Capturing family audience data

By Kids in Museums

SUMMARY

Kids in Museums guide us through the types of data you could capture about your family visitors to better understand and support them. It covers why family audience data matters, how to plan and collect it, through visitor surveys, tally counts and audience segmentation, and how to analyse and present the findings, including guidance on using AI tools responsibly with visitor data.

Why should we capture family audience data?
Planning to capture family audience data
How can we collect family audience data and what else can it tell us?
Using, analysing and presenting your family audience data
Further reading

Why should we capture family audience data?

Your museum might already be capturing basic information about your visitors, such as the overall number of visits per year. Having a breakdown of your audience, such as the number of families visiting a site, can help you understand more about your visitors and what they think about the museum. As one family stated in the Kids in Museums Manifesto feedback survey, "understanding your audience makes them feel more welcome."

If your data shows a lot of families visiting, you might want to offer even more for them. If you don't have many family visitors, this is an audience you might want to develop.

As well as utilising this data internally to advocate and prioritise your work with family audiences, it can be useful for applying to funders to improve your provision for this audience.

What does this data look like?

Sector bodies such as AIM recommend collecting this data through frequent or annual general visitor surveys which usually include:

a visitor's age, who they are visiting with and post code
whether it's their first time visiting or they are repeat visitors
how they heard about the museum
what they thought about their visit
if they are intending to return

Museum Development South West has two resources you could explore to get started or reflect on your current visitor research with families and other audiences. This includes an Audience data checklist, and their Getting ready for audience research resource.

Planning to capture family audience data

Planning exactly what data you want to collect about families and other visitors through your visitor research is very important. By consistently collecting the same data over time, you will build up a longer term picture and identify patterns and changes. Make sure you are involving a range of people across your organisation when deciding what information to collect from your visitors, so the information you collect is useful to a wide range of teams in your museum.

Taking it further – audience segmentation

Some museums find it helpful to undertake more specific audience segmentation research. The Audience Agency describes segmentation as "the process of dividing and organising the population into meaningful and manageable groups – or segments – so that you can tailor your cultural offer and communications to the preferences of each group." Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has an online quiz you could take to find out which segment you sit in. Please note this is for individuals only and is not designed to be used for organisations.

The Audience Agency has a guide that explains more about why museums should segment their audiences, what the commitment is and how to get started.

There is often a cost attached to undertake audience segmentation research. You might find it useful to read Museum Development North's Knowing your audiences report, which includes information about working with specific providers and the approximate costs involved.

If you are unable to carry out audience segmentation specific research at your museum, the Audience Agency has created a map of the UK, which includes information on each of their audience segments, such as Trips and Treats, which is a family specific segment. You can search the map via your post code to find out which family segment is the most popular one in your area.

How can we collect family audience data and what else can it tell us?

Family visitor numbers

Family visitor numbers can be collected through a simple tally chart filled in on the front desk or using ticket sales. This data can be used to work out the percentage of families in your current visitor profile. In 2018, the Audience Agency found that 35% of museum visitors in England were families. However, in some museums families may be a much higher proportion of the audience. The New Forest Heritage Centre, who took part in the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Programme in 2024/25, found that families made up 70% of their visitors.

Hayley Long, Learning and Education Lead at the New Forest Heritage Centre, explains that as families make up such a large percentage of their visitor demographic compared to the average in England, it has helped the organisation to prioritise this audience and spend staff time and resource to make changes to their family provision.

Visitor surveys

If your museum carries out general visitor surveys, make sure you are asking families the age groups of the children and adults visiting. The age groups of the children will help you prioritise the kinds of resources and activities you provide. For example, if you notice your site is visited by parents/carers with under-5s during term time, you might want to develop self-guided resources or a targeted staff-led activity to support these families and encourage repeat visits.

A recent report from Heritage Pulse found that grandparents are a growing museum family audience. Some ticketed museums and heritage sites, such as the Rural Life Living Museum, have created grandparent family tickets to cater for this audience.

If you don't already have a lot of data about your family visitors, you might find it useful to undertake family specific audience research. Kids in Museums has created a short family survey which you could adapt for your venue. Jet Age Museum, who took part in the Family Friendly Museum Programme in 2024/25, set up a family feedback area and were surprised about how many families and children responded.

If you are not getting many completed family surveys, you could choose a specific time period when you know you have a lot of families visiting to focus on collecting data, such as busy school holidays or during family events. However, this might skew your data and not provide you with feedback from families who are visiting during quieter times. If there's low uptake, you could also offer a prize draw for survey respondents, with a prize like a voucher or item from the shop.

Make sure you are following data protection guidance if you are collecting personal information, such as email addresses from families. Share East's evaluation toolkit (page 76) has advice on gaining permission to use data.

Using, analysing and presenting your family audience data

When using feedback from children and families make sure the relevant permissions are gained so the data can be used, especially if any of it will be shared publicly. The Information Commissioner's Office provides guidance on collecting and processing data from children.

Once you have collected your data, make sure you have factored in time to analyse it. If you are a smaller organisation with fewer resources, you might want to focus on collecting data about ongoing provision using family visitor surveys once or twice a year, during busier times. This can mean the data is more manageable to analyse and it's more likely to be done.

Coding can be used to analyse feedback from families from visitor surveys. Pages 23–26 of Museum Development North's Knowing your audiences resource has top tips about how to analyse and share your data, including coding free text. If you are using AI tools such as ChatGPT to analyse data collected from these audiences, make sure you have data protection policies and procedures in place. You may find it useful to read CultureHive's own Example AI Policy to inform your own work.

The Information Commissioner's Office AI and data protection risk toolkit also provides guidance on collecting and processing data from children.

If you are using your data for making the case for work with children and families, internally or externally, make the information clear and concise. Think about what information the person reading it might need to know. For example, your Trustees would probably require different information compared to your colleagues.

Infographics can be a great way of presenting data in a more digestible way, like this example from Amgueddfa Cymru. Canva and Flourish can be used to create infographics and include free versions. Canva has advice on ways you can create your own infographics.