools to scale up social media engagement.

However, User-Generated Content (UGC) is considered the most authentic content type that highly impacts purchasing decisions - 79% of people already believe so. (Businesswire)

This brand-specific content is created by users and posted on the brand’s social media platforms to spur people to follow the company, interact with it, and come back for more.

Instagram post from the Philadelphia Museum of Art featuring UGC content

You can do the same with your museum to:

Share your brand message and values through your audience’s experiences.
Boost click-throughs from your social media channels to your website.
Grow brand awareness, content engagement, and newsletter subscriptions.
Increase museum attendance and sales.

Protip: be creative when sharing UGC content to grab your audience’s attention and make the experience memorable!

4. Draw Attention With Quizzes

There’s no better way to appeal more to the audience and increase museum attendance than using interactive content like quizzes.

Stats don’t lie:

Interactive content generates 2x more conversions than passive content. (Demand Metric)
It helps educate the audience (75%), uplift engagement (59%), and generate leads (58%) and conversions (49%). (CMI)

Quizzes, especially, have the potential to keep users on your web page longer, driving up click-through rates, collecting useful customer data, and developing deeper interactions with your audience.

People are intrigued by the unknown and what more they can learn about themselves - hence, quizzes are the best means to fulfill their curiosity!

Through captivating topics, you could inform your audience about upcoming exhibits, fun facts related to your museum’s history, or collection’s highlights (“What rare object are you?” or “What form of art best represents you?”) - all it takes is a sprinkle of creativity!

Quizzes enable you to:

Promote your brand and initiatives.
Learn more about your audience’s behavior and interests.
Produce better content.
Improve your communication with customers.

Best of all, they’re a powerful lead generation machine that compels participants to stay engaged with your brand.

5. Show Up Live

Live streaming has become the most popular way to consume content - 82% of viewers prefer seeing a live stream rather than regular social posts. (Livestream)

It’s a strategic approach to involve multiple audiences (especially millennials), extend brand awareness, and increase museum attendance.

But other benefits come from this.

When you show up live with Q&A sessions, interviews, special tours, or behind-the-scenes content, you:

Bring in a unique and original perspective of your museum.
Interact with your audience on a deeper and more personal level.
Raise interest in your brand and offers.
Provide exclusive experiences.
Highlight your human side.

People LOVE this format because it’s engaging, educational, and easy to consume; they get an inside look into who you are and feel involved in what you do!

Example of live chat from the Prado Museum

Protip: have consistent live chats on social media to develop customer loyalty, be authentic, and track your following’s response to enhance their level of participation.

6. Provide Value With Blog Posts

Investing in your art museum blog is another fruitful method to increase museum attendance - just think that companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don't!

By creating SEO-friendly, long-form blog posts, you’re able to:

Boost website traffic.
Rank high in the SERPs.
Grow your online presence organically.
Stand out from the competition.
Attract targeted leads.
Get positive ROI.

Most importantly, you share personalized content that speaks to your audience and draws interest.

This way, you’ll nurture strong relationships with ideal visitors/customers and position yourself as a reference point in your industry.

Content strategy roadmap for art businesses

7. Reach Out to Influencers

Consider influencer outreach a springboard to bond with your target audience and ultimately increase museum attendance rates.

It affects consumer buying behavior by 40% and helps businesses gain more visibility on social media - 89% of marketers see Instagram as the most used platform for influencer marketing. (Statista)

But how does it work?

Influencers interact with their followers on an intimate, genuine level - by sharing brand recommendations, product mentions, and personal reviews, they gain trust and authority in their niche. Hence, they influence people’s purchase decisions.

The main goal of collaborating with influencers is to promote marketing campaigns that put the brand in front of its ideal clients.

As a museum, you could use this strategy to reach out to wider audiences and future visitors.

Example of influencer marketing from the Museum Kuppersmuhle

When ideating collaborative branded content:

Do thorough research on which influencer fits best with your museum’s values and goals.
Evaluate if their community reflects your audience.
See what content types they create.
Measure their engagement and reach rates.

This will help you make the right choice and deliver your brand message successfully.

Remember: relying on a trustworthy influencer overrules their big following and popularity - so be strategic!

8. Create a Podcast

Podcasts have become the newest way to attract audiences and extend brand awareness.

In the last few years, the number of heavy podcast listeners - those listening every day - has grown by more than 3.6 million!

That’s because the majority sees audio content as a fresh, quick format to access engaging information and stay in the loop with what interests them most.

Creating a podcast to share museum storytelling and market yourself online brings many benefits.

With this tool, you:

Grab your audience’s attention.
Maximize the engagement.
Provide informative content that sets the basics for long-lasting relations.
Leverage your online exposure.
Drive conversions and sales.

The best part?

Podcasting is cost-effective and less competitive than other media, meaning it’s worth the investment if you aim to stand out and increase museum attendance.

Make it about your listeners by meeting their needs/desires; inspire them to take a specific action towards your marketing goals (join an exhibit, subscribe to the newsletter, etc.), and stir their emotional involvement to get them to commit to you - you’ll be all set for success this way!

9. Have a Content Calendar

Truth is, your content marketing attempts to increase museum attendance won’t work if you don’t build an editorial calendar first.

Not only does it let you determine the content types to create, on what platforms, and when to publish them, but it also sets the basics of your digital growth!

A comprehensive content plan:

Makes you stay on track in the content creation process.
Maps out your ideas ahead of time.
Ensures your content is aligned with your audience’s interests.
Helps you with consistency and content repurposing.

Combine your calendar with your market research and audience persona to identify relevant topics and popular themes in your field; ask questions to your audience to learn more about them, and analyze your competition.

By doing so, you’ll have the perfect roadmap to impact your community with inspirational, resonating content!

Ready to Increase Museum Attendance With Strategic Content Marketing?

There you have it, nine results-driven content practices to:

Scale your museum online.
Attract new and existing audiences.
Boost customer engagement.
Increase museum attendance and sales.

With these methods, you’re all set to streamline your workflow and achieve your marketing goals. 🏆

And guess what: the captivating, top-notch content you produce consistently will position you as a beacon of inspiration for your community - people will get so excited and hooked on what you offer that they’ll spontaneously come back to you for more!

Be creative by experimenting with different content formats; monitor your performance and audience’s response, make adjustments when needed, and keep going.

With time and a winning strategy in place, you’ll reach new heights! ⛰️

How to Increase Museum Attendance With Content Marketing