Reading Paul S.'s post on museum management got me thinking about another problem that's really been eating at me for a while. Not directly related to the management of preservation, per se, so much as reaching out to the community. So I thought I'd start another thread for it.

When I talk to friends and family, it quite often comes up that I'm a railfan (I wear steam locomotive and railroad logo shirts a lot, among other things). And it's really pretty surprising how many people are truly interested in steam, but have no idea it still exists. Especially people with little kids - obviously, the little blue guy is quite popular. No offense to the diesel fans out there, but steam is very recognizable. Problem is, even if my friends and family are very close to a steam railroad, generally, they don't know about it. This concerns me.

On the other end of the spectrum, toy train shows that I have been to have been very well attended. The groups that I have seen have been easily split into two groups: hardcore modelers who want to make sure that their HO NYC L-3b has the correct type of boxpok wheels in Proto:87, and the families who come to see the little choo-choo trains run around little tracks. I've been reminded about toy train shows multiple times by non-hardcore-railfans around me. They know about the shows - when they are, where they are - and they go. A lot. And I don't have to tell them - they tell me about it, and remind me multiple times. All by themselves, or so it seems.

The train shows are doing something right marketing-wise that the preservation community is missing. The railfan/modeler group from the toy train shows - they're perfectly covered. Once you're in the railfan/modeler/preservation community, it's easy to learn more about it. But the other group - the casual fans/families - that's who needs to be reached out to.

Even my grandparents, who rode the Durango and Silverton years ago, did not know about one of the larger steam railroads within 2 hours of their house in the Midwest until a few months ago. Durango reached them, when the local railroad didn't. It's a lot further away - they got something big right.

I told a number of people I knew who were within comfortable driving distance about TrainFestival 2009, and a number of them attended. But, judging by the number of people who thought it was an "every year" thing, I have a feeling that this was the first contact with actual, real, old trains for a lot of the people that went, and that word-of-mouth did very well for reaching them. The marketing for that event worked well, and I think there's a good possibility that if that pattern was repeated, either at Owosso or someplace else, it would also be a success.

Now, I'd love to see every piece of equipment out there saved and preserved. But IMHO, unless some more casual fans are pulled to the dark side and realize how cool trains really are, our long-term preservation quest is doomed. Long story short, while we quarrel about the management and mismanagement or projects, (properly done) marketing and advertising are falling by the wayside, and people who would be very happy railfans if given the chance never learn.

So, I've said my peace. My question is, what are everyones' thoughts on this? What's worked, what hasn't, and how can we learn from this?

I can tell you what some of the larger traveling model train shows are doing. For a typical weekend show there's likely to be $5,000 or more in mass media advertising (mainly newspaper and TV), another $3,000-5,000 in direct mail advertising to established customers (start collecting contact info, folks!), e-mail blasts, and ads in magazines like Model Railroader. There are also press kits mailed out to all local newspapers, TV and radio stations. There are a few large train shows whose advertising budget is $50,000 or more for one weekend and they're typically able to garner over 20,000 attendees over two days. A heavily advertised toy train show in Oaks, PA last January drew over 40,000 on one weekend.

The PR side works best, however, on an occasional basis. The newspaper will cover the toy train show that runs once a year, but if the railway museum is open every weekend then that's no longer "news." The mass media advertising is strongly geared towards the family market (not a bad thing for museums, IMHO) - but from experience, the ROI for heavy advertising is only there if the location is within a major metro area where there's a significant population with ~20 minute drive. I'm not sure how well this marketing/advertising plan would translate from toy train show to museum, and I'd be interested in how well-marketed lines like D&S do it.

I recently helped a small organization brainstorm an event - it turns out it will be railfan oriented, and will primarily appeal to that narrower prospective market. The program was decided before the event was created, and marketing followed both considerations. It will be newsworthy, and will bring in some new faces, but the major audience will be those who already know about the operation and have visited in the past.

The producers are railfans and the organization is composed of railfans - they are producing what they would like to see.

I advised them to produce a broad ranging family day out based on seasonal celebrations and traditions, and offer it to people who couldn't care less about trains, but who probably would ride once they were there enjoying the other attraction bundle, and might like it so much they would return and tell their friends.

My unpopular POV wasn't adopted for this event (no surprise), but I hope it planted some seeds for future thinking - and perhaps a different marketing approach such that the target audience / event mission of "bringing in a new broad market segment not based on an interest in trains and converting them into repeat customers" is the basis for then choosing the programming and defining and offering the event itself.

Probably nobody in our industry is marketing better than Al Harper's people - and they are still building events around rail themes. Could we build events around universal themes and simply include a short, impulse priced train ride element into the larger picture, and create a new semirailfan market who will ride trains if they are around them, but aren't particularly interested otherwise? I'm thinking we have to - if increasing market share is desireable. We also have to make sure the event / ride itself is enjoyable or we have just eliminated an audience instead of building one.

Academics and historians aren't enough to support museums and historic sites, railfans aren't enough to suppport tourist railroads, and we need to take a larger picture view of ourselves as an element of the entertainment industry and make programming and marketing decisions accordingly to compete on that field.

dave

Another parallel to this is outreach to even the non-rail events.

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum has recently begun sending one member's 1960s GM bus--painted as a B&O bus--to various Baltimore street festivals, to promote the BSM. It works exceedingly well as an attraction, and it'll do until someone figures out how to send a PCC on rubber tires!

Imagine if the B&O Museum made their road tractor road-worthy enough to attend street festivals in the territory in which they worked.

And, of course, a few local festivals are lucky/fortunate enough to be able to get a local railroad to show up to offer train rides--such as Danville, Pa. last weekend or so......

The Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, CA now has a billboard on HWY 395 headed north out of Reno, as well as being one of the multitude of corporations sponsoring the popular Hot August Nights car show in Reno. As a result the increase of visitors taking part in our Run-a-Locomotive program has increased dramatically as well as our overall exposure in the Reno/Tahoe market.



Chris Allan

Your experience may vary:
In 1966-8, when New Hope & Ivyland (Penna.) RR started trying to run steam passenger trains out of a tourist trap borough, part of the way they bankrupted themselves was heavy television and newspaper advertising between Philadelphia and New York. It didn't pay off quickly, but even in 1975-7, they were still getting passengers who gave the reason for coming as "saw your ad years ago".

While I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to the marketing issue, I think the bottom line is that no matter what your target audience is, a little marketing will help. Case in point: I live about 4.5 hours from the Orange Empire Railway Museum. I've always known that it existed, and had an extensive collection. But, I'd never visited. About 2 years ago, my wife saw a small ad they'd placed in the AAA magazine (Trailways I think it's called), for their "Run 1 Locomotive" program. She signed me up as a birthday surprise. I would not have spent the money on myself, but when I was essentially duped into showing up at the museum, I had no choice. I HAD A BLAST. Not only did I enjoy operating the locomotive, but I devoured the collection. In the 2 years since, I've driven the 4.5 hours 3 additional times, and taken 4 additional people to the museum. If it hadn't been for that ad, it simply wouldn't have happened.

Marketing does not always have to be expensive. A local small town library with a speakers program managed to attract a pretty large turnout for a railroad industry presentation just by printing up flyers and distributing them to popular restaurants and other local businesses. There are a lot of folks who would like to have a look at the railroad industry and railroad equipment if they knew when and where events were being held. The thing is, you have got to get the word out to people who are "outside the fence". Telling your own members about events by an e-mail list does nothing to get that information to the general public. Having a hopelessly out of date website is the worst of all, it makes people outside your organization think that you are out of business. And having a nice website full of pretty photography that does not clearly state your location, operating hours, contact information, and provide driving directions and a detailed list of upcoming events, is pretty much a waste of effort.

There are some organizations in this industry and hobby that are approaching "stealth" status. It takes a determined effort for anybody outside their immediate membership to find out where they are located, when they have meetings, and what their activities are. In general, those organizations are wasting their own members time and effort, as there will eventually be nobody left to carry on their mission.

PC

No matter what your museum's approach to marketing, a targeted marketing program will require oversight. Museum leadership should recruit (cajole? ask? etc.) a member with promotional smarts to focus on outreach. A by-the-way-get-the-brochures-printed approach works about as well as slapping a coat of paint on a piece of equipment. It looks pretty, but is not so impressive as full restoration.

"Marketing does not always have to be expensive," says PCook who is spot on. Here are some tips to help stretch your museum's marketing dollar:

partner with a college or community college for marketing and/or graphic design student interns

publicize your museum to daily, weekly, special interest publications as well as appropriate blogs

build relationships with charter bus operators and tour agencies

introduce your museum to state and regional tourism agencies/convention & visitors bureaus as well as film bureaus (rail museums make good movie sites)

make your museum a destination: i.e. camp site for touring motor homes or Harley owners; vintage automobile or antique machinery site; art show etc.

have an exhibit at community events, model railroad shows etc. Be sure your exhibit has lighting that spotlights a major aspect of your museum. Lighted exhibits attract more visitors than unlit. Tabletop displays are inexpensive and easily transportable in gymbag-style cases. For lighting you can use off-the-shelf spots from a home center store.

if feasible, have a viewing area in a shop so visitors can safely watch restoration progress
this is a huge draw at Colonial Williamsburg. When people see restoration sweat, they are more inclined to contribute

Sloan

Although there are a number of methods for successfully promoting heritage railroading, we have found that some of the basics include:

1) Printing and effectively distributing a simple, colorful and attractive rack card or brochure, with just enough information to "hook the fish, but not feed it". Include basic schedule and pricing information, contact information (including web site), as well as photographs of people enjoying whatever activity is offered. Be sure and have something eye-catching at the top of the card or brochure, since the lower portion will be hidden by other cards in the rack. Brochures and cards can be disseminated through visitors centers, hobby shops and rack-card services such as Certified Folder Display. Check the racks in motel lobbies to see what the other area attractions are doing, and follow suit.

2) Capture contact information from guests and place these guests on a mailing list, so that they will receive your brochure, newsletter and other pertinent information annually. More importantly, asking for their e-mail address so that they can be reached electronically. Offer special deals and preferential treatment to these repeat customers.

3) With a soft economy, people are seeking out the discounts. Place codes on all discount coupons, to effectively track which promotional outlets are working.

4) Consider utilizing a ticket-distribution firm for your organization. In addition to organizing the ticketing process (including on-line and 1-800 phone-room services), their integrated computerized systems will provide many opportunities to track marketing (see items 2 and 3), send out large e-mail blasts, and otherwise reach larger numbers of people. The cost to your organization is minimal, and the public is accustomed to dealing with service fees assessed by these providers. If your guests don't want to pay the fees, arrange your contract so that fees are waived for box-office (walk-up) customers, and inform those guests accordingly.

5) Utilize outdoor advertising for special events. If properly managed, the vinyls can be rotated and re-used, to keep a fresh look. For minimal dollars, billboard extensions will get you "out of the box" and provide more of a 3-dimensional look. With the soft economy, some billboard-management firms will even place vinyls on a vacant board at little or no cost, as a public service for non-profit entities.

6) Selectively utilize a reputable PR firm to promote special events. It will be pricey, but such a firm can be very effective in getting television and other "free" media coverage to promote the event.

7) Build relationships with businesses and lodging properties in the area. Establish a concierge (i.e. "kickback") program with the lodging properties. Money talks! By greasing the palms of the guest-services people, there will be many referrals. Our program offers a $5.00 total discount, with $2.00 going to the concierge and $3.00 going to the guest. The guest brings a referral card with the concierge's contact information written on it, we give the guest the discount at the ticket window, and mail a check (bi-monthly) to the concierge. This can be expanded to other referral outlets.

The most important thing is to understand your customer base and build upon it. Regardless of personal feelings related to railway preservation, we are in the entertainment business and must compete in that arena. We have to present ourselves (repeatedly) in ways that will first let people know we are here, and then convince them that a visit to our facility is worth their time, effort and expense.

Craig Lacey
Executive Director
Heber Valley Railroad

Nicely done!



Well, there you go. Exactly what I was driving at with my initial rant. All summarized into one clear, concise sentence. :)



This is one that I'd really like to see pushed further. As mentioned earlier, at least in my area they are very well attended by casual railfans. I think if the people that I've talked to that go to these knew about all the other stuff around, they would definitely visit it.

Now, as I've thought about this, there is one railroad in the area that seems to do quite well. It's 100% diesel, and all passenger service. Not hugely successful, but stable traffic for about as long as I can remember that's been enough to keeping things running smoothly and occasional improvements and acquisitions. Probably their biggest draw are the seasonal/themed events - Halloween train, Christmas train, Easter train, mystery train, train robbers, etc. The ways they promote it (at least, that I've seen) are:

1. They have a section of their track running next to a highway, and they regularly have a number of highly visible signs promoting their upcoming events for a few months out.

2. They (as mentioned by chlacey) and distribute rack brochures.

Those are about the only methods of promotion that I've seen. Not slam-dunk-level success, but they've been stable enough to keep running smoothly, even through hard times. Which, sadly, is more than can be said about a number of other museums as of late.

Some very nice suggestions there, folks. Anything else anyone can add? I'd love to see more of this kind of stuff implemented.

Last week, I saw three different styles of transit ads ("car cards") for WRM on AC Transit (Oakland and east bay, CA) buses. This is a new campaign, I understand.

The decline in old-fashioned transit advertising is quite striking (the newest AC buses don't even have tracks to mount car cards), but that's another topic.

My personal opinion is that most groups fail to pull from their local communities. The attitude is they know we are here so we need to spend our efforts advertising farther afield to increase our attendance. Unfortunately this is the worst assumption people can make. We started up our Halloween show 2 years ago. Our so called marketing experts pushed to spend the advertising budget in communities far away from our local communities. We barely broke even with just 200 people coming. Last year those of us who put the show together also took over the advertising. We did most of our advertising in free venues in the local communities. We approach towns and filed for the permits to put advertising signage on local town greens and community open spaces. We went from around $2000.00 income to $25000.00. We plan on expanding on this and expect to top $50,000.00 in revenue from this event this year.