What Will I Learn From This Study?
The study was developed for museums that wish to gain deeper insights into their own audience.
A well-balanced questionnaire ensures feedback on relevant aspects of the museum:
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Experience in the museum
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Evaluation of offerings, infrastructure, and general conditions
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Audience profile, preferences, and motivations
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Economic contribution
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Visitor development and well-being (Impact Compass Model)
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Evaluation of communication
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Why do former visitors no longer return?
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Why do non-visitors not attend? How can they be convinced?
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Open questions > concrete feedback & suggestions
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And much more
The full questionnaire can be found here. However, it will be personalised for your museum based on the information you provide.
You may remove questions that you do not wish to include for your museum. You also have the opportunity to add questions that are particularly important for your institution.
The study provides useful insights that can be directly applied in your museum.
Open-text fields provide ample space for high-quality feedback.
Regardless of the number of respondents you reach for your own museum, your final report will also allow you to learn from national results and from the results of several clusters of comparable museums.
​Which target audience?
The study was designed for surveying the visitors of your museum.
Visitors are defined as people who have been to the museum within the past 12 months.
If desired, you may also include former visitors (people who have not visited your museum for more than 12 months) or non-visitors (people who have never been to your museum).
The intelligent survey therefore includes specific questions for both former visitors and non-visitors.
The system automatically identifies these profiles and presents them only with the questions relevant to them.
Since museum visitors often cross national borders, the study is offered in six languages.
You can choose which of these languages you wish to make available for your museum’s survey.
The available languages are:
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German
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English
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French
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Italian
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Dutch
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Spanish
Is it labour-intensive for my organisation to participate?
The study has been designed so that it can be carried out by your museum in a simple and straightforward way.
Since most museums are not in a position to dedicate significant staff time to this study, the research method has been kept low-threshold.
How much time will be required from you or a member of your museum’s staff?
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Providing certain characteristics of your museum so that your survey can be personalised and programmed (approx. 30 minutes)
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If desired, adding your own questions
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Promoting the survey according to your preferences or possibilities via one or more channels, approx. 60 minutes of effort (see Communication)
At the end of the study, you will receive a clear and practically applicable research report.
Personalized Questionnaire
The study provides a well-balanced questionnaire developed in collaboration with scientific partners, relevant industry associations, and professionals from the museum sector, tailored specifically to museums.
The questionnaire is based on a European standard but has been adapted to the national contexts of each participating country.
Finally, the survey is fully customised to your museum’s specific context. You can review the questionnaire in advance and have the option to:
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Remove questions you consider irrelevant for your museum
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Add your own questions, if desired
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Personalise questions (e.g., local pricing formulas, activities, etc.)
Removing, adding, and personalising questions is done through the research platform.
This way, we can easily create a fully customised survey for your museum while still enabling anonymous comparison with other museums.
The survey system is designed to be dynamic and intelligent: depending on the respondent’s profile and answers, they will only be shown relevant questions. This also allows (if desired) the inclusion of lapsed visitors and non-visitors in the same survey: they will receive questions tailored specifically to them. If you wish to survey these groups, adapted communication materials will be provided.
Scientifically grounded
The study is supported by 10 academic researchers across seven universities.
Together, they have developed and adapted a well-balanced questionnaire that is used in the participating countries.
The universities in each country also ensure that the standard is adapted to national circumstances, as every country has specific requirements. The national sector associations are likewise involved in compiling the questionnaire.
At the end of the study, the universities in each country prepare a cross-institutional analysis based on anonymised results. In this way, the study also supports the entire sector.
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What does it cost my museum to participate?
The study is offered to museums completely independently. It was developed to provide your museum with an accessible tool for a rigorous and structured visitor survey.
Under this independent approach, participating museums only cover the cost price of the study. The contribution reflects the actual price of the study and refers to the full study including all services. Market rates for comparable studies exceed this price by a large margin.
In order to distribute the cost of the study in a balanced way, the amount is calculated based on the size of the participating museum.
The contribution is set as follows (full-time equivalent - FTE):
Register your museum for the study.
You can choose to split the invoice amount over two fiscal years.
Would you like to use Sentomus as a continuous, year-round tool? Contact the research team for a no-obligation, customized offer. You’ll receive two reporting points per year and a study with a dynamic dashboard available 365 days.
Reporting & Benchmarking
The study produces a comprehensive research report with actionable insights for your museum. In this report you’ll not only see your own results in detail but also anonymously compare your institution with a cluster of similar museums and the international results.
Clusters are groups of museums formed based on characteristics such as size, type, etc. By aggregating results from many museums within these clusters, your museum’s performance can be benchmarked against comparable institutions. Your museum’s data remains strictly anonymous at all times.
Your report is always private: only your museum has access to its own results. They are not shared with others unless you choose to publish them yourself.
There are two reporting points to choose from: June or December. Museums using Sentomus continuously receive a full research report twice a year.
Through a personal login you have ongoing access to your own interactive dashboard, where you can explore your museum’s results. You can filter data, create cross-tabulations, and view various charts.
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For which museums?
The study was designed to be usable by any type of public or private museum, regardless of its offer or collection.
It was also built to be scalable: suitable for both small and large institutions.
Sentomus provides museums with a tool to collect visitor data in an accessible, standardized, and rigorous way, and to compare results anonymously with others.
When?
The data collection period can run year-round or within a timeframe you select. You choose the timing that works best for your museum to conduct the survey.
There are two fixed reporting points to choose from: June or December. Reports are produced at the selected reporting moment. Museums using Sentomus continuously receive a full research report twice a year.
Through a personal login you have ongoing access to your interactive dashboard, where you can view your museum’s results, apply filters, create cross-tabulations, and display various charts.
Security
We handle data and results with care.
All systems are secured according to current standards:
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Secure servers
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HTTPS – SSL encryption
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Continuous server backups
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Anti-BOT measures
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...
Various quality control measures are applied to ensure data integrity:
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Consistency checks through control questions
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Checks for 'speeders' (respondents who complete the survey too quickly) at various points in the survey
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(Anonymized) IP address checks
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...
Data Privacy
The study is conducted in accordance with the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At no point are any personal data of respondents collected; the survey is completely anonymous. It is in no way possible to trace individual answers back to a specific person.
How are the incentives (prizes) assigned to winners?
The survey system randomly designates winners as respondents complete the questionnaire. People who are randomly selected by the system as winners are shown a unique code after submission, accompanied by a prompt to contact the research team. In this way, we collect only the contact details of the winners so that their prize can be delivered. Those contact details are deleted immediately afterward.
For each participating museum, we require the contact details of one contact person: first name, last name, and email address. These details are used solely for communication regarding the study and to grant your museum access to its online dashboard. The data can be requested, updated, or deleted at any time via a simple email request.
All data and results are stored on secure servers in Europe.
The results of your study are the private property of your museum during and after completion. They are shared only with your museum’s designated contact person. You can decide if and how you want to publish those results.
The results of all participating museums are anonymized and aggregated so that group-level analysis is possible. This allows your museum to be compared anonymously in your report with clusters of similar institutions as well as with national benchmarks.
Helpdesk
Dedicated Helpdesk Support
During the study you are supported by a professional helpdesk.
To ensure clear tracking, a ticket is created for each question.
If museum visitors have questions or feedback about the survey, they can also reach out to the helpdesk. The “Help” button in the survey connects them directly to the helpdesk.
Reaching respondents
The survey is set up online. If you wish and have the resources, it is also possible to conduct “live” interviews with visitors through your museum staff. A separate briefing is available for that.
You will receive a link to your personal online survey, which you can share with your museum’s visitors. The same link can -if desired- also be used to reach former visitors and non-visitors (see below).
You will receive personalized, ready-to-use communication materials from us to easily invite your visitors to take part in the survey. You can deploy these materials across your regular channels (e.g., newsletter, website, social media, automatically with online ticket purchasers) or in physical touchpoints within the museum, for example as flyers available at the ticket desk. Based on your capacity, you decide which and how many of these channels to use.
The survey system is built to be fully responsive, making it accessible on smartphone, tablet, laptop, and desktop.
The 2023 pilot study and the 2024 Sentomus edition demonstrated that these methods generate strong engagement.
Would you also like to survey former visitors or non-visitors?
You will receive tailored materials to invite former visitors or non-visitors to share their opinions. These can be distributed via the city or municipality where your museum is located, as well as through partner institutions, associations, etc.
Prefer to conduct the survey “live” on-site with specific target groups?
That is possible directly in the survey system using a tablet or smartphone.
The public call for participation allows you to collect feedback with minimal effort and, if desired, also reach former visitors or non-visitors.
You also have the option to implement a random sampling approach in this study. If you choose to do so, you can hand each visitor at the ticket desk a flyer (we provide a personalized printable flyer) or conduct in-museum surveys on a randomized basis. This can be done directly in the survey system via tablet or smartphone. In that case, you can request a briefing from the research team.
Incentives
Incentives are provided to give people an extra motivation to participate in the survey:
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For every fully completed survey, 1 m² of endangered rainforest is protected from destruction through the World Land Trust organisation. An official certificate of the protected rainforest will be included with the final report.
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Several prizes will be raffled among participants.
The combination of these different types of incentives encourages participation from various respondent profiles. The incentives help reinforce the invitation to take part in the survey.
How are incentives assigned to winners?
The survey system randomly selects winners among respondents who complete the questionnaire.
Those identified as winners will see a unique code at the end of the survey, inviting them to contact the research team.
This way, only the contact details of the winners are collected in order to deliver their prizes. These details are deleted immediately afterwards.