Data tracking in museums: 5 problems and how to solve them

A museum always knows how many tickets it has sold. The rest, almost always, is a feeling.

"I feel like people don't stay long." "More foreigners have been coming lately." "Nobody likes that room." These are phrases you hear in every museum, and almost none of them rest on a number. Not because museums don't care to know, but because they lack the tool to measure it.

And yet the data exists. It is generated every day, inside the galleries, while visitors listen to the audio guide. It just has to be collected. Here are five tracking problems that almost every museum has, and the five data points that could solve them.

The 5 data tracking problems of museums

Problem 1: you don't know how long your visitors really stay

The ticket tells you when a person enters, not how long they stay. So you design one-hour itineraries for visitors who spend forty minutes, and you schedule staff around hours that do not match actual flows.

The data you are missing: average visit time.

Problem 2: you don't know where they come from

Annual statistics tell you who came last year. But who is using your content today? Without this data you promise an experience designed for one audience, and a completely different one may show up. You translate the wrong languages and you don't know who to talk to about partnerships.

The data you are missing: the origin of your visitors.

Problem 3: you don't know which works are working

Every collection has its stars and its forgotten works, but without data you discover them by instinct. The result is that you write long texts for a work almost nobody listens to and leave under-served the one everybody is looking for. With a temporary exhibition the risk is worse: you find out when it is already over.

The data you are missing: the most listened works.

Problem 4: you don't know which languages you need

Translating costs money, and every extra language is paid for twice: when you write it and when you update it. If you don't know which languages are actually chosen, you spend the budget at random: you complete the ones nobody opens and neglect the ones visitors look for.

The data you are missing: the most listened languages.

Problem 5: you don't know who they are, and you can't reach them again

Every visit ends at the exit. The visitor leaves and the museum has no way to tell them that a new exhibition opens in March. Without a contact there are no newsletters, invitations or fundraising. The email, requested with explicit consent and in compliance with GDPR, is the data point that turns a passing visitor into an audience.

The data you are missing: the visitor's email.

Why museums don't solve these problems

It is not the museums' fault: the tool is missing. Ticketing data sits in one system, website data in another, data from the galleries in none. Putting them together takes a project, a budget and someone to follow it, and for a museum with a small team it is never the priority. So they carry on by gut feeling.

And yet every museum could collect these five data points. All it takes is for the collection to happen on its own, while the visit takes place.

The solution: the amuseapp console

With the amuseapp console the five data points are collected simply, while visitors use the audio guide. You find them in one place, with no analysis projects and no exporting files by hand. What today is a feeling becomes a number you can base decisions on.

• You don't know how long they stay. Data: average visit time. What changes: itineraries and staff calibrated to real time.
• You don't know where they come from. Data: origin of visitors. What changes: targeted promotion and translations.
• You don't know what they listen to. Data: most listened works. What changes: content where it is really needed.
• You don't know which languages you need. Data: most listened languages. What changes: translation budget well spent.
• You don't know how to reach them again. Data: visitor's email. What changes: newsletters, events, fundraising.

Want to see what your museum's data would look like? Discover the amuseapp console. Or book a demo.

Learn more: discover the amuseapp console · how the amuseapp audio guide works · the 5 KPIs that really matter to a museum