Dear Marianne,

This sounds more like a debate on museum income allocation than on marketing
resource allocation per se.

Any marketing/advertising executive will advise you that there is no point
in hyping up a poor product: if you can't deliver on what your promise then
you will do more harm advertising than not advertising at all...so I would
definitely counsel against sacrificing valuable dollars on exhibition
quality and pumping it into ad spend instead as you'll then lose both ways!

Evaluating the effectiveness of advertising in the museum/heritage sector is
really hard: my best advice to you is that IF you conduct any market
research, to include questions on how the visitors polled got to know about
the exhibition: if free press pulls in more visitors than paid advertising,
then that's giving you a steer - or vice versa! If NEITHER free nor paid
advertising appear to have much effect on attendance then you might consider
either (a) improving the quality of the advertising or (b) spending the
money more wisely on the build of your exhibition! If the quality is good,
then the message will get around by good old "word of mouth" and that costs
nothing and is pretty darn effective!

Good luck!

Regards,

Jerry Symonds


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elkhart County Historical Museum" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 7:12 PM
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Marketing Strategy


> >From our experience in our small museum over the last 16 months I would
vote
> for side one. We have spent minimal money on advertising and put more
money
> (percentage wise) into our temporary exhibit gallery and exhibits. We have
> then utilized free press releases to the newspapers on average of three
per
> month. This has allowed us to have our name in the paper etc. without
> spending large amounts on marketing.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Marianne Lorenz" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 1:28 PM
> Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Marketing Strategy
>
>
> We are having an ongoing discussion about marketing resource allocation at
> our small museum.
>
> One side:  Put more $$ into higher quality exhibitions that will draw
> greater audiences.
>
> Other side:  Keep exhibition budgets small and modest and of less quality
> and put money into advertising to draw attendance.
>
> Thoughts Please.  Thanks.
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
> information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail
message
> to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
"help"
> (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
> [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
"Signoff
> Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help"
(without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1770 - Release Date: 11/5/2008
5:36 PM

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).