This Science Center Gets Good Results from Online Surveys

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is a nonprofit science museum located in San Diego's Balboa Park, which is also home to a variety of cultural attractions, including museums, theaters, gardens, shops, restaurants, and a zoo. Combining both interactive science exhibits with a planetarium and IMAX Dome theater, the Fleet is packed with enough technology to make each trip a new experience — so long as it can keep visitors coming back for more.

Challenge: Keeping Customers' Attention

In order to run as effectively in bad times as they did in the good ones, nonprofits need to be able to do more with less. They have to be leaner, more efficient, and generate as much — if not more — support from their donors, and a great way to do that is to stay in touch with their patrons.

"In today's economy, it certainly helps when you have repeat visitors coming through the doors," says Jonathan Nagtalon, the Fleet's multimedia director. The center tried to stimulate continued interest by offering new movies in the IMAX movie theater and frequent special events. But putting on shows and generating buzz are two different beasts. The Fleet needed to find a way to not only inform patrons of the events, but to engage them enough that they'd want to visit.

Solution: Let the Customers Choose the Events

In order to address the needs and wants of its patrons, the Fleet uses the Online Survey product from Constant Contact to gather customers' opinions.

Jonathan enjoys the easy-to-use interface, which allows the Fleet to send a variety of surveys to its patrons, as appropriate, from simple contest surveys to check-in surveys for lapsed members. We did work with another similar service such as this but after reviewing several companies, Constant Contact literally offered us more bang for our buck. "We use the surveys as often as necessary," Jonathan says. "There's a contest that we send out with our email newsletter every month, and on occasions when we have a exhibition or film opening, we use it to find out how many people are actually going to an event."

For example, the Fleet recently asked its members to choose an IMAX film for the museum to show in 2009. "We created a brief online survey that helps us make film choices for the popular Fridays at the Fleet classic film festival and for special engagement films," Jonathan says. "We tested out three film survey groups and received the response that we were looking for."

Results: Crowds Flock to the Museum's Activities

Jonathan sent the survey to 24,000 patrons and was thrilled when he saw his response rate soar — but it didn't stop there. "Every month our list continues to grow," he reports. "We'll definitely see our traffic increase as we continue to use this method."

Jonathan says his favorite feature of the online surveys is how they report results. In particular, for the Fleet's film survey, Jonathan says it was very easy to look at the reports and get a Number of Responses and Response Ratio per selected answer. "I'm a visual person and I like seeing how the bar graphs are displayed in the PDF reports," he says.

As a result, Jonathan has recommended Constant Contact to a number of museums at Balboa Park, such as the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Museum of Man, and the San Diego Hall of Champions. One of the biggest reasons that Constant Contact's services have been a hit with this set is how light they are on the bottom line. "The price rates definitely help, especially if you are prepaying and if you are a non-profit institution," Jonathan says.

"Constant Contact is best utility available in promoting your business," he says. "We did work with another similar service such as this but after reviewing several companies, Constant Contact literally offered us more bang for our buck."