An overreliance on audience research may be the very thing holding back even the smartest of cultural organizations.
With so many cultural organizations nowadays boasting audience research capabilities, why is the industry struggling so severely in terms of engaging new and emerging audiences? We’re confusing audience research and market research – and that difference is the topic of this week’s Know Your Own Bone Fast Facts video.
Not a video person? No problem. This information is important, so here’s a summary. That said, I suggest giving the video a watch. It provides necessary information in a “snackable” and shareable format.
Most cultural organizations collect and focus on AUDIENCE research
Audience research is any research conducted on specific audience segments to gather information about their attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviors. For cultural organizations, audience research is often conducted on current visitors and past visitors. It often comes in the form of exit surveys, zip code collecting, and reaching out to members and visitors through email lists or online communities (to name a few sources of these types of data).
Audience research is the most common type of research carried out by cultural organizations by a long shot – and some organizations even have their own audience research departments! These data help us uncover information related to who is visiting, why they are visiting, and what the people who are already engaging with the organization think.
Organizations often struggle with collecting MARKET research
Market research, on the other hand, is any organized effort to gather information about target markets – including the folks who may NOT be visiting an organization.
Market research can be tricky, though, because someone who is not visiting your organization cannot fill out an exit survey. They may not be a part of your online community, and they aren’t likely on your email lists. Simply put, they aren’t a part of your audience yet. The industry’s inability to reach underserved audiences relates directly to our lack of market research and a general overreliance on audience research.
Organizations need both types of research, but our lack of MARKET research risks big sustainability issues
Audience research has tremendous value for perfecting programming, but that’s not where the industry needs the most help right now. In order to remain solvent and relevant in today’s world, cultural organizations desperately need to engage new audiences.
Unlike audience research, market research helps organizations find out who is not visiting and why they aren’t visiting. This is a big deal because organizations are doing a really not-awesome job reaching new and emerging audiences! Not to mention, cultural organizations (museums, performing arts organizations, aquariums, etc.) are experiencing a phenomenon called the negative substitution of the historic visitor. This means that for every one person who profiles as a historic visitor who leaves the market, they are being replaced by less than one person. Millennials are not visiting cultural organizations at representative rates, and engaging people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds – who make up more and more of the US population each year – is perhaps our greatest opportunity to secure our futures. In other words, the demographic makeup of the US is changing and we need to get better at reaching new audiences and making them our new regular audiences.
It is impossible to fully understand market perceptions of your organization and reach new audiences if you only study the people who are already in your community.
To succeed, organizations need both types of research.
IMPACTS Experience provides data specific to organizations or markets through workshops, keynote presentations, webinars, and data services such as pricing recommendations, market potential analysis, concept testing, and Awareness, Attitude, and Usage studies. Learn more.
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