Audit of Museum Marketing Communication in the Modern Management Context

Abstract

Marketing communication is a concise part of modern museum management. Museums operate in a competitive environment; therefore, it is important to pay sustained attention to every component of a given museum’s marketing communication. Changes, international trends, and visitor preferences have an influence on marketing communication. Museum management must devote expert deliberation towards determining which components of their marketing communication are significant for museum visitors. Moreover, the effectiveness of the use of expenses plays an important role in museum management; it is also essential to combine effectively the individual components of marketing communication. The present research aims to find a correlation between the components of museum marketing communication, which is not being addressed in detail in the contemporary research. The aim of the research is therefore to determine the dependence amongst elements of the marketing communication of museums on questioning the visitors. The aim was achieved by implementing the modern audit approach and empirical research into marketing communication: the Paper Aided Personal Interview (PAPI) method with a Likert scale, a reliability check with Cronbach’s alpha, and dependency determination with Pearson’s correlation. All results were investigated through the use of a questionnaire on the international EU 27 sample of museum visitors. These conclusions allow museum management to build their marketing communication on the principles of Economy, Efficiency, and Effectiveness (the 3E principles).

1. Introduction

Society continually experiences cultural change. Moreover, the world is shifting from a static dimension to a dynamic dimension, which is supported by Industry 4.0. This expands reality through the introduction of a digital reality, which brings new challenges. This may be applied to the cultural sphere as well, and specifically to museums. It is clear that even historical artifacts should meet current visitors’ expectations and communicate with them in a modern way. That is where marketing communication comes into play and becomes an informal channel between museums and their visitors. Hypothetically, such communication processes might be complex, risky, and ineffective. Thus, it is crucial to address, research, and systematize the issue.

One of the aims of the present research involves identifying the interdependency between museum marketing communication components. The justification of the research aim is mostly founded in the urgent need to obtain information on the perception of marketing communication by the non-expert public: museum visitors. Currently, in the time of information, advertisement fog, and mutual competition, museum management needs to understand which components of museum marketing communication cause visitors to react and how they react. The aim of the research is therefore to determine the dependence amongst elements of the marketing communication of museums by questioning museum visitors. This aim is connected with the research questions and evidentiary hypothesis.

The entire research herein is based on the Paper Aided Personal Interview (PAPI) method (Barbu and Alexandru 2011). It is then supplemented by the Likert scale (Hayes 1998) and tested on a randomly chosen sample of museum visitors. The reliability is measured with the help of the Cronbach’s alpha (Giddens 2013), whereas the dependent components of the marketing communication are determined with the help of Pearson’s correlation (Wijayatunga 2016). It can be stated that the results of the research on the dependency of the marketing communication components will clarify for museum workers which exact marketing communication components should be used, ultimately serving the promotion of the museum sciences in general.

2. Literature Review

The following research gives an overview of the authors’ theories on the current situation in museum marketing. Along with this, it implies possible solutions for the questions that are raised. In the research, therefore, the authors are addressing the museum issue, which is then situated into a marketing communication context to uncover risk areas for the museum sphere.

2.1. Museums Environment

It is important to establish the definition of the word “museum” from the theoretical point of view. The ICOM (International Council of Museums) code of professional ethics for museums defines it using the international perspective: “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment” (ICOM 2017, p. 48). It is evident that this definition symbiotically interlinks with the aforementioned theories (Mariani and Guizzardi 2019). Even in national legislation acts, we may find the relevant defining references.

“The cultural and creative industry is a key indicator of measuring the development of a nation or a society”. (Shiau and Hu 2020, p. 325). The society-wide extent of museums is supported by Kollár (2003). In this regard, the promotion of culture and education nowadays constitutes a challenge for museums (Lukáč and Mihálik 2018; Podušelová 2002). It is then provable from the literature that museums form an important part of society (Johnová and Černá 2007). Competition exists even in the museum sphere, making it essential to pay adequate marketing attention to museums (Nechita 2014). Bourgeon (2000) highlights the importance of understanding the emotions of museum visitors. In this regard, there is a need to identify their reactions, for example towards marketing communication.

After defining the issues from a theoretical perspective, it is also important to define them from a social perspective. Johnová (2008, p. 40) declares the following: “The main objective of the museum itself is to collect, store, research and exhibit art pieces, fulfill the education purpose towards the society”. From this definition, the three main roles of a museum can be derived. Among them are the scientific, collecting, and cultural educating roles (Cerquetti and Ferrara 2018). Moreover, it becomes evident that such aims bring high financial requirements, as Tajtáková (2010) or Butoracová-Šindleryová and Benková (2009) show in their work. Modern marketing components can mainly contribute to museum financing (Bačuvčík 2012; Agwu and Onwuegbuzie 2018; Hoeven 2019).

“Marketing and museums have a long relationship, rife with dilemmas and prejudices about the way in which marketing could (should) be accepted in museums’ practice” (Komarac et al. 2017, p. 216). Zbuchea (2015) directly supports marketing and museums with the aim of attracting visitors, which is also supported by Komarac et al. (2019).

2.2. Modern Marketing

What is modern marketing (Al-Waely 2019)? “The aim of marketing is to create a value of customers and to capture value from customers in return” (Kotler and Armstrong 2010, p. 26). Based on this definition, it can be concluded that marketing can find its implementation in culture, or more precisely, in the museum sector. Lukáč (2015) directly links marketing to culture. His review explicitly shows that the overlap in between these two fields became visible after the Second World War in a quest to distract the attention of society from the events of the war. The interconnection of culture and marketing was defined around the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century (Butoracová-Šindleryová et al. 2019; Brown and Crosno 2019).

Rentschler and Hede (2009, p. 12) directly link the role of modern marketing (Cluley et al. 2020; Sheth 2020) to museum marketing: “Marketing is still a dirty word to some in museums. With the term comes images of used car salesman and the ‘Disneyfication’ of culture. Is it possible to market your product successfully without ‘dumbing’ it down? This brief history of museum marketing, the changes it has undergone, and the approaches taken in many museums, shows that it is”. This argument is also justified by Kesner (2005), who stresses that for culture and museums, marketing becomes mainly a tool for achieving the objectives of cultural organizations towards society. The submitted theories help to define museum marketing from the literature perspective.

“For museums, marketing is an exchange process in which a museum aims to offer visitors great value at a low cost and at the same time create a surplus or break-even in the exchange. Marketing is at its core an exchange process between those who seek a product or service (experience, idea, place, information) and those who can supply that product” (Kotler et al. 2008a, p. 22). Kesner (2005) looks at the aforementioned argument from the cultural-economic perspective and adds that the aim of marketing for cultural organizations is to ensure a market share concerning attendance, satisfaction, and visitors (Godwin 2019). Such a market share is guaranteed by the further mentioned approaches.

Museum marketing communication may be included among the primary approaches, which is supported by Kotler’s basic theory (Kotler 1991). The main aim of marketing communication as per Hesková (2001) is information sharing, directing the visitor towards the sales strategy of the organization, in the current case, the museum. According to Strišš et al. (2007), the aim of communication is to inform visitors about cultural events, to provide motivation for those who are interested in culture and, last but not least, to educate and nurture the cultural community. That is the current definition of marketing communication.

2.3. Marketing Risks

The development of contemporary marketing processes reasonably reflects new opportunities (Petrů et al. 2019a), and at the same time new risks (Tkachenko et al. 2019; Ferreira et al. 2020). It is important to have an adequate reaction towards the latter. Risk itself is a unique social phenomenon (Yoe 2012) that impacts the surrounding from a materialistic perspective. “The risk is the historical notion that traces back to the 17th century when it first appeared in the connection with boat shipping. The word ‘risico’ has Italian origin and means a bottleneck which sailors must avoid”. (Smejkal and Rais 2010, p. 10). In Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the notion of risk is defined as follows: “To expose to hazard or danger”. (Damodaran 2012, p. 58).

A modern definition of marketing risks can be derived from the findings of Mulačová and Mulač (2013, p. 209): “The risk can be commonly defined as the probability of having the result of the event derogating from the objective that we want to achieve. It is a scale of the uncertainty connected with the expected result”. In the context of the given work, risk is understood as a situation that can greatly impact the aim of marketing communication, or as the combination of events and their results with negative consequences (Hopkin 2018; Dvorský et al. 2019). A responsible approach to the selected risks of marketing communication might then have a positive impact not only on the organization management (Vybíhal and Cedidlová 2014; Břečková 2016), but on the management of the museum sphere in general.

The issue of having risks is not directly linked to the marketing sector (Sadgrove 2016); however, one can observe the statistics listed in the international “Report to the Nations. 2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse” that marketing is indeed among the riskiest environments (Association of Certified Fraud Exers 2018). Andersen et al. (2014, p. 6) add to the topic: “It indicates a potentially negative effect on an asset that may derive from given processes in progress or given future event. In the common language, risk is often used as a synonym of probability of loss or a danger”. This definition might be related to the type of marketing communication under examination.

The defined chain—museum communication risk—is worth paying attention to, whether in the context of management, marketing, or science. As long as management is not familiar with the risks, negative consequences connected mainly with marketing investments may occur. According to Pickett (2005), an audit approach needs to be in place to prevent such negative consequences as a way to mitigate any associated risks. According to Kumar and Sharma (2005), an audit of the processes, risks and marketing effectiveness might be used for subjective marketing communication. This will help to identify any gaps in the marketing activities and consider further steps to exclude them (Ferrell and Hartline 2014). The following part of the work is dedicated to the aforementioned subject.

3. Purpose, Material, and Methodology

This section describes the material chosen for the research project on marketing communication. Subsequently, certain components are presented that might be implemented to achieve the desired aims (a modern audit). Moreover, the methodical approaches are specified for determining the identified issue (computational statistics).

The importance of the research is to shed light on the dependence on marketing communication components in order to enable adequate marketing communication adjustments for museum management. The extent of the research is therefore limited to the following research questions: “Which components of marketing communication (Labanauskaitė et al. 2020) are evaluated most positively by visitors (Q1_descriptive)?”; “What is the relationship (Hausmann and Poellmann 2013) between marketing communication components (Q2_comparative)?”. The aim of this research is therefore to determine the dependence amongst elements of the marketing communication of museums on questioning the visitors. The realization of the aim of the research might clarify the following hypotheses: the individual components of marketing communication are rated differently (H1); a significant dependency exists between marketing communication components (H2).

3.1. Marketing Communication

Marketing communication was chosen as the subject matter for this work. The decision was made based on the fact that the effective application of marketing communication has become a meaningful part of the marketing strategy of modern museums. To maintain the effectiveness of such communication, the seller and customer, in other words, the sender and the receiver of the communication, need to be interconnected (Blakeman 2015). Chaturvedi and Chaturvedi (2011, p. 11) state the necessity of such effectiveness: “Several changes in the modern technological age of information have made people pay more attention to communication as an important tool in successful management”. Moreover, Kotler et al. (2008b) support the analysis of the subject matter.

Chaturvedi and Chaturvedi (2011, p. 302) define marketing communication as follows: “Marketing communication is information, benefits, attributes, perceptual image/persona, feeling, and attitudes all bundled into one”. This quote is supported by Fill (2006, p. 9), who perceives it in the context of the recipient: “Marketing communications should be an audience-centered activity”. The holistic purpose of the whole communication is then presented by Přikrylová and Jahodová (2010, p. 41): “Marketing communication represents for the market the very nature of the brand personality, creates awareness on the brand, reinforces brand knowledge, impacts customer views on the brand meaning creation of unique and positive associations”.

Marketing communication is then analyzed and defined in terms of the museum-specific context. According to Lukáč (2015, p. 68), it aims is to address present and potential visitors, which is also confirmed by Hausmann (2005), at the cultural level. Macalik (2018) states that the adjustment of museum marketing communication should reflect the social concept. Hausmann and Poellmann (2013) support this point of view and emphasize the expanding role of museum marketing communication. Museums are a part of competitive environment; that is why it is important here to apply marketing communication (Nechita 2014; Colladon et al. 2020).

The following marketing communication components were chosen for research into their dependencies: Advertisement, Direct Marketing, Personal Selling, Public Relations, Sales Support, Digital Media. This selection, organized respectively by the importance of the components, is based on the fundamental classification of marketing communication (Réklaitis and Pileliené 2019; Labanauskaitė et al. 2020; Bae et al. 2020).

From the presented literature analysis, it is clear that marketing communication creates an exposed component for museum management (Tsai and Lin 2018). The reviewed interconnection might be extended by the thoughts of Kotler and Keller (2013, p. 515): “That is why we perceive marketing management as a piece of art, as the science of the target market choice, as collecting, maintaining and developing of the customers with the help of creating, delivering, and communicating of the valuable customer values”. The management here operates with various components (Říhová et al. 2019) that help to ensure the highest professional care is given to the chosen marketing communication approach. The audit approach by Kupec (2017) belongs among these analytical components.

3.2. Audit Approaches

The modern audit aims for the analytics of certain processes using different methodical approaches. Müllerová (2013) shows the basic approach, where an audit is understood as a scientific discipline that observes and recognizes certain facts. In the context of the aforementioned interconnected marketing and management, Pickett’s (2005, p. 3) audit approach may be recognized: “It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes”. It is evident from the above that multiple audit techniques provide help to management in all the mentioned fields and sectors (Furtună and Ciucioi 2019; Lobo et al. 2020).

One of the benefits of management, or the modern audit technique, might be its focus on changing businesses and changing business processes, which are stressed by Oláh and Rózsa (2009), Jeřábek and Čapošová (2016), and Petrů et al. (2019b). In such a situation, marketing communication becomes a subject matter, or audited process, which, according to Blakeman (2015), is supported by both the seller and buyer, or the receiver and the recipient in the communication process. Further, such processes undergo constant development, as Chaturvedi and Chaturvedi (2011) claim. We need to pay proper attention to the processes, and through this help management (Christensen et al. 2019; Kaban 2020) in the relevant field.

In the context of a marketing communication audit (Kitchenko and Kuchina 2019), the analytical processes (Liangcheng et al. 2019) are interpreted primarily as per Kotler and Keller’s (2013) methodology, which understands the audit as an examination of the marketing surroundings which are highly variable. To make this argument more precise, the definition of a marketing-oriented audit by Lyková (2000, p. 11) is presented as follows: “[a] marketing audit represents a systematic sequence of the diagnostic steps which take up the marketing activities of the organization on a broad scale. It is about a complex, systematic, independent, repetitive examination. After the analysis, it comes to an action plan for the improvement of organization’s marketing”.

Skelton (2014) links to this argument in his work, and Písař and Kupec (2019) summarize it in practice. From the methodical point of view, the audit might be perceived as an analytical tool offering consulting and advisory services. Keller (2007) adds to the aforementioned by stating that, first of all, it is about a comprehensive examination of marketing processes and proposing an action plan to improve the marketing performance of the organization. Kotler et al. (2008b) affirm the audit in an interdisciplinary sense. The mentioned approaches depict the current situation with regard to sectoral knowledge. Further, in the work, an overview of the particular methods used while auditing museum marketing communication is provided.

3.3. Research Methods

The entire audit, or analytics and research, were based on the methodology of interviewing a select set of museum visitors. The size of the sample was derived from the primary data; according to the National Information and Advisory Center for Culture (2018), in 2018 there were 6,333,294 international visitors in Czech museums. The sample size for the questionnaire was calculated at 0.1% of the primary data based on the expert estimate calculation, which amounted to 633 respondents. The survey took place in one selected museum site using the stratified selection of the respondents. The sample was then demographically divided in proportion to the representation of each Member State of the EU 27 (even distribution among men and women aged 18 years or older).

Data collection took place from September 2018 to August 2019, focusing on international EU 27 respondents. As per the aforementioned selection, 633 respondents were contacted. The structure of the questionnaire and particular questions (Troilo 2015; Keramitsoglou et al. 2018) were as follows: “How do you evaluate each component of marketing communication?”. The following components of marketing communication were evaluated: Advertisement, Direct Marketing, Personal Selling, Public Relations, Sales Support, and Digital Media, as per the classifications given by Chaturvedi and Chaturvedi (2011) and Labanauskaitė et al. (2020). The evaluation was conducted using the Likert scale with 5 points (1—very negative perception of the marketing communication component; 2—negative perception; 3—neutral perception; 4—positive perception; 5—very positive perception).

The appropriateness of the PAPI method for the present research resides in the possibility of direct contact with the respondents for the purposes of gaining quantitative data (Barbu and Alexandru 2011; Troilo 2015; Keramitsoglou et al. 2018). The PAPI method fully respects the international codes and rules of market research and public opinion polling: the International Code on Market and Social Research (ICC/ESOMAR); EFAMRO quality standards (EMRQS—EFAMRO Market Research Quality Standards); and the international ISO 20252 norm on Market, Opinion and Social Research—Vocabulary and Service Requirements, including the definitions set out, specific codes, and ESOMAR guidelines.

The PAPI method was supported by the Likert scale, which measures the values of the respondents’ answers (Hayes 1998). The reliability check (Gavora 2010), was made based on Cronbach’s alpha (see Equations (1) and (2)). Cronbach’s alpha (Kramer et al. 2018) uses values from 0 to 1, of which the value 1 might be reached only under the circumstances that all the examined items are linearly connected, which means that the researched example has a high explanatory value. A low value indicates the opposite. Wijayatunga (2016) recommends these methods as well. The calculation of the values using Cronbach’s alpha was performed using the IBM SPSS version 25 statistical tool.

Equation (1): Cronbach’s alpha:

$$\propto =\frac{k}{k-1}\left(1-\frac{{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{j=1}^{k}var\left(Y_j\right)}{var \left(Y\right)}\right)$$

(1)

where, k is the number of test items, var (Y_j) is the dispersion of the j item values, and var (Y) is the dispersion of the overall test score.

For the items with yes/no answers, the Cronbach’s alpha formula could be simplified into the following formula, named Kuder and Richardson’s formula:

Equation (2): Kuder and Richardson’s formula:

$$\propto =\frac{k}{k-1}\left(1-\frac{{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{j=1}^k{p}_j{q}_j}{var\left(Y\right)}\right)$$

(2)

where, p_j is the likelihood of a correct answer on the j item, and q_j = 1 − p_j is the likelihood of an incorrect answer.

For the determination of marketing communication components that are dependent on visitors, Pearson’s correlation (see Equation (3)) might be used. The formula measures the relationship between the two variables. Tsintsadze et al. (2018) submit that the positive side of this formula includes the possibility of measuring the consequences of the variables of interest interaction. Chornous and Ursulenko (2013) also support this. Tran (2011) specifies Pearson’s correlation as a number between 1 and +1 that determines the mentioned variables’ ratio. A positive number denotes a positive association, while a negative number denotes an inverse association. Pearson correlation contains the variables x and y, which are used in the following example:

Equation (3): Pearson’s correlation:

$$px,y=\frac{COV\left(x, y\right)}{\sigma x\sigma y 1}$$

(3)

With the relevant example of the r_x, _y correlation:

$$r_{x, y}=\frac{{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{i=1}^n\left(x_i-\overline{x}\right)\left(y_i-\overline{y}\right)}{\left(n-1\right)S_x{S}_y}$$

where, COV (x, y) is the occurrence of correlation between x and y, σx is the standard deviation of x, and σy is the standard deviation of y.

In Equation (3), x and y denote the standard deviation. Here, Pearson’s correlation coefficient determines the intensity of the relationship between the variables (Tsintsadze et al. 2018); in other words, it shows the intensity of the link between variables (when less than 0.20, the relationship is negligible; when ranging from 0.20 to 0.40, the relationship is not very close; when ranging from 0.40 to 0.70, the relationship is intermediate; when ranging from 0.70 to 0.90, the relationship is very close; when the relationship is more than 0.90, we can speak about an extremely dependent relationship). The results of the analysis show mutual interrelation as follows: with values exceeding 0.40, the relationship between variables is significant for the research; with values exceeding 0.70, the relationship between variables is crucial.

4. Results and Discussion

The research aimed to determine the components of marketing communication that are dependent on visitors. At the same time, the results further develop our previous research, along with the project called “Marketing Models in Industry 4.0” (VŠFS 7429/2017/04). The primary outcomes worth mentioning include the fact that marketing communication is an essential part of marketing management in the museum sphere concerning the positive, significant data of the research (see below). In terms of sector-specific discussion, the theories of Kotler et al. (2008a) or Kesner (2005), both of which place emphasis on the significance of communication in the modern marketing practices of museums, could be affirmed.

Other findings include the test results on the reliability of the data examined. The calculation of reliability with the help of Cronbach’s alpha formula for the n = 6 items examined (Advertisement, Direct Marketing, Personal Selling, Public Relations, Sales Support, Digital Media) denotes 0.817. Based on Kramer et al. (2018); Giddens (2013); Gavora (2010), values for Cronbach’s alpha exceeding 0.7 depict high data reliability. That is why we can claim that the analyzed data is reliable. Based on the data received, the adequate audit recommendation following the approaches of Kotler and Keller (2013) or Müllerová (2013) can be drawn.

The resulting analysis of Pearson’s coefficient showed significant values, coefficients, or, in other words, the results of the conducted research (see

Table 1. Pearson’s correlation and the evaluation of Q1 and Q2 questions.

		Advertisement	Direct Marketing	Personal Selling	Public Relations	Sales Support	Digital Media
Advertisement	Pearson’s Correlation	1	0.163 **	0.346 **	0.421 **	0.709 **	0.143 **
	Sig. (2-tailed)		0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633
Direct Marketing	Pearson’s Correlation	0.163 **	1	0.440 **	0.447 **	0.309 **	0.860 **
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000		0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633
Personal Selling	Pearson’s Correlation	0.346 **	0.440 **	1	0.653 **	0.524 **	0.495 **
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000		0.000	0.000	0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633
Public Relations	Pearson’s Correlation	0.421 **	0.447 **	0.653 **	1	0.546 **	0.473 **
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000	0.000		0.000	0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633
Sales Support	Pearson’s Correlation	0.709 **	0.309 **	0.524 **	0.546 **	1	0.304 **
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000		0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633
Digital Media	Pearson’s Correlation	0.143 **	0.860 **	0.495 **	0.473 **	0.304 **	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
	N	633	633	633	633	633	633

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

). From the audit perspective on the analyzed marketing components in the museum sphere as per the respondents, Direct Marketing and Digital Media were the two most important components (0.860). The second most important components of marketing communication comprise Advertisement and Sales Support (0.709). Public Relations and Personal Selling (0.653) close out the trio. All other components under the audit loop reach 0 to +1 values as well, which, as per Tran (2011), denotes clear evidence of the positive relationship of the respondents towards all the remaining marketing communication components. Certain components just require expert-level focused attention.

Based on the formalized audit techniques, the dependency of marketing communication components from Direct Marketing to Digital Media on museum visitors can be added among the summarized findings. The results might serve for museum management to invest into exact marketing communication components. From the above-mentioned table, the interdependency of components may be determined, thus enabling museum management to work with separate marketing communication components; in cases with positive results, such interdependency might be sustained by investment, while in cases with less positive results the interdependency might be enforced with the help of investment (Kupec 2018).

The exact results are presented in Table 1, with the help of which both hypotheses H1 and H2 were proved. This means that the individual components of marketing communication are rated differently (H1 approved; see Table 1) and a significant dependency exists between the marketing communication components (H2 approved; see Table 1).

The presented results should be an important addition to marketing management. In fact, the marketing management has been continually changing, which is confirmed by Al-Waely (2019). Although a unique concept or a single mix of museum marketing communication cannot be recommended, according to Brown and Crosno (2019) marketing communication must be continuously monitored, audited and improved. This confirms the above-mentioned results. In addition, the importance of the approaches used is verified by Cluley et al. (2020); however, with a critical acknowledgment of the application limits (see below). In any case, the results expand the approaches of marketing management according to Sheth (2020).

In terms of the discussion, the limits of the research traditionally related to the problematic measurability of marketing investments and their payback must be mentioned. Based on the overview provided (Table 1), museum management might impose measurable marketing combinatorics. These particularly apply to: (1) the support for museum marketing communication in relation to the rehabilitation/restoration of historical artefacts; (2) the improvement of museum support services; (3) the increase of event marketing capacities; (4) the expansion of social media usage, particularly in the international context, offline communication forms have declined; (5) the extent of the society-wide museum aspect in terms of everyday marketing.

5. Conclusions

This work embraces museum marketing communication and the audit-based analysis of its components. The museum sphere and the communication strategies therein experience constant changes and development, together with the entire world. This, in most cases, risky development needs to be monitored in order to eliminate risks, control changes, and uncover ineffectiveness. The aim of this research was therefore to determine the dependence amongst elements of the marketing communication of museums by questioning the visitors. The aim and task of the submitted research were fulfilled by applying the audit approach, which allowed ineffective museum communication areas to be revealed. The main results include the identification of the degree of dependency between museum marketing communication components, showing the significance of the museum marketing communication for the visitors. The positively dependent components of the marketing communication can be listed in the descending order of importance: Direct Marketing and Digital Media, Advertisement and Sales Support, Public Relations and Personal Selling. The potential limits of this research traditionally related to the problematic measurability of marketing investments, the subsequent evaluation of marketing impacts, and financial payback. Thus, these limits outline a further research possibility, which lies in the continuous auditing and digital measurement of selected elements of marketing communication rather than in the PAPI survey. As it stands, the submitted results that if practically implied, help museum management to identify the most suitable ways and components of marketing communication to make adequate investment decisions. If this approach is not applied, museums might build their marketing strategies ineffectively and with a greater degree of risk. In the case of the successful implementation of audit results from the side of museum management, there is a greater chance to run an effective marketing communication, contributing to the development of the cultural sector as a whole.