A central aim of the Cultural Enterprises Commercial Performance Barometer is to inspire the sector with best practice. Our blogs, webinars and Seat at the Table report are packed with such examples. However, continually shining a light on what’s good can give the impression that venues are always getting it right – when in reality the journey to best practice is often fuelled by learning from unsuccessful initiatives.
In the spirit of sharing the wider picture, earlier this year we asked Barometer participants to (anonymously) tell us any examples of commercial initiatives that haven’t gone to plan. Responses fell into three broad categories:
- Making incorrect assumptions about visitor demand
- The right initiative in the wrong context
- Partnership expectations and delivery
Making Incorrect Assumptions About Visitor Demand
A number of comments highlighted the importance of measuring visitor interest before introducing an initiative, particularly if it requires investment in time or money.
“I would advise against purchasing retail product for temporary exhibitions without fully interrogating the ‘data’ that supports the visitor number assumption.”
“We tried introducing gift vouchers in the shop during the run up to Christmas but the results were dismal with no uptake.”
“We tried a pop-up independent coffee cart when the onsite café closed. Sadly they backed up after only a few weeks of operating, finding the Museum footfall too low to generate profit from coffee sales only. This was in spite of us providing the space, power, outdoor tables and chairs etc for free to them. It seemed like our visitors wanted a more traditional offer in a traditional setting.”
As market researchers, we always advise consulting your market through surveys, discussions or focus groups to get a feel for what they are thinking. This doesn’t have to be an expensive undertaking – in our experience visitors are more than happy to support with their opinions. A few casual conversations over a coffee can often be as revealing as some fully-formed focus groups.
However, we also advise that you ask them to tell you their ‘pain/joy points’, or to react to your ideas, not to come up with fully formed ideas themselves. As Henry Ford (possibly) once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” The public are rarely museum retailers, caterers, events organisers or buyers and, as illustrated below, it’s likely their ideas will be flawed.
“What visitors say they want, and what they will actually engage with in practice is different. We have created offers in direct response to visitor feedback that did not get the take up we anticipated.”
As Henry Ford implied, you are the experts, and every idea should go through the filter of your knowledge and experience.
The Right Initiative in the Wrong Context
Another theme was centred on context. Some initiatives were perfectly formed with ample proof-of-concept elsewhere, but struggled because the time and place was wrong (for visitors and staff).
“Last year we developed some late night events in partnership with another organisation. They didn’t perform in the way that we had hoped and we put this down to us putting them on in the summer months, and that potentially it was something more suited to Autumn when the nights were darker and people are looking for things to do indoors.”
“We created an afternoon tea and a cocktail night to go alongside a month long installation that ran end of Dec to end of Jan. We did sell some spaces but struggled to reach minimum capacity: 1. the main exhibition was free so people didn’t need to pay for additional experiences. 2. Dec / Jan people don’t have spare money for events. 3. Dec / Jan is dry Jan so alcohol themed events are tricky. 4. We just didn’t have enough time to market it.”
“Sleepovers – too high a demand on staff, complaints about pricing as we aren’t a ‘big name’, and hard for people to understand the costs involved in having the museum open overnight.”
Beyond doing more visitor research, the implication here is that when mimicking best practice it’s also important to study the wider context that supported it. It’s also worth contemplating if an event type is a good fit for your organisation at any time.
Partnership Expectations and Delivery
The final theme focussed on partners, in particular around expectations and delivery.
“We had hoped that the partner organisation would push the late night event more on their own channels, however this was not the case.”
“While we have had positive success with our own commercial events we have had varying success with partner events. Some have been strong performers and others have failed to cover costs. For us it’s key now to ensure any event partnership agreement specifies the marketing resource and budget commitment prior to any joint activity being undertaken.”
“Paranormal groups hiring our premises overnight seemed a good income generator, lots of groups have been booking in, but they haven’t been paying their venue hire fees in a timely manner, so we have to chase them up as aged debtors.”
As with any supplier, an element of trial and error is probably inevitable in partner selection, but the examples above suggest agreeing expectations and delivery requirements would at least ensure you are on the same page. Payment on booking may also help – as the final quote indicates, not even the supernatural can be relied upon to pay on time!
Find Out More
This is an area we will seek to explore more in future months, but we hope it provides some valuable tips. For now members can learn much more via the Commercial Performance Barometer online dashboard where you can look by sub-group and merge months. You can also read examples of best practice in our sentiment dashboard – please do check out both links.
The Association has now had nearly 300 sites contribute to the Barometer and is looking forward to continuing to grow this service in the coming months. Members can expect the latest survey invite on the first Monday of each month, and don’t forget to visit the dashboard in the members areas.
For more information about the Monthly Commercial Performance Barometer service from the Association for Cultural Enterprises please contact tom@culturalenterprises.org.uk or jon.young@decisionhouse.co.uk
