Cultural entrepreneurs listen to their customers
In a three-month bootcamp programme, we helped eight cultural institutions increase their entrepreneurship. At its core, this comes down to creating more value for visitors. But how do you do that? By sharply formulating your ambitions and realising them together with customers.
Listening to what customers want is double in the cultural sector. From an artistic point of view, you often want to surprise people, excite them, make them reflect. What the 'wow factor' is going to be of an evening out, people find it hard to indicate beforehand. Logical! Besides: artistic freedom cannot be questioned. But to innovate your organisation and revenue model, there is plenty left to learn from the opinion and behaviour of visitors: from catering, logistics, communication to programming and ticket sales.
GET OUT OF THE BUILDING
Our participants set to work energetically. First, they analysed the needs of their main target groups. They went on to test these in practice to then discover where they could serve their visitors better.
A regional museum conducted individual interviews with schools, a theatre surveyed visitors and online through a customer database, a music venue organised a conversation with a 'focus group' via Facebook, and a cinema analysed all the digital statistics they could find from their website and social media.
Broad topics emerged, such as strengthening the personal 'hostmanship' of (volunteer) staff, film programming more in line with the cultural background of local residents, but also very practical matters such as offering different types of white wine at an open-air theatre. This turns out to be greatly appreciated by the target group! After implementing such tested ideas, visitors experience more value during a visit, therefore come more often, tell enthusiastic stories to their friends and spend more money. Cultural entrepreneurs also listen to their customers! Cheers.
If you would like to know more about this type of bootcamp programme or have a question, please send an email to myrthe.lemmen@elementalstrategy.com
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