Museums are essential hubs for learning and exploring different cultures, art forms and historical events. People love to visit museums to experience the world in unique ways and learn new perspectives.

However, many museums find it challenging to attract new and repeat guests. Potential visitors often don’t know what the museum has to offer, and previous visitors often don’t know if there’s anything new to see. The following tips will help increase museum visitors, encourage repeat visits, give you a competitive advantage and boost profitability.

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Museums are essential hubs for learning and exploring different cultures, art forms and historical events. People love to visit museums to experience the world in unique ways and learn new perspectives.

However, many museums find it challenging to attract new and repeat guests. Potential visitors often don’t know what the museum has to offer, and previous visitors often don’t know if there’s anything new to see. The following tips will help increase museum visitors, encourage repeat visits, give you a competitive advantage and boost profitability.

Read the full article or skip to a specific section:

  • 1. Invest in Digital Marketing
  • 2. Optimize Your Website for Organic Traffic
  • 3. Introduce Membership Programs
  • 4. Offer Discounts
  • 5. Introduce New Exhibits
  • 6. Host Unique Events
  • 7. Invest In Indoor Play Areas
  • How Soft Play® Can Help Increase Visitors to Your Museum

1. Invest in Digital Marketing

Digital or online marketing is the use of the internet and mobile technology to promote your brand and reach a broad local and global audience. You can use it to establish brand credibility and increase engagement with potential museum visitors.

There are various forms of digital marketing you can use to reach different audience demographics. Here are some top options:

  • Email marketing: Email is still a highly popular way to send out mass branded messages to engage business audiences. Email marketing uses the information you’ve collected on museum visitors to send out relevant and highly targeted updates, discounts or press releases. With email marketing software, you can create more targeted lists that can help you reach specific consumers. For example, you could send a discount email to people who haven’t visited in six months.
  • Content marketing: This approach involves creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract audiences. Blog posts are a popular form of content marketing that increases traffic to your website when people search for relevant keywords. For example, someone interested in ancient Egypt could find your blog post about Cleopatra and decide to visit your museum for the Egyptian exhibit.
  • Social media: Using social media increases brand awareness, attracts younger audiences, generates leads and enhances customer engagement. Create social media accounts on multiple platforms where you share relevant content and updates that reflect your museum’s brand identity. Social media marketing helps you monitor what people are saying about your museum and provides you with an opportunity to interact with potential visitors.
  • User-generated content: This is any type of content, such as text, video or photos, that someone posts online. It’s an effective form of word-of-mouth marketing that gets more people talking about your museum. To encourage user-generated content, create an aesthetically pleasing photo-op area outside or in your lobby that includes your museum’s name and hashtags that promote your brand online. When visitors take pictures here, post them online and tag your museum, more people can discover your museum.
  • Influencer marketing: Partnering with influencers who have large local and global followings can help increase the number of people visiting your museum. Travel bloggers, parent bloggers and art enthusiasts are top influencer categories to work with. You can give them discount codes that their followers can use whenever they visit your museum.

2. Optimize Your Website for Organic Traffic

When someone in your area searches for a museum, does your website appear on the search engine results pages? If people are searching for a particular exhibit, will it lead them to your museum? Optimizing your website for search engines makes it more accessible to locals and tourists. Improving your website’s search engine optimization makes it easier for search engines to understand and rank your content and for clients to find your site.

Start by making sure your website has all the information people are looking for, like your location, directions, contacts, pricing, hours of operation, exhibits and events. You can allow people to purchase tickets and memberships through the website. Additionally, link to and promote your social media channels on the website to increase your reach. The museum’s website should be a place where potential visitors go to learn more, but it also needs to be attractive, functional and easy to navigate.

Some people may hesitate to visit when they don’t know what to expect. Providing photos, quick videos and exhibit introductions will give people an idea of what they will get when they visit the museum. Having an engaging website that highlights your museum’s attractions will help encourage people to visit and boost attendance.

3. Introduce Membership Programs

Membership programs and discounts appeal to budget-conscious adults and families. They encourage repeat visitors by providing your museum’s loyal customers with loyalty benefits. Membership programs remind visitors that they’re your most valuable asset, help create connections with the community and provide a steady revenue stream.

Membership programs usually include free or discounted admission, early access to exhibitions and other physical perks. Some museums have membership programs that offer discounts and perks at their museum and other partnered businesses like local theaters or other museums. There are many different options and ways to implement these programs. The best ones balance the need to make your members feel valued with your organization’s need for long-term growth.

4. Offer Discounts

One way to drive demand for your institution is to evaluate the pricing strategy. If tickets are too expensive, you may be losing out on visitors. Variable pricing is when you alter prices based on projected supply and demand. The most basic form of this is adjusting ticket prices to make them cheaper on weekdays or during the off-season. This helps to spread out the crowds while also offering a more economical option for lower-income individuals.

You should also offer discounts to more than just your members. Potential visitors may be waiting for an offer, such as an admission discount, to come to tour your exhibit. You can send out discounts through an email list people sign up for, post them on your social media pages, have a “deals” section on your website or advertise them locally.

Discounts can be used as retargeting strategies aimed at people who have already visited the museum. Let them know when something new is on exhibit and offer them a discount to return. You can even leverage discounts to encourage museum memberships. Other discounts you can offer at your museum include group discounts for:

  • Students
  • Teachers
  • Churches
  • Military personnel
  • First responders

5. Introduce New Exhibits

One of the best ways to boost attendance to your museum is to open a new exhibit or add new features. If the museum has not seen anything new in a while, people may just be waiting for something different. When you make a change, remember to send out emails, update the website and post on social media so people know that your museum has something new to offer.

To update your museum, you can rearrange your exhibits, add exhibits or improve your existing ones. Adding technological enhancements like an immersive interactive play experience is a great space-saving way to spread excitement about your museum. Discover how to improve visitor experience by integrating virtual reality exhibits, smartphone-guided tours, or interactive games to enhance value for your guests.

6. Host Unique Events

Events are powerful marketing tools when implemented well. They engage new visitors, encourage returning visitors and spread awareness to groups your museum may not normally reach. Your museum can host all sorts of events, from cocktail hours and festivals to science lectures and book talks. Events can be designed to attract any audience, even kids, and influencers can spread your message to audiences you can’t normally reach.

Hosting events that appeal to different parts of your community helps your museum connect with the whole community, broadening your reach and attracting more people to your doors.

You can partner with local businesses to host shared events or host events like these on your own:

  • A cocktail night that includes the history of each drink
  • An educational storytime for kids
  • An art history lecture by a local professor
  • A party just to bring the community together
  • A drawing class for teens
  • A performance night
  • A pop-up museum at the park
  • A volunteer day at a local cemetery
  • A meet-the-author event
  • Fundraiser for your museum or another local cause

The key to maximizing event attendance is to advertise widely. Start by identifying your target audience and marketing to them on local event discovery websites and your business website using event-specific branding. You can also leverage the power of viral marketing on social media by working with influencers, using an event hashtag and hosting social media challenges or takeovers.

7. Invest in Indoor Play Areas

Museums can benefit visitors of all ages, so use that to your advantage to attract different demographics. If your museum is already popular with one audience, focus your marketing on another. One group museums often don’t appeal to is young children, who can get bored easily when they don’t have kid-focused areas and activities.

Adding an educational indoor museum playground turns it into a fun, family-friendly space. Including play areas or activities for kids makes the museum more accessible to families and allows them to create meaningful educational experiences that may convince them to return. It also helps you stand out from competing museums and increases your return on investment.

Other benefits of including indoor play areas in museums include:

  • Encouraging longer stays by captivating the attention of the younger visitors demographic.
  • Providing kids with an area to move their bodies and expel all that extra energy while parents relax makes the stay more enjoyable for everyone.
  • Enhancing your branding and theming efforts by using themed play equipment that matches the topics covered in your museum or exhibit.
  • Creates interesting hands-on learning experiences that spark word-of-mouth marketing and encourage repeat family visits.

How Soft Play® Can Help Increase Visitors to Your Museum

Set your museum apart from others with engaging sculpted play areas that capture the interest of young kids. Soft Play provides creative and durable indoor play equipment for museums meant to capture the imagination and create an outlet for active play. Adding indoor play equipment can help you:

  • Engage kids of all abilities
  • Increase traffic flow and memberships
  • Attract and retain families
  • Stand out from your competitors

Soft Play specializes in play equipment for attractions that keep families coming back time and time again. For over 30 years, our team of designers has assisted owners and managers in designing commercial indoor playgrounds customized for limited spaces and varying budgets. Our indoor equipment can help you cast kids in their own adventure while they have fun experiences that keep them coming back for more.

Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help your museum increase its number of visitors! If you’re ready to transform your museum with a custom indoor play area, request a quote and design consultation.

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