Answer me this!Museums at Night

questions & experiments

Rosie Clarke, Culture24

We bring arts and heritage organisations together to do amazing things they couldn’t do on their own.

A small and dynamic team of writers, thinkers, producers and publishers who love arts and culture,understand digital and believe that cultural organisations have a vital place in a better world.

Museums at Night

The twice-yearly UK festival of after hours events in museums & galleries

Our challenges

• Improve how we provide information to our network and the public

• Save money

• Generate income to support the festival

• Use our time more productively

Streamlining our email newsletters- plus a handy tip

Multiple mailing lists

• Mailchimp charges monthly based on total subscriber count

• Lots of careful data work• One integrated list combining sector and

public email addresses• Segmentation by interests and behaviour

Newsletter signup forms

• One set of signup form questions

• Following best practice: people add themselves, receive a double-opt-in email

Re-engagement campaign

To project subscribers

Re-engagement campaignTo sector subscribers

Re-engagement campaign

Buttons instead of text

Re-engagement campaign

Last chance!

Simplifying data capture

• Competitions and giveaways using online form-builder Wufoo.com

Wufoo-Mailchimp integration

Results so far

• Smaller list with fewer people on it

• More engaged: open and click rates up

• Less time spent adding people to mailing lists

• Continuing to research and analyse

Generating income online

Lessons from our first crowdfunder

• Who might fund it?• Pick the right platform, where your audience

already is• Articulate the NEED: core proposition should

be easy to understand• Must be relevant to them• Very time-consuming

Museums at Night crowdfunder• Keen to tell a story, give people the chance to

donate in order to make a difference• Suggested specific sum• In your area• Result: more events

Window of opportunity• Motivated Connect! voters• Set up organisation page and fundraiser on

JustGiving

Integrating the Donate link

• Connect! voting widget• Museums at Night website• Email newsletters• Email signatures

Successes• Appealed to sense of community

• Over £300 from individual donors

• Museums at Night People’s Fund: invited museums to apply for £100 bursaries to support creative event programming

– Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh– the Infirmary, Worcester – Geffrye Museum, London

Challenges

• Not easy tracking donations• Only get donor contact details if they supply:

most are anonymous, so can’t build relationships

• JustGiving monthly fee• A few people gave more than £3 – now we

nudge higher

Tiered giving

Live chat

Our challenge

Could we simplify our response to enquiries down to a single interaction?

International prospective visitors

Connecting schools with local museums

Reassuring new visitors

• If doors open at 6pm can I turn up later?• This event says Sold Out, how can I join a waiting

list?• Is this venue accessible for someone partially

sighted?• Can you recommend something in the East

Midlands – the more unusual the better?“The T-Rex rampage is one you'll always remember!”

Dealing with technical issues

• Do you have any examples of previous events?• Difficulty with simple event searches: “I can’t see

any events in the South East”• Where do I click to vote in your competition?• This is asking me to prove I’m not a robot?• “Why isn't the map on your first page clickable

and scaleable? It's no use at all. It might be better to remove the map, rather than confuse people.”

Challenges – you’ve got to be online!

Benefits of live chat

• Saves visitors time• Saves us time• Free• Improves conversion rates• Builds relationships

“I was just wondering if you have posters I could print about Museums at Night to hang in my workplace. Not running an event, just want to inform staff about you guys on our noticeboard.”

Three experiments: what next?

• Continue to develop our email newsletters• Fundraising: planning a new physical reward

donors can own• Live chat is on now at museumsatnight.org.uk• Social media Thunderclap announcing

Museums at Night festival launch

Thursday 27 – Saturday 29 October

www.museumsatnight.org.uk

Thanks very much!

museumsatnight.org.uk

rosie@culture24.org.uk

@rosieclarke