Museum Audience Segmentation

In the museum world we are actively encouraged to get to know our audiences better and help them enjoy 'participatory activities'. We want them to engage with us, our collections, our volunteers, our shop and our Lidl bought 'homemade' cake - and then come back and do it again. We too often fall into the 'been there done that' category of cultural activity. But the great secret of a successful museum is turning visitors into participants. In other words we need to change the traditional forms of museum visiting. The clever museum will tailor their visitor experience against carefully researched audience segmentation. Helpfully, a few years ago Arts Council England produced, 'Arts Audiences: insight' an in-depth market segmentation in terms of visitor motivation and their engagement with the arts. Ignoring the fundamental question of how you actually identify these people and then contact them it is a useful way of segmenting visitor motivation. Although museums are part of the cultural offer of any locality, I like to believe museum visitors are a special breed. So I have used the Arts Council segmentation to create a museum specific alternative segmentation to create unique participatory experiences for each.


Arts Council Segment
THE URBAN ARTS ECLECTIC  - Highly qualified, affluent, and in the early stages of their career, urban arts eclectic are dynamic, and believe in seizing life’s opportunities.

Museum equivalent
URBANE FART DEFECTIVE  - Highly disqualified, effluent and in the early stages of dementia, urbane fart defectives are anaemic and seize up in the face of life's opportunities

Participatory activity - TAKING IT EASY AT THE MUSEUM - simply provide a comfy seat, mug of Horlicks and the Times crossword


Arts Council Segment
TRADITIONAL CULTURE VULTURES - At a later stage in life and having attained a high standard of living, Traditional culture vultures have time to devote to their many leisure interests. Art and culture takes up the majority of their time, alongside travelling and spending time with family.

Museum equivalent
IRRITATING MARROW SPARROWS - At a later stage of multiple cat ownership having attained a high standard of whingeing they have plenty of time to annoy museum staff, which takes up the majority of their day, alongside dribbling and spending time wondering why their family avoid them.

Participatory activity - HAVING YOUR SAY - give them the complaints book to fill out detailing all the shortcomings of the museum, the staff and the volunteers (which you can use later for 'management' purposes)


Art Council Segment

FUN FASHION AND FRIENDS - Fun, fashion and friends are developing their careers or just starting families. In their leisure time, they like to indulge in their interests of fashion and food. They are ambitious, optimistic and relish seeking out new experiences with friends and family.

Museum equivalent

FUZZ DEPRESSION AND OVERSPENDS - Fun fashion and friends and a burgeoning career ended when they started their family. They have no leisure time as their interests extend to changing nappies and sleeping at work. They have forgotten they were ambitious and optimistic but now relish going to museums for the peace and quiet.

Participatory activity - HOME FROM HOME  - provide a mop and bucket and get mums cleaning their baby's vomit from the sculpture gallery floor


Arts Council Segment
MATURE EXPLORERS - Balanced and practical, mature explorers keep up to date with current affairs and the news and seek to develop informed opinions, displaying their ethical concerns through their lifestyle choices. Neither faddish nor brand or image conscious, they are more practical in their spending habits and tend to opt for the ‘tried and tested’ approach. They use art as a way to bring a new perspective to their lives.

Museum equivalent
MATURE CHEDDAR EXPORTERS - Yellowing slightly, creamy and tasty, mature cheddar exporters keep up to date with all the informed opinion and ethical issues of dairy production. They are abhor the modern trend towards sticking peppers in everything. They use museums as a place to eat their sandwiches.

Participatory activity - BUFFET BONANZA! - consists of putting small squares of cheese on a stick with a silver skin onion


Arts Council Segment
DINNER AND A SHOW - Dinner and show are a mainstream group consisting of a significant
proportion of young and middle-aged people. With two-thirds employed and a third comfortably off, this group has disposable income to spend on leisure activities. Young or young at heart they enjoy life – eating well, socialising and going on outings related to music.

Museum equivalent

PINT AND A KEBAB - They are a mainstream group consisting of a significant proportion of drunks. With two thirds possessing a criminal record this group spends its disposable income on gambling. Young at heart but old in liver they go into museums to use the toilet facilities. 

Participatory activity - SUPER LOO SWEEP  - use the mop and bucket again and this time run a book on who can swab the lavatory floor quickest without spilling their pint.

Arts Council Segment

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY FOCUSED - Typically in their 30s and 40s, Family

and community focused have built a comfortable nest with their moderate financial means, and their priorities lie with their children, connecting with the local community and holding on to their cultural roots. Their interests lie squarely with their immediate surroundings and understanding people like themselves. 

Museum equivalent
FIRMLY OPPORTUNITY CONCUSSED - Typically in their 30s and 40s, having been made redundant several times their priorities now lie in spending their child benefit and scavenging from their local community. Their interests lie squarely with their immediate surroundings and go into museums for the warmth and the fact that most don't charge to let them in.

Participatory activity - FUN WITH OBJECTS - get them accessioning the collections backlog.


Arts Council Segment
BEDROOM DJs - In their late teens or 20s, still living with their parents or having just flown
the nest, Bedroom DJs are starting out in life. They are motivated and aspire to do well in their careers.

Museum equivalent

BEDROOM PJs - Although it is late in the afternoon they are still in their nightwear and just starting out from their bedroom. They are not motivated to get dressed, wash or experience sunlight. Will visit museums digitally via the internet accidentally when putting 'muse' into the Google search engine.

Participatory activity - DIGITAL DILEMMAS - challenge them to create a computer script that will divert all search engine traffic that uses the word 'sex' to your museum website.

Arts Council Segment

MID-LIFE HOBBYISTS - In their 30s, 40s and 50s, Mid-life hobbyists are family-focused and
spend most of their leisure time at home. They do not currently attend any arts events, mostly citing cost and lack of time as the main reasons.

Museum equivalent

MIDWIFE LOBBYISTS - In their 30s, 40s and 50s these politically engaged NHS employees spend most of their leisure time up to their elbows in placenta. Hideously underpaid and overworked the closest they get to a museum piece is an aged mother* overdosing on IVF treatment, donor eggs and sperm purchased on the internet. 

Participatory activity - BABY MAKING WORKSHOP - Use the tropical fish tank as a birthing pool for a new educational activity - fun for all the family and just think of the publicity.

Arts Council Segment
RETIRED ARTS AND CRAFTS - Home-loving and down to earth, retired arts and crafts favour a regular routine and a slower pace of life. This group have a passion for nature and are keen gardeners.

Museum equivalent
REQUIRED DARTS AND DRAUGHTS - Pub loving and salt of the earth, they favour games around the clock and a have a checkered past. They visit social history museums as part of the 'What pubs used to be like' living history group

Participatory activity - PUB GAME EXTRAVAGANZA - pick any one from  a range of bar billiards, shove ha'penny, old English skittles, daddlums, nine mens' morris, crib and dominoes


Arts Council Segment
TIME POOR DREAMERS - Early or mid-career, often juggling work and family commitments,
Time-poor dreamers are busy, and short-term orientated, living in the moment. They engage with popular culture and the arts are not a priority for them.

Museum equivalent
PRIME SNORE SCREAMERS - Early or mid evening sleepers, usually with flubbering lips and billowing bedroom curtains. They inevitably live alone and only engage with museums in their dreams.

Participatory activity - 'SLEEP LEARNING EXPERIMENT DAY' will be a new way of promoting your curator's interminably boring treatise on the larder beetle infestation of the costume collection


Arts Council Segment
A QUIET PINT WITH THE MATCH - A quiet pint with the match are content with life and are not seeking change. They spend much of their leisure time at home, or you might find them having a drink with friends at the local pub.

Museum equivalent
A CANKER RASH WITH A SCRATCH - A canker rash with a scratch  are not content with life and are seeking liniment. They spend much of their leisure time in the bath or you might find them rubbing alcohol on their body in the pub. They go to medical museums for solace and understanding.

Participatory activity - 'OLDE TIME MEDICINE WEEK', make sure you give visitors a slug or whisky and something to bite on before instructing them in the art of live medieval hemorrhoid treatments


Arts Council Segment
OLDER AND HOME BOUND - In their senior years, the older and home-bound group are generally content and have a practical outlook on life. They enjoy a slower pace of life and like spending a lot of their free time at home. Some of them report poor levels of health, which restricts their activities in general.

Museum equivalent
MOULDY AND TOMB BOUND - In their senior years, they spend all their time at home and haven't answered the door for  years. The electricity was cut off 6 months ago and the mail is piled up to window level behind the door. This is the prime museum volunteer demographic.

Participatory activity - 'PRO ACTIVE FUNDRAISING' - encourage volunteers to break into their houses to forge their signatures leaving all their worldly goods to the museum.


Arts Council Segment
LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY - Limited means, nothing fancy are information seekers who tend to spend their disposable income cautiously. Non-judgemental and dutiful, they value family and friendships – for them leisure time is all about having a break and chilling out, within their limited means.

Museum equivalent
LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY - As above, this is our prime museum demographic, regularly seen with Tupperware and a flask enjoying the cheap intellectual serenity of the museum environment.

Participatory Activity - MUSEUM - put lots of objects in glass cases with descriptive labels for them to look at.


So from this weekend (and every day thereafter), we've pulled out all the stops and there will be a full on immersive experience for the LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY demographic. If you're in this demographic come along and join the fun - everyone else stay away.

* The oldest verified mother to date is Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara; she was aged 66 years 358 days when she gave birth to twins