There's a real difference between a museum that's surviving and one that's truly thriving, and Amy is digging into exactly what separates them. In this episode, she walks through the three keys that move a museum from one to the other. She's also introducing a way to work together this month.

Links from the Episode:

• Grab the free Summer Survival Guide
• Strategy On Sale: a 60-minute 1:1 strategy session for $97, available this September only

More Free Resources for Museums:

• Getting Visitors Through Your Museum’s Doors: Building Connection in a Noisy World ebook
• Museum Planning Calendar
• Museum Metrics Template

About the host:

Amy Kehs is a brand strategist and communications expert for museums. She has owned Kehs Communications since 2000 and has worked for the most renowned and well-loved museums in Washington, D.C. Her goal is to ensure that museums thrive into the next century and she hopes people will come to love museums as much as she does. Her proven process sets up proactive communication habits for museums, cultivating relationships with visitors who will want to return and bring a friend. Want to talk more? Click this link to book a call.

There's a big difference between a museum that is surviving

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and a museum that's thriving.

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Today, I wanna talk about what actually

moves a museum from one to the other.

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Let's get started

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Hello, and welcome to the

Love My Museum podcast.

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I'm your host, Amy Kehs,

and I love museums.

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I'm also a brand strategist and

communications expert for museums and

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the creator of the Love My Museum method.

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So if you work in a museum and you

wanna get more visitors through your

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doors, you're in the right place.

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My method will help with that.

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I've spent decades helping museums

just like yours become places their

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communities can't stop talking about.

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This month, I am celebrating 26

years of my business, which is Kehs

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Communications, and I'm using these

anniversary episodes this month to share

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what all those years have taught me.

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If you're new here, welcome.

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If you caught the last episode

called 26 Years In, you know

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it got a little personal.

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I talked about how one big chapter in my

life is closing, my youngest just headed

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off to college, and how this has meant

a change and a chance for a new chapter

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for how I also work in my business.

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So after 26 years, my business has kind

of naturally evolved to not just doing

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the implementation work for clients,

but also teaching them how to run

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the communication strategy at their

museum so that it's more than just a

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PR plan for their exhibit opening, but

something that they consistently do all

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year long, saving their team time and

frustration and creating more traction

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with their visitors and the media.

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And the trainings and the teaching

this work that I've really been loving

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a lot lately, and that's been really

helping my clients and the museums that

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I'm working with, is where I'm kind of

pouring some more energy in right now

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and figuring out new ways to help you.

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And today I want to build on that

because there's a version and

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a lesson of this for you too.

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Just like I'm stepping into a new

chapter both in my life and also how

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I work, I think a lot of you might be

ready for a new chapter too, a chapter

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where your museum isn't just scraping

by, but where it's actually thriving.

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And so today I wanna answer a

question I think about all the time.

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What actually separates a museum

that's just surviving from a

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museum that's truly thriving?

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So let me start with those two words

that I just said and that are in

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the title, surviving and thriving,

because the difference between them

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is what this whole episode is about.

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So surviving looks like this.

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You probably are getting

some visitors in the door.

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Attendance might be a little

flat, but it's, it's holding.

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You will do maybe a big PR push,

marketing push around an exhibit

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opening, but then things kind of go

quiet again until the next big push.

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You're getting by.

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But it feels like you're always starting

over, feels like you're spinning your

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wheels, and it just always feels like

you're working hard just to stay in the

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same place Thriving looks different.

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Visitors come and they come back,

and they bring a friend, and they

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fold your museum into their lives.

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The seasonal program that they

can't miss, they do it every year.

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It's the place that they

take out-of-town guests.

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Um, teachers have built a trip to

your museum into their curriculum,

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and they come year after year.

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Your community knows that you

are there, not just when you have

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something big to promote, but all

year long, and that's the difference.

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Surviving is one-time visits.

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Thriving is people who return, and

they bring a friend, and they have

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built your museum into their lives.

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And here is the belief that I

really want to challenge today.

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So many museums treat

communications as a nice-to-have.

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I hear that all the time.

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"Oh my gosh, it would be so nice

to be able to hire you, Amy.

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Oh, what a luxury it would

be to be able to hire you."

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It's something you get to when

there's time and budget left

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over, which there never is.

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And I want to say this as plainly as I

can: communications is not a nice-to-have.

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It is a need.

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It's the thing that moves you

from surviving to thriving.

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You have to let people know that

you're there, just like you have

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to fix the hole in the ceiling.

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Because thriving doesn't

happen by accident.

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It happens because people hear

from you consistently in a way

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they understand and repeat.

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And it's, it's also a

chicken and egg situation.

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You want the donors, you want the people

who are going to sponsor your, uh,

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program and pledge money year after year

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Those people also need to know, like,

and trust you before they will do that

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Now, let me tell you a little story

how I learned some of this myself.

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It's kind of related, because

I didn't always know it.

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Back in 2019, I went to a conference

called Momentum, and honestly, it

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changed how I thought about my own

business and also how I thought about

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museums and museum public relations.

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For the first time, I met other

business owners and I found a community.

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I had been running my business on

my own for a long time, and I had

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never really found that before.

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I I felt very included and very much

a part of the, the offices where I was

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helping, but I didn't really have people

that understood the business owner aspect.

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I didn't have a community until

I went to this conference.

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I'd been running my business on

my own for a long time, and I just

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had never really found that before.

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I also learned at that conference

that there was a lot I still had

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to learn about running a business.

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I realized that I could be more proactive.

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I didn't just have to sit around and wait

for the phone to ring about a new project.

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I could do some marketing.

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I could use social media to help

people find the work that I did and

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also tell them how I could help them.

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And here's why this matters for you.

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Once I saw what being proactive and clear

and consistent and confident did for me,

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I couldn't unsee it for my museum clients.

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So many museums are in exactly

the spot that I was in, doing

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great work, but quietly, waiting

to be discovered, treating their

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own communications as optional.

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That's exactly what I was

doing for my own business then.

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The very thing that changed things for

me is the thing I now want to teach you.

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Now, of course, a small business

is very different than a museum.

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But because I also have 30

years in working in museums,

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I know how to translate that.

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I know that you can be

proactive about your community.

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You don't have to wait to be found.

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So how do you actually do it?

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And this is where I wanna walk you

through the framework that I now teach

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called the Love My Museum method.

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It has three keys, and each one moves you

further from surviving towards thriving.

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The first key is brand messaging.

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This is your foundation.

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It's, like I said, it's being clear,

consistent, and confident about

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who your museum is and why your

museum matters to the community.

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When someone lands on your website or

scrolls past your social media post or

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hears a friend mention you at dinner,

they should immediately understand what

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your museum is and why they should care.

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If your visitors can't repeat that

message, they're not going to remember

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it, and they won't be able to share

it when you're not in the room.

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That clarity is what makes people

know you, like you, and trust

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you And it is critical, critical

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For people to fall in

love with your museum

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You want to be a place

your community loves

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In a place that they value and

will fight for if they need to.

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Now, museums will tell me, "Well,

Amy, we have brand messaging.

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We have a mission statement."

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But your mission statement

is an internal document.

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It's something that drives your board and

your staff and helps you make decisions

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about exhibit content and programming.

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It is not brand messaging.

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Your brand messaging should be

a story that your visitors can

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relate to and see themselves in.

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It should make them feel something

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The second key is visitor experience.

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And here's something that

surprises a lot of museum leaders.

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The visitor experience does not start

when someone parks in your parking

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lot or walks through your doors.

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It starts the moment they find you online.

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A Google search, your

website, your Instagram.

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If that first online experience is

confusing or outdated, you lose people

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before they even decide if they want

to step foot inside your museum.

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A great visitor experience runs all

the way from that first click online

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to how they are greeted when they

walk in, to how you maintain that new

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relationship after they have left.

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The third key is media relations, and

this is the one I wanna spend an extra

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minute on because it's where a lot of

museums have a huge untapped opportunity.

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And here is the truth.

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The world trusts what other

people say about you far more

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than what you say about yourself.

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A great endorsement is worth more than

another ad and a story in the paper or

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a review or a friend's recommendation.

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Those do the heavy lifting that no ad

budget is going to be able to replicate.

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And here's the part that ties

back to my daring move from the

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last episode if you listened.

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Media relations cannot start three

months before your exhibit opening.

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As someone who has been the PR firm that's

called in for an exhibit opening, I'll

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tell you that once in a year approach

is not what builds a thriving museum.

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Those relationships with journalists,

they need to be year-round and consistent

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and steady, and you don't need to hire

a PR firm once a year for an exhibit.

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You need to build and keep those

relationships yourself all year long.

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That is what being top of

mind actually looks like.

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So those are the three keys:

brand messaging, visitor

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experience, and media relations.

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And notice what they all have in common.

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None of them is about

having the biggest budget.

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Every one of them is about being

clear and consistent and confident

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in the story that your museum tells.

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You do not need to have a big budget

for your museum to thrive You just

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need to show up steadily with a

message that your community can repeat.

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And if you want a practical place

to start building that kind of

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steadiness, that's exactly what

my Summer Survival Guide is for.

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It's free.

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It's the whole summer series that we just

wrapped up at the end of August in one

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PDF, and it helps you put systems in place

so that your communications doesn't fall

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apart when you're busy or short-staffed.

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It helps you stay consistent.

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And here's what I really want you to hear.

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If you did that work this summer, if

you've been following along, if you

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started documenting your tasks and

setting up those systems and getting

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things out of your own head, you have

already started your own new chapter.

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That work wasn't just about surviving

the summer or finally taking a vacation.

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It's the foundation of a

museum that thrives all year.

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So the same way that I'm stepping into

a new chapter after 26 years, you can

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step into one too, one where your museum

runs steadily, your community hears from

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you all year, and you're not holding

the whole thing together by yourself.

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The guide link is in the show notes, and

I'll also remind you about it at the end

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of the episode too to go and grab it.

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So here's your action for this week.

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I want you to look honestly at

where your museum is spending

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its communications energy, and

I want you to ask two questions.

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First, are you mostly surviving

or mostly thriving right now?

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And be honest with yourself.

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Are you doing big pushes and

then going quiet, or are you

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showing up steadily all year?

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Second, of the three keys that we

talked about today, brand messaging,

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visitor experience, and media relations,

which one is your weakest right now?

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You don't have to fix it this week.

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I really believe that

identifying and naming the gap

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is how you start to close it.

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Finally, before I go, I want

to tell you about something new

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that I'm trying this September.

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I'm calling it Strategy On Sale, or SOS.

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For a limited time, I'm offering a

60-minute strategy session one-on-one with

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me for the discounted hourly rate of $97.

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You bring whatever is on your mind,

could be communication strategy,

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messaging, media relations, social

media, planning, you name it, and

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we spend an hour on it together.

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Think of it as your chance to phone a

friend, a friend who happens to know

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a lot about museum communications.

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And if that sounds like what you

need, the link is in the show notes.

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And of course, if you just want to

start on your own for now, you can

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grab that free Summer Survival Guide.

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That link is in the show notes, too.

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And that's all for today.

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Keep loving your museum,

and I'll see you next time