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We have talked on several occasions about what the forecast is for the future and why you should embark on a digitization path aimed at innovation in the museum world.
In this article, I asked Tatiana Tracanelli, Marketing Automation Specialist at Larin Group, to focus on the what, why and, most importantly, how to automate the visitor (and non-visitor) experience, without neglecting the benefits this method can bring.
In particular, Tatiana will talk to us about CXA (acronym for Customer Experience Automation) for museums. This term refers to the set of automated actions that accompany the experience from the moment the user comes in contact with your museum (without knowing it), when they come to visit, and continues later in the relationship.
The tool on which the CXA is based is CRM (Customer Relationship Management), a software tool that allows contacts to be sorted into an internal database and helps in communications with them.
Now that everything is ready, let’s try to break down this journey into museum automation into three “automatable” macro areas: before, during, and after the visit.
Automations in the pre-visit phase: generation, profiling and nurturing of contacts
Automating the collection of contacts
An entire article could be written on why collecting contacts is critical for marketing. For now, suffice it for you to know that you can do it in a variety of ways and on a variety of channels, depending on your possibilities, capabilities, or strategies.
The key thing is to save them and store them in an orderly manner, because-probably-you have spent money, invested time and energy to generate them (it would be a shame to lose them or not take advantage of them, wouldn’t it?). The proper place to hold all the contacts that are collected is precisely the tool I mentioned earlier: the CRM.
How to automate contact collection?
There are different channels in which to collect new contacts and therefore different ways to automate this activity. Some examples: a contact may come to visit our website and fill out a form, or fill out a form posted on our social channels.
To convey contact data directly (and automatically) into your CRM, there are two simple alternatives, both of which do not require developer skills:
- native integrations (the two software were conceived and designed to exchange data directly);
- a third connector (an additional tool that acts as a “bridge” between two tools that do not plan to communicate with each other).
Why automate contact collection?
Automatically collecting contacts means leaving behind the hours spent by your colleague collecting information from one file or another, from the inbox or from who knows where, and then returning it to the corporate database (with inevitable errors and forgetfulness).
Instead, the staff member can focus on some activity of greater value to your museum, just as the contacts automatically, error-free, in real time and in an orderly manner, enter the CRM.
So, to summarize: you will have saved time and resources with zero (or almost zero) margin of error.
Automate contact profiling and data collection
Contact profiling, for the museum world, is a key aspect. Every museum has its own marketing strategies, so to make sense of it, you must first figure out what data you really care about, and not just screw what others are doing by collating information that is useless to you.
Let’s give some examples:
- If you ask your contacts for their date of birth, you will need to have a strategy based on this data upstream, such as a birthday promo or solutions for different age groups (if your marketing does not include such activities, leave it alone).
- If you offer solutions planned for your visitors’ family or professional status (e.g., promos for families, retirees or students), ask them to which of these groups they belong.
Be careful, however, not to ask for too much information at once: better to unpack it at different times. In fact, by asking for too much information at the first contact with your possible visitors you risk being perceived as too nagging and that very few will eventually contact you.
If, on the other hand, at an initial approach you only ask for the strictly necessary data (email, first name last name, and little else), the chances of being contacted will increase, and you will have a way to take advantage of the email to invite them to fill out, for example, a questionnaire: that is where you will ask for the other info you need.
How to automate contact profiling and data collection?
Once we have entered our contacts into the CRM (as we saw earlier), we can create an automation to send them a welcome email.
In the body of the email we can link a questionnaire: some CRMs give the possibility to create questionnaires/forms within the platform, but if not, there are many tools with which you can create and customize them. These forms will then have to report the information captured within the customer file (this operation is also totally automatable).
Why automate contact profiling and data collection?
With this action you will no longer have sheets and slips scattered on your desk with your visitors’ data. At the end of the day, you will no longer have to spend valuable time sorting them in your database, but they will automatically end up in each contact’s sheet, consistently and without errors.
Do not underestimate this additional aspect: those who come to fill out a questionnaire certainly show a special interest in your museum. Here, then, opens another chapter of museum automation: how best to pamper the visitor!
Automating the lead nurturing process
Once you have collected contact data in an orderly manner in your CRM, you will have the ability to schedule mailings/newsletters, or create automations based on these communications.
Let me explain further.
A retired man will probably not be interested in receiving promos on packages dedicated to schools: what we will send him via email will be communications regarding “discounts” provided for the over-70s. Vice versa: to a young family we will send the promo “Free museum for children under 12!”
How to automate lead nurturing?
This type of contact segmentation can be set up directly from the CRM: you can create customized emails for each segment and automations that branch out based on the rules you provide.
Why automate lead nurturing?
Again, you will save time in communications with your contacts. Most importantly, though, leads, with this “care” and attention, will undoubtedly feel more engaged. Seeing personalized communications arrive, it will almost seem as if the e-mail was written specifically for that contact and that it is not the usual promotional newsletter that the museum sends to the entire database.
Automating the visit phase: tickets, reservations and reminders
Automate the purchase of tickets and reservations
There is no worse thing than planning a day at the museum, getting in the car and driving miles to get there and then waiting in line to buy a ticket (or even not having a chance to get in because the available tours are already sold out).
My advice here is to always give the option to purchase the ticket online, from the website and from the mails, by entering the dedicated link.
How to automate ticket/reservation purchase online?
There are several ways to get your ticket purchased online. As you may know, museums generally rely on third-party ticketing platforms. The important thing here is to define the information exchange with them. You will have to set up automations making sure that when an online ticket is purchased, this information goes directly and automatically to your CRM.
Why automate ticket purchase/reservation online?
Having an automated visit booking/purchase system will save you time in tracking this information (to be implemented later in your strategy).
Automating the flow of reminders
It is important to remind “the date with the museum” to those who have booked a visit, especially if free visits are scheduled. Surely, in fact, you must have had someone forget to come, or got the date mixed up-this is a problem you can simply solve.
By tracking this information, you can anticipate a reminder flow (“Hi XXX, the museum is expecting you for tomorrow at 3:00 p.m.!”), an automated email that may also include a request for confirmation of the visit.
How to automate the remind flow?
Once you have tracked the date and time of the visit within your CRM , you can schedule automation with which to send a reminder email (on the previous day or week) as needed.
Why automate the remind flow?
Because you will avoid, as much as possible, “two spades” from your contacts. If a contact does not confirm the visit, you may give space to another person.
There are also other reasons to anticipate and automate this activity. For example:
- reminding future visitors of the regulations you provide for visits;
- Offering any bonuses they are entitled to by having purchased/booked the visit;
- presenting other events in the city for that day/week.
What to automate in the post-visit phase: customer satisfaction, feedback and nurturing
Automating customer satisfaction
Measuring your visitors’ satisfaction is a key aspect of your museum’s growth. It is very good to see positive reviews coming in, compliments on the experience you gave them, and so on. My advice is to focus mainly on the negative aspects highlighted by your visitors.
Sometimes it is difficult to empathize with those who use our service and we fail to grasp their critical issues. What better way than to ask them directly? Analyzing what your visitors did not like or was uncomfortable will allow you to focus on ways to improve.
How to automate customer satisfaction?
With all the information collected in your CRM, we can automate a post-visit thank-you email in which we ask you to take a few minutes to fill out a satisfaction questionnaire.
It will be sufficient to link to the questionnaire in question in the body of the email. You might also think about including scoring logic based on the answers given, and in case a user is particularly satisfied with the experience, have him or her automatically enter a funnel that includes a request to leave a review on your channels (social or website).
Why automate customer satisfaction?
After asking your visitors about their experience, you will have access to concrete data accumulated automatically. First benefit, then, is the time saved in searching for this information in a “mechanical” manner.
One piece of advice I want to give you is to keep track of those who have reported something negative, and once you have improved this aspect, let them know and thank them for helping you grow, perhaps offering them a bonus (1 free ticket or discount). This way you might regain his trust!
Automating post-visit lead nurturing
Surely it is in your interest to make sure that the contact experience does not stop at a single visit-the goal is to prompt a visitor to return and interact with you and your museum. With the information gathered in this track, you can indulge yourself by implementing all the strategies you have in mind.
How to automate post-visit lead nurturing
With the information accumulated so far, we can automate the nurturing flow directly into the CRM.
An example: your museum is located in Trenton, and a visitor, Mario Rossi from Matera, came to visit with his family in August of last year. At the beginning of the new summer you could update him on upcoming events with notices such as “Hi Mario, next week our museum will host such an expert, who will explain his vision regarding…,” perhaps reminding him that a reduced ticket is also available for his children.
Or, here’s a second scenario: Carlo from Rovereto (who lives “near” your museum) might be interested in finding out about new exhibits in advance or in being constantly updated on what’s new in your museum because it’s easier, for him, to visit you more frequently. With automation well set up, this is all possible without losing your mind!
Conclusions
Let’s conclude this journey by summarizing the benefits you and your museum could gain from approaching the world of automation:
- More time for you to devote to more valuable activities;
- More time for visitors and their visit;
- Ordered data that can be easily accessed even remotely;
- More satisfied visitors who feel they are the center of attention and pampered.
We would like to point out that the tools we told you about with Tatiana in this article are easy for any person to use: they do not require any special developer knowledge and, more importantly, they do not impose large investments.
Learn more by starting HERE.