Answering the big questions with Big Data

Cimeon EllertonHead of Programmes

What I’ll talk about

• About Big Data

• Audience Finder / Visitor Finder

• What we know about audiences and

visitors

• Audience Spectrum – UK

segmentation and profiling tool

Big Data…

What is big data?

Sharks vs Whales

Small Data Sharks

Smells blood [hypothesis] and targets specific prey [answers]

Big Data Whales

• Smells blood [hypothesis] and targets specific prey Captures everything in its path and filters out what is useful

What really matters

Quality & Reliability – The 5 Rs

1. Recency2. Robustness3. Representative4. Relevant5. Revealing

a Big Data approach means

collecting as much info as

possible and then assessing

its value

I think I’m a shark but I’d like to be a whale3 steps to evidence based visitor planning and engagement

1. Context matters

2. Standardised and aggregated

3. TAA can help manage and interpret the data

Become Herring

Sometimes they are filter feeders like many whales

Working together in shoals they hunt crustaceans like sharks

Responding to the environment and working together they are more successful

Case study: Visitor Finder

What is Visitor Finder?

A service to help museums collect and use data to understand their visitors and support:

• Audience Development• Advocacy• Planning• Reporting

Aligned with Audience Finder, supported by Arts Council England, but designed for museums

227 Museums collecting

standardised data

14 clusters of museums

working together

Visitor

Finder

Understanding visitors using Audience Spectrum

Using national data to understand differences between

visitors and audiences – actual and potential

Culturally specific profiling tool

MetroculturalsCommuterland

Culturebuffs

Experience

Seekers

Dormitory

Dependables

Trips &

Treats

Home &

Heritage

Up Our

Street

Facebook

Families

Kaleidoscope

CreativityHeydays

Why?

Different people wantdifferent things fordifferent reasons, havedifferent barriers and need different messages

You can vary:

Price

Product

Place

Promotion…

and get:

More visitors

More often

More money!

What Audience Spectrum tells us

• Metroculturals HIGHEST propensity to attend Musuems

• Commuterland Culturebuffs HIGHEST propensity to attend Heritage

• Up Our Street LEAST likely to donate overall, • 3 x more likely to give to Museums or

Heritage

• 1/4 Home & Heritage are National Trust membersU

Visitor Finder results so far...

1

10

100

1,000

10,000

15,705Visitors surveyed and counting…

Who are museum audiences?

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

22%

20%

14%14%

8% 8%

3%

1%

9%

1%

5%

12%

8%

17% 17%

9%

7%

13%

10%

4%

Visitor Finder MuseumsEngland

Who are museum audiences?

• Metroculturals are the most OVER represented – unsurprising

• Trips and treats are significantly UNDER represented – an opportunity?

Understanding first time visitors

For a

spe

cial o

ccas

ion

For p

eace

and

qui

et

To e

njoy

the

atm

osph

ere

To e

scap

e fro

m e

very

day

life

For p

rofe

ssiona

l rea

sons

To spe

nd ti

me

with

friend

s/fa

mily

For r

eflec

tion

To b

e in

spire

d

For a

cade

mic re

ason

s

To b

e en

tertaine

d

Visit

ing

mus

eum

s is

an im

portan

t par

t of w

ho I

am

To e

nter

tain

my

child

ren

To b

e in

telle

ctua

lly stim

ulat

ed

To le

arn

som

ethi

ng

To e

duca

te/ s

timul

ate

my

child

ren

To d

o so

met

hing

new

/out

of t

he o

rdin

ary

Other

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

52%46%

41% 41%

33% 32% 31% 30% 27% 26% 26% 24% 22% 21% 20%14%

30%

48%54%

59% 59%

67% 68% 69% 70% 73% 74% 74% 76% 78% 79% 80%86%

70%

Visited before

First timers

Motivations to attend

FOUR TIMES as many first time visitors attend to:

Educate / stimulate my children

HALF of all attendees attend:

For a special occasion

Understanding drivers of visits

Physical Word of mouth Digital Other0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

45%

29%

23% 24%

55%

71%

77% 76%

Visited before

First timers

First timers most likely to be prompted by DIGITAL

Possible actions

• Great DIGITAL comms for first time visitors

• Grow Trips & Treats and possibly Facebook Families

• Demonstrate what’s SPECIAL about you

• Look after metroculturals, commuterland culturebuffs and experience seekers

Caveats

• Not much data yet from some organisations

• Your context is as important as these indicative findings

• Always consider your mission when planning audience development

Case study: The power of quantitative surveys

Outdoor Arts findings

• Mainly ‘Medium engaged’

• Very local (58%, cf. Arts Centres 49% and

Opera/ballet 20%)

• Social, rather than intellectual motivations

Other data sources: Digital and online

Hitwise: Online analytics

Millions of UK based internet users tracked, analysed and modeled

• Find out what visitors searched before they arrived at your website

• Find out where they went after visiting your website

• Great companion to Google Analytics• Can also compare clusters of websites

What Hitwise tells us

ASPIRING HOMEMAKERS• Younger households

settling down in housing priced within their means

• 9% of UK households

Case study: Cambridge Museums

Working together to see the bigger picture

• Consistent method of audience data collection and benchmarking

• Provide UCM with usable and practical insights into their visitors

• Strategic overview of visitor trends and comparison with other national museum clusters

Key findings

• 54% of visits by new visitors

• 35% of visitors on holiday

• Visitors are staying

• 64% of visitors are not specialists

Outcomes

Cambridge University Museums have used this for:• Reporting and funding• HLF Audience Development Plans• Rebranding• Internal advocacy• Focus groups• Partnership development

The Future: Bigger, Open, Social, Digital, Predictive

R&D to bring you more

• Social Network Analysis - what are the conversations that really matter and who's influential in having them?

• Predictive Analytics - stop driving looking in the rear view mirror, look forward to the future by learning from the past

• e.g. Membership - find members in your attenders

- Who visitors are

- Where they live

- What they do

- What they think

Visitor Finder will tell us

Be Herring...

Thank you!

cimeon.ellerton@theaudienceagency.org