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10 Warning Signs
That Your Marketing Highway Needs Reconstruction

by Katherine Khalife

If you make a product good enough, even though you live in the depths of the forest the public will make a path to your door, says the philosopher. But if you want the public in sufficient numbers, you would better construct a highway.
- William Randolph Hearst

What kind of marketing highway has your museum constructed? And what shape is it in? Does it run both ways between your organization and your community? Are all the on-ramps open? Are there plenty of interchanges for gathering information, building relationships and identifying wants and needs? Are road crews on the lookout for potholes and crumbling pavement, repairing them before they begin to seriously impede traffic flow?

Or is your marketing highway more of a one-way street, with blind alleys and speed bumps? Like the philosopher in Hearst's quote, do you first produce your "products" alone in the forest, then wait for your community to build its own path to you?

I've come up with a list of ten warning signs that indicate a highway in need of repair. If you find that any of them apply to your museum, you're probably due for at least some measure of marketing reconstruction this year.

1. You assume that everyone in your community already knows what your museum is and what it has to offer . . . Don't they?

2. You define marketing as "getting people to want what you have." (You may find it helpful to read "What is Marketing?")

3. You see the same faces at every special event you put on.

4. Fifteen years ago you held classes on Tuesday mornings and they were pretty well attended. A few years later, when hardly anyone was signing up for them anymore, you dropped classes altogether. Now you get calls asking if you offer any weekend courses. You tell them no, you tried classes once, but there's just no interest in them.

5. Your membership is dropping or just holding steady.

6. You're certain that people value the fact that nothing ever changes at your site. The proof? You heard a visitor say just last week, "I'm here as a chaperone on my daughter's 4th-grade field trip. Last time I was here was on my 4th-grade field trip. I can't believe it! This place is exactly the same! Absolutely nothing has changed." As she waved goodbye she added cheerily, "See you again when my 3-year-old gets to 4th grade!"

7. You're finding it harder to attract new volunteers. Some people have offered to volunteer at night, but you're not open at night. Others say they'd be happy to help, but they don't want to have to commit to coming in every week. As I overheard one frustrated museum director say, "What good does that do me?"

8. Almost all your professional relationships are with people in the museum world. Yes, you belong to the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, but you don't go to the meetings or serve on any of the committees. You're too short-staffed to have time for that. Besides, you're not sure you share much common ground with those in the for-profit world.

9. The only local planning session or government meeting you've attended was that time you needed a variance to move your sign closer to the road -- to make your museum more visible in the community.

10.You'd never admit it out loud, but part of you is getting pretty tired of hearing all this talk about the need to change. After all, why should you have to change to fit the community? Why can't it change to fit you?

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Copyright © 2001 Katherine Khalife All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, please e-mail info@museummarketingtips.com

Katherine Khalife is a freelance writer and publisher of the MuseumMarketingTips.com website, used every month by thousands of cultural institutions and other nonprofits seeking practical tips to improve their marketing and customer service. Her marketing and customer service articles have also appeared in History News, Museum Store, Vijesti, Product News and Management Insight, on a number of websites, and in association and convention and visitors bureau publications worldwide.

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