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I have been asking these questions for years. I liked your statement of "blanketing your region with a gazillion brochures to see what sticks", because that seems to be the way museums have marketed, without much actual evidence of how effective these brochures are or have been. Or at least, when I have asked about it on this (and other) listservs, received almost no data. 

Some years ago we did ask this question from some of our customers, and one response does stick in my mind. One teacher indicated that a paper copy did help facilitate planning within her team. However, we also include a pdf of our brochure for downloading on our website, so folks can print out a paper copy. 

From a personal perspective, my city recently changed its mailed program brochure to a website. Although I did always look through the brochure, I rarely, if ever, go to the website. 

I have heard of some museums using a postcard to invite teachers to a website. Sorry, I don't know who has done this or if they see success with this. It does seem like a good compromise. 


Maija Sedzielarz 
Project Lead, School Visit Programs 
Science Museum of Minnesota 
120 W. Kellogg Blvd. 
St. Paul MN 55102 
651-221-4554 
[log in to unmask] 

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World exhibition is at the museum through October 24, 2010. Experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: see authentic 2,000-year-old manuscripts, including the earliest biblical writings. www.smm.org/scrolls/educators 



From: "Dante Centuori" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 7:51:42 AM 
Subject: Field Trip guides--paper or electrons? 

ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers 
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. 
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It is that time of year again-when institutions like ours are getting their big Field Trip guides off to the printers! Thinking ahead, I was wanting to get an idea of how other places are starting to "go digital" with their school audience. Here, we have found that our general public and family audiences are more responsive (camps registrations are almost all online, e-blasts and e-newsletters have high click-through rates, etc.) and we have cut back somewhat our reliance on print-brochures for those audiences. 

But for schools, rather than a shift, there seems to be a split community-there is a cluster of teachers and schools that are shifting electronically and another peak that still needs and wants brochures. We don't want to lose audiences by "forcing them" to use e-mail and the internet. Of course, eventually everyone will have to shift, but I see a few years ahead of us where there is still this grey zone of a split user habit in the school systems. Yet I don't want to essentially double our efforts during this time. 

Are other regions seeing something like this? Have you pushed more electronically on your schools audience? I don't think the physical brochure will go away; we're just trying to figure out the balance. With so many digital options and web pages getting more robust, the days of blanketing your region with a gazillion brochures to see what sticks are over (certainly with almost annual postage hikes!). 

Consider this a call to share best practices in field trip brochure distribution. 

Thanks, 

Dante 


Dante Centuori 
Director of Creative Productions 
Great Lakes Science Center 
601 Erieside Ave. 
Cleveland, OH 44114 
216.696.2098 P 
216.696.3472 F 
www.GreatScience.com<http://www.greatscience.com/> 



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