Due to COVID-19, many museums and cultural organizations are facing significant disruptions to revenue with the absence of gate attendance and on-site purchases. From membership extensions, halted acquisition campaigns, canceled events, to public funding cuts, many other traditional revenue streams have also been interrupted. Even as organizations prepare to reopen and welcome members back, traditional events and other common revenue sources may be diminished or even off the table entirely for quite some time.
Despite the challenges, by rethinking the membership business model, initiating virtual events, and seeking out new revenue opportunities, membership departments and cultural institutions have the potential to bounce back, and membership can continue to be a primary revenue stream.
Over 2,000 guests joined Dan Sullivan (Head of Growth and Partnerships @ Cuseum), Claire Byfield (Membership Manager: Engagement @ British Museum), Tom Knowles (Membership Events Manager @ British Museum) & Rosie Siemer (Founder & CEO @ FIVESEED Membership Consulting) as they discussed how membership, revenue, and events can be reimagined to bolster museums and ensure their financial health going into the future.
View the video recording here.
Read the full transcript below.
Dan Sullivan:
My name is Dan Sullivan. I am the Head of Partnerships at Cuseum, I, first of all, want to say thanks to everybody for tuning in today for being here. Hopefully, you all find yourselves safe and healthy, and to all of our first-time watchers, I want to say welcome, and we've got a lot of repeat visitors as well. I just want to say thank you for being here, and supporting these webinars. There's going to be some great insights from our panelists today, but there's also going to be about 2,000 of you here who are watching live. As a result, please take a moment, introduce yourself in the chat. Please also use the Q&A functionality to be able to ask a question, and then you can add a little thumbs up to questions that you're also interested in learning more about. That will help us prioritize the ones that are most pressing for you. We tend to get a lot of these questions, but we'll get to as much as we possibly can.
Super glad you're all here. I want to wish you all another safe and healthy week, and a happy Monday. As many of you know, throughout this Cuseum has really been committed to providing as many resources as we possibly could to the cultural space during the coronavirus pandemic, and recordings of all of our past webinars are available on the Cuseum website. They're at no cost, and continuing that trend we're going to have a part two of sorts for today's webinar, which the subject is called reopening, preparing to reopen, Experimenting with New Digital Revenue Streams on the Road to Reopening. That's going to be this Wednesday at two o'clock, again, thinking of it as a part two to today's conversation.
Awesome. Let's get into this. Due to Covid-19 many museums and cultural institutions are facing significant disruptions to revenue with the absence of gate attendance and on-site purchases. From membership extensions, halted acquisition campaigns, canceled events to public funding cuts, many other traditional revenue streams have also been interrupted. Even as organizations prepare to reopen and welcome their members back, as well as their visits, traditional events, and other common revenue sources, they're becoming diminished, and some of them are even off the table entirely for the time being. Despite those challenges, by rethinking the membership business model, initiating virtual events, and seeking out new revenue opportunities, membership departments and cultural institutions as a whole have the potential to bounce back, and memberships can continue to be that primary revenue stream.
Today we're going to be joined by Claire Byfield, the Membership Manager in Engagement at The British Museum, Tom Knowles, the Membership Events Manager at The British Museum and Rosie Siemer, Founder and CEO at FIVESEED Membership Consulting. To all of our panelists, I just want to say thank you for being here, and I'm going to ask you all just to quickly go around the room and introduce yourselves. Give a little bit about your background, your organization that you're with. Claire, why don't you start us off?
Claire Byfield:
I've been doing work in heritage for my career. I started with National Trust. I've done private charities, but I've been at the British Museum for about five years now. I used to do events. I've moved onto engagement. Essentially my remit is the membership engagement. We have about 74,000 members at the moment, well memberships I should say. Under my remit is all the communication, printed, digital, the events team come under me, the British Museum Magazine, the children's magazine, our Young Friends group as well. Basically, I always say I've got a counterpart who does the services side. He deals with the complaints. I make the problems, he solves them. Essentially, any communication, engagement, revenue, etc, that's under my remit.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Tom, how about you?
Tom Knowles:
Hi everybody. I hope everybody's as well as they possibly can be at the moment. I am the Membership Events Manager, at The British Museum. Why The British Museum differs from other institutions with its membership is that we do have a dedicated events program, which I manage. It's very busy. We typically have well over 200 events a year that are dedicated for the members. These range from lectures, conferences, tours, big festival-type events called members evenings, so it's a really, diverse range of events that we work on. I've been working in museums and galleries for about 10 years now. I started at the National Portrait Gallery, and then went to the Royal Academy of Art, and then as I mentioned earlier I went to the Paul Mellon Center, which is an affiliate of Yale University and the Yale Center for the Study of British Art. I've only been at The British Museum actually for five months, and I was saying I feel really short-changed. I've had two months of that in lockdown. I've barely been able to see the collection, so looking forward to getting back.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Last but not least, Rosie.
Rosie Siemer:
Hi everyone. I'm Rosie Siemer. I'm the Founder and CEO of FIVESEED. I work with museums and cultural organizations to help them craft their audience engagement and membership strategies. I've been working with museums for about 10 years, and my passion has always been in membership. I recently wrote and published a new book titled Museum Membership Innovation. In that book, I share a lot of my insights from my research into member motivation and new membership business models, which we're going to be talking about a little today. I'm really excited to be here with you all.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Thank you. I'm going to get us kicked off here. What role does revenue from membership typically play in the larger financial picture of your organization? Claire, can you start us off with that?
Claire Byfield:
Yeah. Obviously, membership is very important, I think for several reasons. I think it ranges from year to year, but we're looking at £5-7 million of profit we bring into the museum, and I think two benefits are, firstly, it's unrestricted income. For so many of our donations and trusts and foundations and things, it's very specific what you spend it on, but the nice thing about the unrestricted, as everyone knows, you can spend it on the toilets if you need it. Very hard to get sponsorship, I've noticed, but the other thing, the key thing about those members is they are 73,000, they're really dedicated. They're our huge pool for donations, moving them up to patrons, and I think so many of our major donors start off as members, it's quite phenomenal, and that's basically why we treasure them so much.
Dan Sullivan:
This one more to Rosie. In the organizations that you've worked with, how does membership figure into the overall financial health of the organization?
Rosie Siemer:
On average, membership in terms of total revenue, depending on the organization, ranges from 5%, 7%, all the way up to 13% or more. Less than admissions revenue, which again depending on your particular organization type, could be 20-30% or more of total revenue, but I think where membership has a really important function in terms of revenue is that members tend to be your best customers. They're the ones, as Claire mentioned, they're the ones coming to your event. They're the ones buying at the gift shop, dining at the restaurant, giving additional donations, and advocating for you. Membership's a really important, foundational piece of any museum business model.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Tom, how about events? Are events, member events specifically, are those large sources of revenue for The British Museum?
Tom Knowles:
Membership events, relatively speaking, in comparison to what the overall revenue from membership brings into the museum, membership isn't huge, and we typically bring in about 200,000 a year, but that said, in terms of retention it's hugely important. We found that with members, if they were to engage with one to two membership events a year, their retention typically goes from two years to five years, in that respect, they are incredibly important to the revenue of the museum.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. The next question I've got is how has Covid-19 impacted membership renewals, and will this have any lasting or reverberating fiscal implications for years to come? Claire, can you start us off with that?
Claire Byfield:It's interesting, we're not seeing a massive impact at the moment. Just to give you a little bit of background for The British Museum, because I know this is different in America, obviously, a large number of our members are what we call direct debit payers, which means normally we have a 90% retention rate. Our retention rate has gone down. We're looking, I think, about 84 at the moment. It's still good. My feelings are that a lot of our members are waiting. With the renewals at the moment, because a lot of them are automatic, I think people are waiting to see what we're going to do. I think people, they're not wanting to leave The British Museum. We do have a good number of those. A few hundred I think on the list who are asking for refunds and things, but in general, I think what's happening is they are waiting to see when we'll reopen and there's a feeling that we will announce something, which is quite interesting because they're not complaining massively at the moment. We're not getting a lot of pushback, because we're still in it, if that makes sense. I think as soon as it's over, then there's going to be an expectation of something, and that's the challenge we're trying to address at the moment. What should that something be?
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Rosie, what are you seeing on this front?
Rosie Siemer:
A lot of the organizations that I'm talking with, they are seeing their membership renewals hold fairly steady as well. Those that have a high number of value-oriented members, who primarily joined because they wanted to get free admission or a discount, those members, they are starting to see some attrition for those folks, but for the most part, I think a lot of the more mission-oriented members are doing their part to stay involved with the organization and they understand that their revenue, they're an important revenue source for the organization, so they want to keep contributing. Of course, we know that the economy is very fragile and a lot of people are struggling right now. Some organizations have put in place the offer to allow their members to put a pause on their membership, so not completely cancel, especially for those organizations that offer monthly payments. Unlike in the UK, we don't have the benefit of people signing up with a direct debit. Here, all the monthly payments are for the most part credit card based. There are some members who are asking that those monthly payments be put on hold, but organizations that I'm talking with, they are saying that's a pretty small number, which is really encouraging.
I think that also organizations are seeing their members give additional gifts on top of their membership right now, even though they're not technically taking advantage of their benefits in the way that they used to, they're actually contributing at a higher level. That's been really great to see and I think it's really something that museums ought to be paying attention to in terms of who are those people who are giving and who are staying, loyal and renewing because those are going to be some of your best loyal patrons going forward.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely, and while we've got you here, the first question I've got is, how has Covid-19 impacted membership acquisition efforts? Can you just talk briefly about that?
Rosie Siemer:
Sure. I have talked with some organizations who have put their acquisition efforts on hold, and while everyone is waiting to see what the duration was going to look like for closures and of course, depending on if you've had big exhibitions coming up, they didn't want to go out announcing those if they didn't know when they were going to be open, but actually it's been great to see a few organizations doing some acquisition efforts already. What we're seeing is that those organizations that are doing it are starting soft with email only, or digital, holding back on making a big investment in terms of their direct mail acquisition, and using that as a gauge to see how people respond, and then preparing for plans to do a bigger acquisition once they have a better idea of when they'll be open.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely, and Claire, how about on your side? How are you handling acquisitions?
Claire Byfield:
We're not doing anything active for them at the moment. Our main acquisition, because obviously The British Museum is a free museum, but one of the benefits of membership is you get into the special exhibitions for free. For us, our special exhibition program was the real draw. We are aiming to reignite that again in September. As soon as that happens our plan is to keep holding as many as we can, and then we can ramp up again to make up the downfall and increase that as soon as we have that exhibition program to bounce off of. We're also looking at mailings and things to lapsed members. If we've lost you within the last year we're going to go after you again quite heavily, I think, as soon as September comes round, but until then, it's not a useful type case for us to put our resources or effort into, really.
Dan Sullivan:
How about initiating renewals? Are there any new benefits that you're offering your members to incentivize them to renew?
Claire Byfield:
We're being much softer in our wording with our lettering. We're reminding members that it is a donation, it's not a transaction, because obviously in Britain, I don't know how they do it in America, but we can Gift Aid it, which means we can reclaim tax on everything, as long as it's a donation. One of the things we're trying to get done at the moment is digitizing the back catalog of our magazine, so the last 30 or 40 years' worth, so projects we were looking which were things we were potentially going to charge for, like access to the magazine archival things, we are hopefully going to be offering just as a free incentive for a limited time, if that makes sense, because obviously at some point we do want to monetize these things.
We're almost using this as a testing ground for a lot of digital activity, be that, like I say, the magazines, videos, behind the scenes interviews, podcasts, etc, which later down the line we could perhaps monetize. This is actually a really good testing environment for that, to see actually what the response is. We're trying to use it as a positive to assess what is and isn't working. I think people are being a lot more forgiving with things at the moment, because they see it as you're trying to help them, forgiving, and we can test it out and again, going forward, we should have a refined product as it were, which we can charge for. It's something I think Tom's looking very much into for the event program as well.
Tom Knowles:
Definitely. I think for the moment we are really, as everybody has been, really working on our digital content, getting our audiences engaged in that side of things. For retention, we've been doing a lot of bespoke videos, and just strengthening that connection that members have with our colleagues, Q&As with curators, conservators. We've also got some high-profile guests to record messages for the members as well. Natalie Haynes and Mary Beard are both notable historians in the UK, and they've both recorded a message for the members. What's been really nice is every one of our colleagues that recorded something for the members has really expressed their heartfelt thanks for their support, which has, I think, gone a long way and has been really appreciated by the members.
I know as Claire said we're also now working on a digital events program, which we really want to get running now and get our members very much engaged in that once we open up we can keep on running it. I'm sure this will come up later, but we absolutely do want to run that alongside our ordinary events program.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Rosie, do you want to throw anything in there?
Rosie Siemer:
Yeah, in terms of just engaging with audiences right now, I love Claire, what you said about this being a great time for testing because I completely agree that this is a moment that organizations need to seize on to, try new things, and it's been really inspiring to watch all of these organizations adapt in real-time and just put together all this amazing content, and translate in-person experiences and programs and events into digital, and then push content out. I think a lot of organizations have been repackaging and repurposing content that maybe was available for educators, for example, and then putting that into place for parents who are now homeschooling their kids, but they wouldn't have otherwise done that without being in this situation that's forced that experimentation. It's been really great to see that, and I think now, what would be wonderful is to see how those audiences are engaging with that content. Data tracking is a really important piece of this so that you can understand how audiences are interacting. Are these new audiences? Are they your members?
Right now, a lot of organizations are giving a lot of that content away for free. Certainly, an argument can be made that from an accessibility standpoint, that content should be made widely available at no cost. We are here talking about how an organization can also monetize some of those offerings. I think that's the next step in the testing, is to see where people are really getting value out of those digital experiences and virtual content, and how you can actually translate that into a revenue stream, a viable revenue stream.
Dan Sullivan:
This is really where this concept of being agile comes into play. You take on a project, you experiment a little bit with it, you see how things go, and then you tweak the knobs and figure out which way you want to either double down or pivot to, and this is something that obviously the tech world has been doing for a long time, but any time it comes to experimentation, if you can measure the effectiveness and the success of that, then you need to figure out a better way to be doing that.
Another question. How are memberships being priced right now? How has this changed over the last couple of months? Have you seen any changes to pricing? Rosie, do you want to start with that, and then Claire?
Rosie Siemer:
Sure. Yeah, a lot of organizations are, of course, offering extensions to existing membership, which depending on how you look at it could be a part of pricing of membership. That is definitely going to continue. Some organizations are offering those extensions even six months out. They're just not knowing when they're going to be able to reopen and allow members back in. The other, really interesting thing that I've been seeing is an introduction to monthly payments for memberships. The San Antonio Zoo, for example, just launched, in April, a new monthly payment option, essentially an entirely new kind of membership offering. They're having great results with that because it's $3 a month. That's really affordable, something that I think audiences can say yes to very easy. That is a great pricing strategy in terms of making membership affordable.
We are seeing some organizations starting to offer discounts for memberships. I would caution about doing that just yet, but there's a way for you to offer other types of incentives like an extension, like a virtual experience or some other type of benefit for members who join or renew to have special access when doors do reopen, rather than discounting, because I think that can really damage the integrity of the price of membership, and it's really hard to get back to the actual cost of membership. if you start discounting it's hard to get back to that price point, originally, that you were at.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Claire, how about on your side?
Claire Byfield:
Well, I 100% agree with that. We have a policy of we never discount the membership purely because it undermines its value, essentially. We hold that it is really good value, etc, and it's associated with The British Museum brand as well. We never want to undermine that. Essentially, we put our prices up, we assess if we're going to put prices up in April every year, but this year we didn't, for obvious reasons. We kept the price the same, which we saw as a benefit. We may reconsider that once we reopen, or depending on the exhibitions. We are basically monitoring at the moment, so when it comes to extensions and so forth a few of our counterparts like the Tate have said a three-month extension. We're not doing that, because essentially as soon as you say, "We will extend," you're extending for the whole period, and until we know exactly when we're reopening, because, if suddenly we're having to offer a four, six-month extension, we're talking millions, and that's huge.
I think our feeling is not everyone's necessarily going to want an extension, so there's no point in offering it. What we're doing is firstly thanking everyone for their donations and, "If you're finding it a problem, get in contact with us and we can discuss it." We're treating it almost like an opt-in. If someone wants an extension and the option is they're going to cancel, we will give it to them, but a blanket-wide extension I don't actually think is necessary. That sounds a little unfair if I get in contact with you, but I think genuinely there are some people who are more than happy to give to the institution. There's quite a lot of philanthropic, I can never quite say that word, sorry, people out there. I don't think blanket sweeping statements are appropriate, not until we know exactly when we're opening and what is going to happen, and you can assess the full financial impact of that on your institution.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely, and I think that brings on another interesting question. When are your organizations planning to start welcoming back your visitors, your members, at what capacity? What does that look like? Claire or Tom, do you want to start us off with that?
Tom Knowles:
I think we're behind the US in that I think the very earliest that we would be able to open up would be the beginning of July. We're still not sure how that would look, how many people are going to be able to access the museum. We do absolutely want to give a really warm welcome back to the general public, and especially to our members who've been so, supportive through this period. As Claire mentioned, there is the feeling that some form of compensation will be expected from members, for perhaps staying all the way through this period, so one way that we're thinking of doing that is through events, rather than giving discounts or anything like that, but putting on lots of free events and activity to help reanimate the space, to reintroduce the members back to the collection, which will be relatively cost-effective as well, rather than the major impact that discounts would have.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely.
Claire Byfield:
With people coming in, ironically, it almost will self-regulate to a point, because 80% of the visitors to the museum, in general, are foreign, so international, and essentially we're probably not going to get those back straight away. We are going to limit that number with the museum quite significantly. What we are looking at going forward is our special exhibitions as they are set to timed ticketing, and conveniently when we plan how many people can go in an exhibition every ten minutes, we base that on everyone having a two-meter radius. As anyone knows, in an exhibition, people never have a two-meter radius, but theoretically, our calculations are based on that. The British Museum is absolutely massive. I don't know how many people, we've got hundreds and hundreds of galleries, quite literally. We're looking at the moment how to segment our galleries into the larger ones or groups of small ones that we can design routes around, and I think the reality is we're going to have to treat each cluster of galleries in the same way we treat a special exhibition, which is timed tickets and things around those spaces.
Having said that, obviously, when we're trying to entice members back, without a special exhibition we're basically saying, "Why not come back, but we're going to make you queue, we're going to make you go round this in a set order." That's not as enticing as we'd like. We are looking at how to make it more enticing. Do we have trails? Do we create new audio tours that set these routes out so that people are following these routes round? As Tom was saying, particularly for members, do we have a day where we have solo musicians in the galleries to make it a really special atmosphere for members that day coming in, to give that incentive of, "Why should I come back under this?" This is the reason.
One of the things we're looking at is trying to put this down as a positive, actually, because obviously from our point of view, The British Museum is usually really crowded. We talk about going to see the Rosetta Stone. Good luck if you think you're ever going to be near enough to see that thing. I think, marketing-wise, particularly to members, we're going to be putting it to them as it's going to be quieter. There's going to be absolutely limited numbers of people in the galleries. This is your best chance of seeing some of these wonderful things without lots of screaming school children around you. With that in mind, it is important for us to look at having members days, but also should we have certain mornings where it is going to be family orientated, where the trails will be focused on children, that they're going to go round, and a lot of our older members are quite nervous when they think about if I'm going to be going, surrounded by children, particularly in this atmosphere, who maybe aren't going to respect the two meters and things as much.
Separating those groups out so they are within how they feel comfortable environments, that you've got families who feel they're comfortable and that it's a family-friendly time, and older people, etc. We're just in the process of starting to plan this, and like I say, with such a huge museum it's quite hard because we're going to have to have a lot of extra staff to enforce this, these routes and things like that, but maybe that we say for the first half of the day you can book the lower galleries and then second half it's the upper galleries, etc. They're lots of questions we're trying to deal with at the moment. The main thing is trying to sell it as a positive, using Tom's program to give that additional incentive, but putting people in their comfort zones if that makes sense.
Dan Sullivan:
I love the idea of using your event as a mechanism to enhance that member experience or that member loyalty. As you probably already know, a huge contributor of that member satisfaction is unique experiences, where it's insider experiences. As you said, there's a band playing in the gallery or I get a special tour of one thing or another, or early entry into something that hasn't opened to the public. Those types of things can really breed a feeling or a general sentiment of loyalty to the organization, as you feel like you're getting that insider experience. Rosie, how about on your side? What are you seeing over here?
Rosie Siemer:
Yeah, some organizations here in the US have already started opening up with limited capacity. For example, here in Texas, museums have been allowed to open up with 25% capacity, and people are going, from what I've heard, not in big waves. I think what's been really interesting is so much of the difference between survey data that's out there in terms of intention to visit, some survey data shows that people are really excited and the outlook is very optimistic that people are going to come back as soon as they can, and then there is some other data out there that shows 13% of people are going to go back to their normal behaviors, even after things are opened up in terms of governmental restrictions. Partly what I think we need to be doing is planning for scenarios, of course. Best, worst case and what we think most likely will happen, as Claire and Tom mentioned, we're just making sure that we've got the protocols in place for keeping guests safe, keeping our staff safe, making them feel comfortable.
I really love the idea, and a lot of organizations are already starting to plan for members only soft openings, for the first however many weeks, that it's just open for members, and that does give you a chance to get the kinks sorted out, iron out how you're going to move people through. Your members are going to be a bit more forgiving, I think, in terms of what that experience is going to be like, and it gives you a chance to put in place other requirements that maybe you aren't aware of because you haven't had a chance to go through it yet. Plus, I think, Dan, what you said about making members feel special, giving them that first opportunity to come back, it will be important. Members-only hours or extended hours for members would be really a good thing as well, and as we know a lot of our members and especially upper level, higher donor level categories, tend to be in high-risk categories for Covid-19. I think that we need to be prepared for people to perhaps not feel comfortable coming back just yet, and we need to be prepared to think about how we're going to keep them engaged and stay connected to them if they decide not to come and back and participate in ways that they once did.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. I think that segues into, another question here, which is many organizations are realizing that while they can start welcoming people back, a lot of large events are, for the most part, going to be off the table for an indefinite period of time. How are you dealing with that, and are you planning to host virtual events as a substitute? Tom, do you want to jump in on that first?
Tom Knowles:
Yeah, sure. This is something that we're absolutely thinking about at the moment. Our lectures and conferences are the biggest things that I think will be hit by this. We ordinarily have two conferences a year and two lectures a month, and they're really our big earners for the events program, so the problem with these is they're in a lecture theater. We have about 500 people, very close proximity, and then there's a drinks reception afterward. It's lovely, everybody's socializing, it's just absolutely going to be impossible. I think, you know, we've got a two-meter proximity that's important at the moment. I don't know if it's the same in the US, but it just wouldn't be possible. By looking at the digital events that we're starting to roll out anyway, getting the audience engaged now, but then once we open and we potentially can't go ahead with our lecture program, we can still go ahead with our digital, lecture program, and actually, although it makes lots of problems, it could potentially help us out further along down the line.
At the moment, the events that we are running are free. I think next we're going to potentially ask for a donation, then once the museum opens, and we have something else to offer, we'll be able to start charging for them. Capacity is always something that we really struggle with, because our events nearly always book up, and we've got that, a finite number of 500 people that can come to our events, and lots of people are disappointed, especially if we've got a specific speaker that people are really keen to see. If the digital events are successful, we've got our audience engaged and involved with digital viewing already, we could potentially, expand the capacity and get some additional revenue as well if it's not the same price as the actual, live event, but we could start charging a nominal fee for digital engagement.
It will also just help with regional partners, so people that might not necessarily be able to attend the museum very often. They could still have additional benefits digitally, and also our international audience. It's been so nice, actually, with, digital correspondence at the moment. We've been working on some programming for Young Friends, I'll do a shout out for my colleague Celine who's doing an incredible job with that, and, we've had, people messaging us from LA and all around the world, sending in pictures of how they've been getting involved with our digital programs, it actually shows the potential of this as well, and now I think our audience does really appreciate and puts value on digital events as well, and they're also more tech-savvy.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Claire, do you want to add anything on there?
Claire Byfield:
Yeah. I think the reality is this has done us a favor in a way, because whereas before we had an older demographic for our members who thought Twitter was the devil, have now been forced and taught by their children and grandchildren how to use Zoom and things. It's done that hard job for us. I think the main thing going forward is the reality that they are really enjoying this digital content and everything, and that when things go back to normal, it's not going to be normal. They are going to want this to continue. I'm very aware that everything we're doing now, it's not suddenly stopped. We've got to somehow fit this into our new normal. As Tom says, we're not just going to go back to normal lectures. Lectures are going to be forevermore live lectures, which are then live-streamed, available as an archive, and things like that, and it's totally going to change the expectations of our members.
[I think it's also giving us that concept of developing the equivalent of a digital membership, whereas it's not something you'd necessarily want to offer as the norm because obviously, that might be cheaper than a full-fledged membership, it does give you the option when you've got people, one of the biggest reasons we have for members who want to stop membership is, "I've got to a certain age. I can't make it into the museum anymore." To be able to say, "Actually, well why don't you consider downgrading to a digital membership, where you'd get your magazine and all these benefits," actually could be a real thing for us going forward, and with our international audience, so that's something we're really looking at developing. This is your ideal testing period, and it gives us the option of an additional product, almost, which, we will see how that goes. We're trying to work out at the moment what it could or couldn't include, what the pricing is, etc, because essentially we've got a whole generation who have miraculously been educated on digital media in two months. I thought I was going to literally have the next five years trying to introduce our audience to the world of YouTube and live streaming and things, and previously we've been looking at, "Okay, what sort of technical manuals? How do we make it as accessible as possible?" That's almost been taken away from us, which is kind of nice.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, it makes your life a little bit easier.
Claire Byfield:
It does.
Dan Sullivan:
Rosie, did you want to throw something in there too?
Rosie Siemer:W
ell, I wanted to acknowledge Claire, I love the way that you're thinking about that in terms of creating an entirely new product around your digital offerings because I think that right now a lot of organizations are still stuck in the traditional membership mindset of adding things on, to giving these digital experiences to existing members within the current structure of the existing membership program. Really, what we have here is an opportunity to build something entirely all its own, price it appropriately, and put it out there into the world. I think that we have it here too, a lot of new audiences. You're seeing perhaps a lot of your existing audiences participating and your older audiences being able to engage with digital for the first time. What all of these museums have done over the last several weeks has been truly amazing. It's opened the doors for a lot of new audiences to have their first experience and first touch with the organization. They may have never walked through the doors before. Trying to think about them in a way that we can be more responsive to what they might appreciate and value, and package that, and really the best way to do that is to create something. We've already done, I think, as an industry the first step in the design thinking terminology to build a prototype. We have these lecture series that have now been transitioned to an online format. We have digital content being sent out, packaged for parents, or things like that. Now what we can do is actually put a price around that and test it to see if we can understand the willingness to pay and where those additional revenue streams might come from.
Dan Sullivan:
I think that's a great question that we've got from, actually, from Douglas Carrion. His question is, "What are some new ways organizations have been bringing in revenue?" I'm interested to hear any of you that have seen something interesting here.
Rosie Siemer:
Yeah. I can maybe start. Some of the things that have really caught my eye recently, some of the zoos have been doing drive-through zoo experiences. Phoenix Zoo is one example. They put on a zoo cruise, and they've been selling out of that experience. One way to think about this, too, is that virtual experiences may be an umbrella term to include non-traditional ways of engaging on-site. Some organizations, botanic gardens, for example, have been doing plant sales or other types of activities where members can drive up and pick up things, curbside, so they don't actually go through the gate, but they're still participating in a remote way with an on-site experience.
There are other things that I've seen that are really creative, like the Cincinnati Zoo and some others are offering Zoom backgrounds and Zoom cameos by their animals and their keeps, and they're monetizing that by looking for donations to have that opportunity. Really creativity can bring all sorts of ideas for putting things out there. I would say that one thing I have also seen is organizations that are doing raffle type experiences. You give a donation and you have a chance to win something. I would just recommend that depending on your state, or country, you may want to, just make sure that you talk with your legal counsel about that because some states do have restrictions about how a non-profit can engage in games of chance. You just want to make sure that you're not getting into a situation where you're in violation of some of those laws.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Some interesting things, I've also seen the curator talks, one on one curator talks, some other interesting things. The Manitowoc Museum did a virtual murder mystery, which they posted online afterward, and asked for people to make a donation in order to be able to view it. If they're watching, feel free to update us on how that's going. There was another zoo, I think it's the Elmwood Park Zoo, which is doing cameos with their animals. Obviously not all art museums or history museums can do that, but conceptually it's just an interesting idea. You can get 15 minutes with a certain animal, and a zookeeper, talking a little bit about that animal, and then you pay for the 15 minutes or the 30 minutes and there's just a lot of interesting things coming out of that.
Claire or Tom, how about on your side? Are, are you seeing any interesting revenue-generating opportunities that are outside the box?
Claire Byfield:
No. I think mainly everything that the museums are doing, the media and the curator one on ones or the curators walking around the empty galleries for people, all these sorts of things, they're not being offered as revenue things. They're being offered on a donation basis because I think the main focus has been purely keeping that engagement, keep that retention and as soon as we're back to normal, we will come for your money, very much so, it sounds awful, but, it is, literally, everything we're trying to get some content and things at the moment. I don't know if In Britain there's a huge number of people who've been furloughed, so obviously they're not actually allowed to work. One of the challenges we've had with our content is, nearly all our curators got furloughed, which was because we were doing lots of interactive things, send in your questions for the curators. They will take you to the empty galleries, show you your favorite object, and it's suddenly like, "Oh, we can't do that anymore." We're trying to find different things. One of the things we're getting is our bug man. It sounds weird. He's in charge of keeping pests down at the museum. He actually has his own death room where he can put things in and suck all the air out to kill the bugs. These amuse me, admittedly, we're trying to see if we've got any weird and wonderful jobs in the museum that people might find interesting. Obviously, curators are the big draw, but there are some weird job descriptions we have,
Dan Sullivan:
For sure.
Claire Byfield:
Until recently we've had a British Museum cat.
Dan Sullivan:
Right on. Here's another question, actually, from the audience. This is from Lauren Cates, how do you imagine that private and public events will be different to boost revenue from the museum? Are you changing operations for private and public events? Tom, do you want to start with that one?
Tom Knowles:
I think initially, certainly, we have to tread really carefully. As Claire rightly said, again, really, retention and making sure that our members and our patrons and our supporters have been really generous in carrying on their support during this time, so I think coming at it straight off the cuff, and trying to get even more money from them and get even more support, it is going to be difficult. In terms of going forward, you mentioned the digital content, but I do think that's an area where we could potentially increase revenue, by having more people engaging in that perspective. If I'm honest, I don't think we are quite at that stage yet, where we have been thinking about being able to reach out. We don't really, honestly, know how our events program is going to look once we start, and what we're practically and physically going to be able to do. Sorry, not a very good answer, to a very good question.
Dan Sullivan:
That's okay.
Claire Byfield:
For the public and the commercial side of things, because that's a different team in our museum who does those, but obviously a lot of the commercial things are your banquets and those sorts and types of events. They are not going to be able to go ahead until possibly the earliest next year, but I think one of the things we're looking at is utilizing the fact that it can only be a limited number of people. What you can do if you've got headsets and things is you could do a tour of the gallery, two meters apart, with a curator, expert, giving quite an intimate tour, and you can charge a lot for that, because from our point of view, a British Museum curator is a world expert. You pay a lot for that privilege, for them to personally take you round a gallery, which would normally be packed, is now relatively empty. We can look at utilizing the emptiness to our advantage. There won't be drinks, there won't be big galas, but that intimacy could be a real benefit, I think.
How many people can get up to Rosetta Stone with a curator, with maybe a group of five. How much would you pay for that? There are ways we can investigate, and there's the option that you can take these exclusive, really special things and say, "This is available to a corporate partner only. This is available only to our patron’s group," and to utilize that to say, "Okay, you want something which we can offer uniquely at this period. This is the time to become one of those big contributors or sponsors of things to get this really unique benefit," because whereas normally those things we could only offer at very set times because the museum was open and full of thousands and thousands of people, we might be able to be offering that more frequently for a small period of time. There are options there.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely.
Tom Knowles:
I think people are desperate to change their environment, to interact with the arts, and everybody's feeling quite stifled at the moment, so I think the appetite is really there at the moment, and that can absolutely be used.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Rosie, do you want to throw anything in on that one?
Rosie Siemer:
Well, I just think that it's going to be a very long time before we have crowds for public events again and so yes, thinking about how that can be different, how you can achieve member events in a way that doesn't bring so many people together all at once is going to have to be really thought through, and I think the ability to sell timed tickets or cap your event attendance is going to be really important to make sure that you're staying within those guidelines so that people feel comfortable.
Dan Sullivan:
I think timed ticketing has been probably one of the most popular things we've been hearing about, especially as organizations start to set their sights on reopening, timed ticketing is one of the biggest conversations. Here's another good question from the audience, and this one is along the lines of what you were just talking about, Claire. A lot of our events involve fundraising, ticket sales, silent auctions, alcohol sales. How do you see fundraising events changing? If we are looking at online events, how can we include a fundraising element? Something I did notice, someone in the chat was actually mentioning that they are having some light asks in some of the online events that they're hosting. Interested to know your thoughts on this.
Claire Byfield:
I think asking for donations, particularly if you're giving additional content for free at the moment as an additional extra is totally an okay thing to do. We are treading a little bit carefully because obviously, we are reminding members that their membership is a donation. It's adding more on to that, but in general, I'd say things such as auctions and things, you can look at auctioning those special experiences and things we're talking about.
Fundraisers are a really difficult thing to do digitally, large fundraising events. If I'm honest, I wouldn't at the moment. It sounds a weird thing to say, but it's something I would save until you can open it and do it properly. I think there is something to be said that even though we think, "Okay, we've got to do everything now, we've got to do everything digitally," and there's a lot of stuff we do need to do, certain things still have to be done properly, and particularly fundraising events. Sometimes you're only doing them once a year, for instance. Save it for when it has the best impact because you can't go after people. There's obviously a limited amount of times you can ask for money without people getting annoyed. Make sure you use those asks wisely. What I'd say is use this opportunity for your really high donors to do those one-on-one experiences that they're after, they're craving, and they can do those. You can get them in and give them that intimate experience.
Your larger fundraising event, save it. Yes, there may be a small financial hit, but everyone knows that at the moment. Don't waste your opportunity on something digital, where you can't showcase, because a lot of these events and things, it's not just about the museum collection and everything. Your biggest selling asset is the building itself. It's coming into that environment and having this wonderful location, and feeling special because you're next to an object, or you're under this amazing architecture or whatever it is. Don't underestimate that, is my advice.
Dan Sullivan:
Rosie, did you want to throw something in on that?
Rosie Siemer:
I agree with Claire in terms of being able to do things the right way, especially for a gala type of an event. I have seen some good examples of organizations doing some virtual fundraising events. They aren't the same. They're not taking the in-person and trying to make it that experience. It seems to me that the ones that are being successful are creating new, virtual gatherings, or they're making it a fundraising focus but they're doing it in a way that allows people to participate in place. It might be a wine tasting, and you get your own wine, and it's a facilitated tasting and pairing, but you're doing it with other people so it makes it have that social feel, and you're never going to be able to really recreate that experience as you would if you were on site. I do think you can be successful and perhaps, thinking about it in a way that it doesn't have to be so big. It can be smaller fundraising events, over a period of time. A little more casual perhaps, and a little bit of a different experience that you can offer.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. We've got about three minutes left. I've got one more question for Rosie, and that's, how do you start to build a new sustainable business model? Everybody's thinking about revenue. Is there a good framework for doing that? Where do you even start?
Rosie Siemer:
Yeah. In my new book, I do share a framework for how to build a business model, that Cuseum can maybe share that with everybody after the fact. The idea would be that what you really want to focus on are a few key elements to that business model. So as you're thinking about monetizing these virtual experiences the first step would be your customer segment. Who is it that you are actually creating this new product or offering for? For example, if it's parents with kids at home, you have to think about their motivation, and what it is that they're trying to achieve, what is their goal, so that you can actually build that product specifically for them, and then, of course, you want to think about how you're going to be able to scale that, so what are the resources that are going to be involved. In terms of pricing, I think one of the best ways to go about pricing is to ask people what they value. You don't even want to ask them straight out what they would pay for something because it's really hard for people to think about what something's worth to them, but you can explore that willingness to pay in other ways.
You can ask them to talk to you about how this visual experience has helped them in their life, what the value they think it brings, and then you have to just get out there and test it. I think, right now, a great practice would be to put a little disclaimer on all of your free content, "Complimentary as of today," making people aware that in the future this may be something that they're going to be charged for, and really start putting in place and thinking about how you're going to be able to ticket or have people pay for those experiences, and at a minimum be thinking about how you can, do data capture, because even if you're not able to actually monetize those experiences right now, at least you could be capturing information about who these people are, and start building loyalty and a relationship with them after the fact.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. I think one of the most interesting things that this comes down to is just revisiting that classic, "Am I a member to support the mission or for the financial incentive?" That all boils down to messaging and positioning. I've got one last question for our panelists here. What is one big takeaway that you would want each person watching to be able to consider and bring back to their organization? Rosie, do you want to start us off?
Rosie Siemer:
Sure. My big takeaway would be to hypothesize, test, validate, and then do it over again. I really believe you can't make any mistakes right now, so try some new things, put it out there and see how people respond. If it doesn't work, you can iterate and tweak it and try something new again.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Claire?
Claire Byfield:
Again, I think testing is really important right now, but also to be aware that whatever you do that’s successful, and there are some really fantastic things people are doing, you're going to be expected to keep doing it. This is something that I keep thinking about. Whatever we're doing now, people now expect forevermore. Be aware of that and plan that into your future contingencies. Even when things go back to normal it's not going to be normal.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely, Tom?
Tom Knowles:
I think that our audiences have a new appreciation of digital events and digital content and are willing to pay for it now, and would be in the future, so think about how you can potentially incorporate that into your ordinary events program.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Thank you to all three of our panelists. A couple of quick things before you go. A recording for the webinar is going to be available later today on the Cuseum website, as well as a link to our shared Google document with the coronavirus resources and some community ideas. As mentioned, we've got a part two of sorts, for this webinar this Wednesday, two o'clock eastern time. It's called Preparing to Reopen: Experimenting with New Digital Revenue Streams on the Road to Reopening. Link for registration will be available on the Cuseum website later today or tomorrow. Thank you again to our awesome panelists. You were great. So many awesome insights, and to all of you who tuned in, we appreciate you being here and as always, stay safe, stay healthy during these unusual times, and hopefully, we'll see you soon.
Looking for more information? Check out our coronavirus resources page.