As museums continue to prolong their physical closures due to coronavirus, membership and development professionals are encountering new challenges. Now that in-person visits and special exhibition tickets can no longer serve as a primary benefit to members, how do membership professionals expand, augment and/or transform the member experience?
This week over 800 museum professionals joined Dan Sullivan (Head of Partnerships @ Cuseum), Jennifer Stone (Membership Manager @ Denver Museum of Nature & Science) & Chelsea Graham Jackson (Assistant Director of Membership @ Cleveland Museum of Art) as they discussed how the member experience might be expanded, especially through digital offerings, during coronavirus closures.
Watch the full video recording.
Read the full transcript below!
Dan Sullivan:
Hey everyone. My name is Dan Sullivan. I am the Head of Partnerships here at Cuseum. I want to first of all, thank you all for being here today. Hopefully you're safe, you're healthy, you're maybe discovering some new ways to sneak a little bit of enjoyment out of these very individually forgettable, but overall memorable days. To all of you who are first time watchers, welcome. For those who are repeat visitors, we just want to say thank you again for being here. As many of you know, our team at Cuseum has really committed to providing as many resources as possible to cultural organizations during these very unusual and strange times.
Today, I'm super excited to hear from our panelists, but one thing worth mentioning. One of the best resources as always is going to be the group of over 1000 Museum and cultural professionals who are watching us live today. Please utilize the chat functionality, introduce yourself, communicate with one another, take a little bit of time to do that. We'll definitely get into some of your questions. Typically on a webinar like this, we'll get a number of them so we won't get to all of them. But use the Q&A functionality if you can, to ask your questions. We'll try to get to as many as we possibly can. We're super glad that all of you are here. Thank you again for being here, and I want to wish you all another safe and healthy week.
This webinar is part of our Membership Monday series, a weekly webinar held every Monday at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. It Spotlights membership professionals in the cultural space who are agents of change or transformation in their membership departments respectively. We also want people who are responding thoughtfully and creatively during this Coronavirus crisis. Membership Mondays tackles a variety of membership related challenges. For those who missed it. Last week, we talked about reinforcing the value of membership during Coronavirus. We had two awesome guests, Ash Harris, from the San Antonio Zoo and Kelli Buchan from the Franklin Institute, and that request wording can be found on the Cuseum website.
Two last quick housekeeping items. Cuseum has two awesome webinars this week. Two other awesome webinars this week, this will be the third. First of all Thinking Outside the Box to Reach Audiences Inside Their Homes. That is Wednesday at two o'clock eastern time. And also as we were talking about before, to provide a little bit more levity for our cultural space, we create a weekly webinar on Friday afternoon called Muse, Zoos and Clues, a weekly hour of happiness happenings and cultural trivia to end your week. Second one is going to be this Friday at four o'clock Eastern Time. Mark your calendar. The link will come shortly, this past Friday was a blast! Please, feel free to join us at the next one. Let's get into this.
Cultural organizations are continuing to face prolonged physical closures perhaps for many more weeks or months. We truly do not know how long this is going to continue. For many organizations who are depending on revenue from on site purchases like admission tickets or special exhibitions, even gift shop sales, membership departments are one of the only sources of income at the moment. The problem is when one of the primary benefits of membership is an on site experience, how does the lack thereof affect members and their perceptions of what it means to be a member? How can we expand that member experience in other ways, perhaps through digital offerings, or continue to make memberships an appealing option in this time?
I'm so excited to welcome two awesome panelists today. We have Jennifer Stone, a Membership Manager at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. We also have Chelsea Graham Jackson, the Assistant Director of Membership at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Welcome to both you and thank you for being here.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Thank you.
Dan Sullivan:
To kick us off. Chelsea, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the Cleveland Museum of Art?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Absolutely. I work at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We have an encyclopedic art collection. And I've been in membership for almost seven years this year. I work primarily with our general level of membership, which make up about 23,000 out of 26,000 of our households.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Jennifer?
Jennifer Stone:
Hi, I manage our General Membership Program at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I've been there about seven years. Right now we have about 57,000 member households. And we are all figuring this out, now-just like you all are.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. And again, as with all of our webinars, nobody claims to have all the answers, but we're here as a community to try to think of creative, innovative, different ways to tackle these challenges. As a starting point, what does the member experience typically look like at your individual organizations? Jennifer, can you start us off with that?
Jennifer Stone:
Sure. Typically, we see our members visit us three to four times a year. We have about 15 members-only evening events, as well as a temporary exhibition member preview days. Spring Break is our busiest and biggest time, just across the board for the museum, whether that's membership sales, membership attendance, attendance period. And as with all of us, we've just missed that. And some other things, we have, a really great summer camp program. And those sell out in about a day.Those are big, they basically consist of our members' kids. We're figuring out now what that's going to look like. But that's another big engagement for our members and they also have a benefit of being the first to register for those. Those are some things also that we're navigating. We have canceled one member event. At this point we were going to have one, last week but that was canceled. It was a Member evening. Now we're just really gearing up on what those temporary exhibits that are coming this summer, what that's going to look like, again, because we do have special, members only evenings and preview days for those, so that's what we're trying to work on right now.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Thank you. Chelsea, how about yours?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yes, we have, like I said earlier, three categories of membership. I deal with general membership, and then we have higher level giving categories of CMA insider and leadership circle. Those are 250 plus. At the general levels, I would say very much so. Since we are a free museum, we are very exhibition based. A lot of our members join around the different blockbuster exhibitions. And those are also a huge driver for us. Since we do have free admission, that's probably the main member benefit, especially at those general levels. But since we're no longer on site, and have nothing at this point through June 30. This is really navigating our biggest benefit for those general levels and even the upper levels. So that's where we get into curator access and peer to peer events, as well. We know those have been canceled through June 30th. A little bit different than Jennifer, our biggest time is typically during holidays, but still, summer is a big time for us too.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. No looking forward to digging into some of those ideas that you just mentioned. One thing that I think would be just a good frame of reference. Chelsea, can you talk a little bit about some of the steps that the Cleveland Museum of Art took in preparation for Coronavirus' impact and before this hit. But also how have you responded?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
I don't know that I can speak as much to the preparations because I feel like it all really happened so fast, within that week of what was like March 9th through the 13th. Everybody was just swirling and it was different every day, right? I don't know that I was involved in many of the preparations for the Coronavirus,and press closing. But I will say in response to that, we're definitely learning to work together, it’s not like when you're in the cubes and you can see everybody at a moment's notice. But then also too, is like really utilizing the different departments and what they can be used for. I think everybody's job shifted, in some ways. As we shift to working from home, some of the duties that I had every day, of course, are no longer applicable. I think just working together as a division and really, with all these different departments and trying to figure out okay, who has the bandwidth to do X, Y or Z. I think that everyone can reevaluate who has time to do what. Everybody should be helping with social media right now, because those, bless those managers, they are really taking a hit. I think it's reallocating and trying to figure out how to best utilize all of our workers that are still with us.
Dan Sullivan:
Jennifer, how about the Denver Museum of Nature and Science?
Jennifer Stone:
Well, I completely agree with everything that Chelsea said, absolutely. On the preparation side, it all happened so quickly. We closed Friday, March 13th, at 5:00. All of that, that's happening, my gosh, our technology team trying to get everybody on Zoom. We also use Teams, I don’t know who also uses Teams, but that is so very helpful. But in preparation and other, beyond the technology, some things that prepared for impacts of Coronavirus, we've certainly looked at our membership expense budget, done some eliminating. Really scaled back as much as possible. There's some things that we're trying to figure out. If we can move forward with, and one of those is the possibility of no longer issuing plastic membership cards. We have an E card, which we love, and we're so proud of and many members utilize the E card, but just thinking about the cost to order those plastic cards, that's something that we're exploring. Can we do without that?
Another thing is that we are not going to print the summer issue of our member magazine. Those are some of the things that again, in trying to prepare for the impacts of this, that those are some things we're looking at now. And then things that we're doing for our members in response is, we're so lucky to have such a great institution who came together so quickly again with our technology team, our educators to start preparing. And then for those of us who can disseminate digital content, we're making that members first, exclusive member content that we send out every Monday. We are communicating with our members, every week. And every Monday we are sending things out that they have access to first.Things that are experiments. Things that they can do just to have fun or a pepper dissection. And then we're also lucky that we can offer a live program. We send out the email on Mondays and we have a live program in the evenings on Wednesday. Those are free to members. We do ask that they RSVP, but it is a very large Zoom meeting. And we're just so grateful to our huge team who's able to provide us with this content that that's the big offering that we can do right now as member exclusive, digital content right now.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great.One of the things that Cuseum does is digital membership cards. And right now, I think you're in a similar situation. Some people left the office thinking they were going to come back the next day or on Monday, and they haven't been back since. And this DIY membership fulfillment has been more challenging than anticipated. But we've had a lot of folks that have approached us about making that switch to digital. And just looking at some of the questions. One of the big things and you likely do is Jennifer, I'd be interested to hear how you've handled it. A lot of organizations we typically will advise if they're going to be leading with a digital card or at least offering a digital card, it's worth giving the option of getting a physical card or having an option of a physical card, which people can opt into and maybe pick up the next time they're on site. I saw some folks who were asking about that in the comments, especially right now where you're trying to communicate with your members in new ways. And also, you probably didn't bring your card printer home.The impetus for digital is fairly strong right now.
How has Coronavirus changed or challenged the previous status quo of your member experience?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Like I said earlier, our members are typically exhibition based. While our members don't quite visit as many times as maybe those members to general admission facilities, they do still join back around exhibition time and whatnot. Although we're not in this place that they're used to, I do think and I think it's actually been mentioned on a webinar here before. I think it's a great time to evaluate your messaging. And for us as a free museum, I think, we've always had that thought that we need to incorporate that philanthropic messaging and that your gift is just as valuable to us as it is to you.I think really honing in on that messaging too. In addition we're looking at all kinds of ways to, even though they won't be the status quo, these are new benefits of membership that are, like Jennifer said, we're also doing the exclusive content. We send it out on Mondays and it's publicized Tuesdays. We're still trying to give that first look that we always give to our members. And I think it's going to continue to change. I think it's evolving as we talk about it, too. I'm probably going to get ideas from this webinar, which is great.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Awesome. Jennifer, how about on your side? Have you seen that change?
Jennifer Stone:
I completely agree also with Chelsea moving forward, and I think we'll probably end up talking about this maybe later today, is that maybe we're all going to adjust or enhance our member benefit offerings, and we're going to really go digital big, because that's what we're doing now. I think we've all talked about it, I know that we have at my museum we've talked about, what does that look like down the road? Well, now we're down the road!
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah the road is here.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah. We're on the road.
Jennifer Stone:
We're offering exclusive digital content to members only, that they only have access to or in some outlet, however that's really another benefit on their list. I think for all of us who were dreaming of that, again, somewhere down the road, it's here now. And I'm excited to hear from all of our peers about what we're going to do with that.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. What are some ways that members can experience the benefits of being a member, besides the admissions aspects at your respective organizations?
Jennifer Stone:
Sure. Engaging with us virtually, digitally, these live programs that we have, weekly for our members, but also our website and our social, our social media geniuses are doing so much. Now almost, every parent has now all of a sudden become a school teacher. We have some great resources for professional teachers, of course, but we will absolutely make that available to our now parent teachers. We also have a members only exclusive page through our members online account. They do have to log in, in order to get to a particular section of our, what we call our web store that has, members only, content. And it's a full list of all of those experiments and activities that we send out every week. That's where we're keeping them and again, only members can access that.
Dan Sullivan:
One question that we consistently get and I think the community would be interested to hear from both of you on this. Mary Carlson asked, have you been extending member expiration dates, and if so, how have you gone about that?
Jennifer Stone:
That is the question-
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
The question of the year right? I think everybody's got that question right now. At least for us at this time, we are using it much in the way that Ingrid at Dallas is using it, as an offer to stimulate activity right now. We're still mailing our renewal reminders as we would usually. But we are extending an offer to those who are renewing right now. We are still up in the air as to whether that will be extended to all of our membership base. I think a lot our boards or finance offices are looking at the implications of that. What are the implications of shifting all your expected revenue when you do reopen, and you also don't have that coming in. So that's how we're using it right now.My opinion on the subject changes, it depends on who I'm talking to. So TBD on that, but that's what we're doing right now at CMA.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Jennifer, do you want to throw anything in there?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, for a while this changed weekly for us, but like Cleveland Museum of Art, we are sending out our renewals. We work with a mail house.They're still functioning, we're able to send out our direct mail, our renewal letters as well as our e-renewals. In that, I'm going to read you this. These two sentences, that we worked on probably for five days or something. This is our statement: Once we're able to reopen the museum, we will work with you to offer you options regarding your membership expiration date. Many of our members have kindly expressed that they would like to support us during this time and are waiving any extension.
Dan Sullivan:
That's awesome.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
I love that. Taking note now actually. That's really great.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great. Another question. What role does community as in your member community play when it comes to establishing value of the membership? This is a question that we like to ask. We've seen some museums exploring possibilities of introducing things like member Facebook groups or Zoom meetups or things along those lines? What do you think about ideas like these? Are you doing anything along those lines? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
We are not doing anything like this currently, but it's definitely something we're considering. Forgive me if I am misstating this, but I think it might have been Brooklyn or somewhere did a virtual member party. It was like an open house. It has instructions on different art making things you could do, like a drink cocktail recipe, all these different aspects of a members party, that we've all thrown. I really love that idea. I think this is something that we have been working towards at CMA, especially for general level members, because a lot of them join around an exhibition or something. They don't always join for the same reasons that those at higher levels, those are definitely more community based.For us, I think that's been like we're re-instituting member parties where all levels are invited. Then all of this happens, where I think this idea of a virtual member's party. Different things are fun. I don't know if we're considering the member Facebook group, I think it's a great idea. I'm just not sure if it would work for us. But I do love the idea.
Dan Sullivan:
It's fun. I think you're seeing it everywhere.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Right.
Dan Sullivan:
My wife and I have a 15 month old, and we had a Zoom meetup with all of the other kids from daycare the other day, which is just a fun thing. I think the takeaway from that is they really are focused on making sure that community stays strong and we're able to really keep that line of communication open. Jennifer, do you want to throw anything in there?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, I would love to see a member's Facebook group. I think that would be a lot of fun. And also Chelsea thinking about a virtual member party. I love that idea. I know my coworker Adam, he manages our young professional membership program, and we talked about what Cuseum is doing on Fridays, a virtual happy hour. I think that would be a lot of fun to see. And one of the things too, we're grateful for our members who are just posting on our website, we're getting some very nice feedback, some thank yous, they're showing that they're supporting us. That's a lot of fun. But I would love to see if we could go deeper with that to where it is really something like members coming together.
Dan Sullivan:
That's awesome.I always like to ask this question. I am a firm believer that you can learn more from failure than you can from success. Curious to know, is there anything that has not worked? I really believe that we can learn more from those mistakes. Love to hear if you tried anything that totally fell flat or was not well received. I don't want to dredge up any painful memories or anything, but, I'd love to hear anything that just didn't really work.
Jennifer Stone:
We have one actually, it's not something we tried. It was timing. And again, like I said, we closed on Friday, March 13th, and had a whole list schedule of things that were going to go out on social media. One of them that did go out on social media was a post for a program called Refund Colorado, that lets people who get a state income tax return donate it to our museum, as well as other Colorado nonprofits. It was just scheduled to go out and again, things were happening so fast, it came down as soon as possible. But we did receive some negative feedback about that. Going forward again, my coworker Adam works on our annual fund and we have some really beautifully crafted appeals that are going out right now. I think all of us know to be as sensitive as possible when we're asking at a time like this. Again, the thing with the refund Colorado that was basically an accident. We can ask in a very different, thoughtful, strategic way.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Chelsea, do you want to jump in now?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
I don't know if I have actual failures, especially from Coronavirus. There's a couple in my career, I'm sure "Ooh, I don't want to talk about that." I think one of the things has been standard. Even when we're in the office, I felt like this was an ongoing issue, making sure that the other departments are still on board with saving content for members only, and making sure that membership has a voice. And I think sometimes they're almost more levels of command in this work from home strategy. But at the same time, they're also like, I'm not getting copied on emails that I maybe would have, because I'm not in meetings with anyone.I think it's just been navigating that and making sure that everybody's still on board with our priorities and that, Dan, like you said, membership is one of the only revenue streams right now. It is so important. Making sure everyone's still on board with that, I think has been something we're dealing with too.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Last week, one of our guests Kelli Buchan from the Franklin Institute talked about the benefits of a hybrid membership model going forward. The idea is that moving into the future memberships may encompass both benefits like free on site admission to your organization, as well as some types of digital access. What do you think about that kind of hybrid model? Is that something you've explored or talked about?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Absolutely. I think we'd all be crazy not to. I think if this doesn't all go back to normal as soon as we reopen, we haven't made any specific announcements or anything at CMA, but there are things being looked at. How long are we going to be working under these stipulations of having smaller groups, and then once we reopen, are we going right back into another flu season? We all have to think about these things and the demographics of our members, quite honestly some of them are older and I don't know that they'll feel comfortable with coming to as many events. Or, another thing that we're looking at is, exhibitions are going to look a lot different and attendance goals, are going to look a lot different. And perhaps that benefit of a member presale that we have right now is going to become a whole lot more popular and a lot more attractive in this age. We're definitely thinking about that. About how to continue to offer these things. Because also when we reopen some of these great things like the weekly exclusive content, I don't think that should go away. That's something great. I would love to keep doing it.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, absolutely. And, Jennifer, any thoughts on that?
Jennifer Stone:
Absolutely. Like I said earlier, I think we've been thinking about that hybrid or that much deeper type of membership as the benefit, that digital access, and like I said, it's now. And also with exactly what we're doing right now on a weekly basis, I think we will definitely see people wanting that to continue after we are actually able to be back together in person.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. One question, and we've got so many questions in the Q&A. Again, we're going to try to get to as many as we can. This one's from Christina Holt. What core items are you highlighting in your renewal messaging? Is there anything special that you're offering for the future? Jennifer, do you want to start with that one?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah. Well, during this time, we are very clear in our first paragraph that although we're closed at this time, we remain committed to science and curiosity, and it's our community and our members who make this possible for us. We are absolutely being very honest and upfront, we do the statement about, upon reopening, we will assess, we'll work with you on your expiration date. But then highlighting we do have our temporary exhibits that are, that are going to happen. We have one coming in June, one in October. And we also have some things happening that have been on the calendar for a couple of years now, as we have closed our space gallery, and it is undergoing an amazing transformation, and it will be finished in November, we hope. And of course we will have member-exclusive access to that new space, which is going to be a lot of fun.And then we are highlighting this, during this time this exclusive member digital content that they will receive every Monday so they're still connected. They can still engage in these live programs with us, and, and beyond this huge Zoom call, and be able to, ask our scientists or our presenters questions. We're definitely shouting that out.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. That's awesome. And Chelsea, how about on your side?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah, a lot of the same. Our renewal messaging is definitely, we are closed until further notice. And, highlighting right now our offer of the three extra months of membership. And then really just highlighting the digital initiatives that we're taking on right now in addition to the member exclusive content, we do have a new, great team of our digital team, our marketing and education representatives from all sides that are working together to put together some great content ideas. Really pushing them to look online and look at all the great things we're doing, not just specific to members, but for everyone. And still continuing to be that resource. Also last year we had our Open Access Initiative where 30,000 of our artworks are now free and available to us online.Really pushing that, that's a great resource for everyone, especially now that everyone is teachers with their kids at home.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. And, and I think a lot of people have a similar question of nuts and bolts wise, how do we actually facilitate or execute digital content, that's for members only? This question is from Theresa Devlin. How are you offering digital experiences to members only? How do you limit those experiences to be just for members? And then Abby also dovetails with that. Is there a special login on the website of the museum, or are you emailing it to people? Can you share how you're doing things like that.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah, a lot of ours. We have not actually executed those programs yet. But I know that our digital marketing team is really looking at it and Jennifer mentioned this too, using Teams. You have to have an email to sign up, and so that is one way that you could capture some data. I don't know all of the inner workings of that. But I think too that typically we offer or when we've talked about it, if you're going to do a Zoom or a Team's hopefully they're not sharing it with their entire contacts list. But at the same time, if we have a few extra viewers. It really isn't that bad. I think we all have to take this time to really evaluate that. But trying to keep it exclusive. Like we said, we're sending the emails on Fridays, it goes public on Tuesdays. They could potentially be forwarded on, but technically they still saw it first. They're just working through that. But I, I think we all have to evaluate how much policing we really want to do, and how much we can, how many resources we can actually put into that or if we just want to let it out there and hope that everyone's being honest.
Dan Sullivan:
Colleen Dillenschneider talks about this idea of membership fraud, and how it's actually a fairly expensive misconception. And there certainly are some organizations that are hit a lot harder than others.But, often the amount of effort put into combating membership fraud is contributing far more to a decrease in a positive member experience or visitor experience. When in actuality, the amount of money that's being lost is fairly insignificant by comparison to the number of experiences that are being disrupted.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Do you really need to lock down a Zoom call with five passwords or just have an extra viewer?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Exactly. Jennifer, did you want to throw anything in there?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, we think about that as well with the Zoom sharing. Those emails that go to members every Monday, we share about seven unique pieces of content that are exclusive to members. We do have our web store. That's where that content lives, and so we do ask that our members need to sign into their account in order to get access to that. It is gated in that way. But back to those seven exclusive items, those are then put out on social media or on our website about a week later. Members are definitely getting it first. They always have access to it in their little portal. But then some of those activities will then be posted on our website, or, through social media. For our live programs that happen every Wednesday evening, we ask our members to please RSVP. RSVPing is free, but then we have a roster list that I pull in the afternoon on Wednesday. I pull that roster list of everyone who RSVPed and then email them. And then they join us that evening. And I think we went down that road about, "Oh gosh, are they sharing it with their neighborhood?" The feedback that we've gotten is, they're talking about, we're sitting here with our entire family watching this. Please know that there are six people actually in this one house that are watching it. I think again, we're not going to go chase them down for trying to share this with their neighbor or their friend. I think it's just all for good.
Dan Sullivan:
That's awesome. And I see a lot of folks are exchanging ideas in the chat. That's great. Our team is going to share a link to a shared resource document that we put together over the last month, where folks are putting membership extensions and the way that they're handling things, engagement ideas and whatnot. Look for a link in the chat momentarily to that document. We've got a great question. This is from Alicia Anderson. I love this question. In this time of cutting membership expenses, is there anything that you've chosen to spend money on?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
We are still, like I mentioned earlier, sending our renewal letters. That's one thing that we are still doing direct mail. Still hoping to supplement with as many email renewals as we can, of course, but we are still sending out mail just because we do still get about 30% of our gifts that way. We know our members still use that. And I feel like right now, I think everybody is home, so they probably are getting their mail. I would say that's one thing that we're definitely still spending on.
Jennifer Stone:
Not that we have planned, well, not that we have acted on this, but one thing that we did when we closed, is we asked our tele-Renewal company to stop calling at this time. I would love to hear from this group who is still using telemarketing at this time. How is it going? I think that's one of the things that we would consider in this time of trying to cut back on expenses, is that one that actually is necessary and successful.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah we've had some folks I don't recall exactly when, but some had mentioned for smaller membership bases, they're calling members just to say "Hey, hope you're doing well.' Just a nice gesture. Obviously, that's not always a scalable option for a membership base of several thousand up to 10, 20, 30, 50,000 households. But definitely I've heard of folks that are picking up the phone and doing that. Another question, when things are turned back to normal and we start setting foot back into our museums, our zoos, our aquariums, our gardens, how do you think membership benefits are going to look different at that time?
Jennifer Stone:
I think what we have talked about is that digital aspect as an addition to existing benefits. My coworkers and I are working on what members will want? What are our member events going to look like when we have our huge members-only open house in July, where the whole museum is open? We open our collections, you got the telescopes out. We offer optional pre purchase dinner. Are people going to want to eat? Or are they going to pre package food? That's another thing, working with our food services team. What is that going to look like? Those social norms that aren't really real anymore?Or are we going to serve food cafeteria style? What are our events going to look like? Or what are those things that we always did in the past, how does that translate into the next several months? We're talking about it and trying to work just again, pan-institutionally with everybody on how we think this is going to work. And then ultimately we need to hear from our members about what they want, what they need.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah. Agreed. I would just echo that. I think we weren't set to, but I think now might also be a great time to survey our members and see what kind of things [they want]. I think we always ask this question, but it'd be interesting to see how the answers might change, especially since we aren't open. Members always rate the exhibitions as one of the highest benefits. But maybe that would change. And maybe if we give them some other options, they might speak a little more honestly about it, since they're not coming to the museum right now.I think, just what we've talked about. I think that a lot of museums will most likely move to this hybrid model, which I think, honestly is not the worst idea at all, that everybody should move towards. I think we're all in this new age where we all have different types of members, some who really enjoy visiting us digitally, and some who really want to be at the museum and in their calm space, in their favorite gallery.
I think it's going to be different, but I do think the hybrid model is really the way to go, so that you have a little bit of something for everyone. Our first Friday happy hours were a huge success. But will we go back to having the first Friday of every month? Have 3000 people in the museum? I don't know about that. Finding new ways to engage people, and to still make them feel like they're engaging with the community, and the community of the museum, even when they're at home.
Dan Sullivan:
Great, another question. This is similar to that. What do you see in the future as far as membership experience changing at your individual organizations? Obviously, we've all had to adapt fairly quickly here over the last month or so. How do you see some of that change staying around, and really becoming part of the fabric of your member experience?
Jennifer Stone:
Sure. I just keep going back to this, these online digital experiences that I think will become part of the fabric of membership moving forward in a much deeper way. Another thing that I'm thinking about is, another member benefit and something that's really treasured that we've heard from our members is our member magazine, and it's a quarterly magazine. How can we make that as dynamic as possible online? That's one of the things that I'm thinking about definitely right now. But I think it is definitely here to stay.
Dan Sullivan:
Chelsea.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah. I would just echo those thoughts too. Our magazine was still in the works, prior to closure. So we did not have our, I guess it would have been the May, June issue. I don't know if that will go out on time. But we're still looking at a lot of different things. And I do think that the hybrid model is really going to be what we're looking at going forward. And again, we have, like I said before, the demographics of our membership would not have necessarily catered to that previously, but I think now it's a new time. We're just all trying to figure it all out together and, and maybe even making it approachable for those members, who aren't as comfortable online.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. This question comes from Bob Hole. And he asks, how are you looking at balancing the cost of retaining members versus regaining them/attracting new members in a year or two? Or even right now?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
That's definitely something that we're looking at. Again, I think there are still a lot of unknowns as far as our exhibition schedule. At this point in time, nothing has been canceled. But obviously, things are going to be shifted and we will not be opening some big exhibition next month like we were planning. It's really going to be looking at, I think now too, now that we're giving this extra month offer, it's a good time to look at that, do some testing, see if other messaging works better. Testing is always a thing that I recommend. It's always a great thing to do, and now you can start doing some of that. And I know we're all looking at one year from now what it's going to look like, because we'll hopefully have a couple months of being back in museums under our belt, but expected revenue is going to be a lot less, in these months. So yeah, I don't have any suggestions yet, but it's definitely something that we are considering and figuring out how we're going to do that.I think whether that's additional digital ads, or I don't know, it could be anything.
Dan Sullivan:
Jennifer?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, we're talking about temporary exhibitions. With every temporary exhibit we do a direct mail and digital acquisition campaign. We have one that is on hold right now, perhaps two on hold. I don't know how that's going to look. Again, these things that we were so systematic in the past, what's that going to look like now? I'll tell you one of the things that we are trying to do actually today, we are reaching out via email through a campaign to our lapsed members, and we are asking them to renew their membership, to support us at this time. And by renewing right now they're supporting us, and they will also have access to again this exclusive member content while our doors are closed. That's one thing that we've definitely been talking about is reaching back to those who have supported us in the past for sure.I know the question was more about acquiring new members. I just hope on the other end of this, people want to get out, people will want to engage with their cultural organizations and come see new exhibits. I hope that appeal will be there eventually, and hopefully sooner than later.
Dan Sullivan:
Another question that we've got here is, this was from Justin Martin at the MOCA North Miami. Do you have any worries of alienating older or non tech savvy Members with all the digital talk and the digital activities? Do you have any concerns about that? And if so, how are you hedging against that? How are you attacking that?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
There's something that is going out soon. We're reaching out to those members for whom we don't have an email, or they have recently unsubscribed from our email list since they're not getting anything. We are sending them a direct mail piece just letting them know that during our closure direct mail is going to be limited from the museum and that a lot of our things are coming via email. But I think too, it is about finding that happy medium, because I know that like I've said before, our demographic definitely skews older sometimes, and they're not always super comfortable online. It is just making it approachable. It might take a different form, but looking at still having some sort of mailed magazine or short insert piece that is still something that they receive at home because we know people still want to receive some things at home and not just via email.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great. Jennifer, did you want to contribute anything on that one?
Jennifer Stone:
Yes. So yes, Chelsea to all of that. We also have a project that we have for some volunteers who do some calling for us one of those projects during this time is to pull all of those in our database, who we don't have email addresses for and reaching out to them. Letting them know that there's some great content available to them via email. One thing, one little story to share during our first live program, what was it two weeks ago now, it was called 60 minutes in space, which is a planetarium program that we have regularly at the museum every month. And it's held typically at 7:00 at night. This particular member commented on how happy they were because they don't drive at night. And they were so happy to be able to have this. That's a positive nugget to hold on to.I know some other things that we've talked about again, not unlike what the grocery stores are doing right now are senior hours.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, in the morning. And, that's a smaller group of people. Maybe that is something to explore. But as far as trying to give them access, just getting their email. If they get email, we'll get it to them. Even with the Zoom link, I don't think that's super complicated.I don't know, maybe that can be complicated for some people, but we're thinking about it absolutely. We, we definitely are.
Dan Sullivan:
Here's another good question. This one's from Corrine Rah. Have either of you done any type of member surveys during this time of closure? A lot of folks have viewed this as an opportunity to poll members, and ask where they're thinking is. Have either of you explored that at all?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Not currently. But I think it's a great idea. I think I even mentioned this earlier. It's like maybe you'd get some different answers than you typically get because you're open. So I think it's a great idea. We typically do ours every other year, so we were not scheduled to do one during this time, but if you have the resources I think it's a great idea. And actually, I just had the chat open and I saw somebody had created a Zoom guide for their members. And I do think that's a great idea. I just wanted to shout that out. I think that's a really cool thing. I think a lot of people might benefit from that, if you do use that for events and whatnot.
Jennifer Stone:
Yep, that is a great idea. And in our emails, we do have a little statement about Zoom and then the link to the zoom website setup. But yeah, absolutely making sure that they can click on that to get what they need.
Dan Sullivan:
To throw something actually in there on the Zoom side. At Cuseum, we use Zoom. This is a Zoom webinar.
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
And it's a super easy platform. Our team is actually going to be publishing a how-to for museums and cultural institutions, on how to use Zoom to execute member events and things along those lines similar to what both of you have done. So we'll distribute that after. We’ve got about five minutes left. We've got a few more questions, from the audience here. One of them was, how can you show the value in purchasing or renewing a membership when virtual tours and images are available for free to the public, and not necessarily for members only? Do either of you have any thoughts on that?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah, sure. I think like Jennifer and I have both said, we are still offering an exclusive first look. It's not always going to be only for members, but at least for a few days. But again, like I said earlier, too, I think this is a great time to look at your messaging, and to really talk about how purchasing or renewing a membership really is supporting the institution. And how much that is going to make sure that we're able to open when we are able to open, and things like that. So I think it's a really great time to look at messaging. Coming from a free museum where we really focus on that, or at least try to, I think that's what I'm aiming to do right now. It's just really honing back in on that messaging for us.
Dan Sullivan:
Jennifer, did you want to contribute anything else on that?
Jennifer Stone:
Yeah, I totally agree with Chelsea. And like I've said, we have our members log in to access that content. And again, they have access to it first for about a week before it is shared more broadly. And not every single thing that they have access to first will be shared. There are some items that will be shared more broadly, but they definitely have first access and access to it again for about a week.
Dan Sullivan:
Another question. What about corporate memberships? Do both of you have corporate memberships? How have those been impacted or any ideas surrounding how those can be approached or double down on?
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
We do have a number of corporate partners, at CMA. Sorry [Leora] I can't really speak to exactly everything that they're doing right now. I think that most, there are several that renewed in June in the summer. I know that they're probably, they're definitely echoing our membership messaging, that we're using, and how we are using this time. But also talking about our online initiatives, I think that will really be helpful to corporate members, just showing our outreach right now.But also really taking this time to maintain their relationships, checking in with everyone and making those personal phone calls.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. I have one last question here. What is one big takeaway that you'd want each person wanting to be able to consider and take from this today, and bring back to their respective organizations?
Jennifer Stone:
I thought about this question all weekend. I think practically, as we've talked about all today, if possible to make content exclusive to members, if possible. And philosophically one thing that I thought would be nice to share and actually it is practical as well. Our CEO George Sparks, encouraged all of us at the museum to keep track of 1,000 positive stories during this time. Whether it's just a thank you, something positive on Facebook or it's the email we got the next day after the members exclusive evening program. Whether it's us connecting in our museum industry community during this time, and maybe a unique way that I don't know that other industries are doing, what we're doing. But also just internally with our staff is, I got a sweet Easter card from this coworker. And anyway, on and on, and on and on from that.I thought that's a really positive thing during this time, is to try to keep track of those really great things. Even if they're this big.
Chelsea Graham Jackson:
Yeah, I would echo that. Keep track of those emails that you get as a reply to your email renewal that talks about how much your members love the museum, because those will be helpful in the coming months when we reopen and you feel like you don't get those anymore. And I would just say to you that now, nothing is too out there. This is a time when our members want to hear from us. We're all shifting positions, and even if you think, somebody's probably already thinking of that," maybe they're not, and say that anyways. And just now is a good time to really put it all out there.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely, a couple quick things, before everybody goes. First of all, we're doing these webinars for the community. What's a subject matter you want to see us cover? What do you want to hear us talk about? Email us, email hello@cuseum.com. You can email me dan@cuseum.com. You can message us on our website, whatever you want to do. But, let us know what subjects you want to be heard. A couple quick things too. A recording of this webinar will be made available later today on the Cuseum website, as well as a link to that shared Google document with the Coronavirus resources and the community ideas.
Keep an eye out for that. Also thank you Jennifer, Chelsea, you have both been great. I get so many awesome insights. And just a reminder, Cuseum has two more awesome webinars this week. The first one is going to be Wednesday at two o'clock eastern time, that's called Thinking Outside the Box to Reach Audiences Inside Their Homes. Again, that's Wednesday at two o'clock. Also, we all need to have a little bit of fun. This Friday, four o'clock will be our second Muse, Zoos and Clues Digital Happy Hour. So again kick your shoes off, grab something refreshing and, come hang out just for a little bit of light, fun banter. Again, Everybody stay safe, stay healthy. We hope you'll join us again next week on Monday, three o'clock eastern for our next Membership Monday. So, thanks again everybody for being here. Thank you again panelists, Chelsea and Jennifer.
Looking for more information? Check out our coronavirus resources page.