ABSTRACT
Marketing is about matching the museum's product with the market, taking into account the museum's resources (Kotler 1991). It also requires an understanding of the environmental issues that may impact on any of these factors; the public, the museum's product, and the museum's resources. The emphasis and nature for each of these variables will differ depending on the individual museum. The museum's product and resources are its own internal affair, and will be unique to each museum. Its own structure and politics will affect the manner in which it responds to changing consumer needs. However, a marketing orientation requires a museum to monitor its external environment and to adjust its own product offerings so that consumer needs are fulfilled, thereby facilitating the museum in meeting its goals. Palmer defines an organisation's marketing environment as 'all of those uncontrollable events outside the organization which impinge on its activities' (Palmer 1994: 35). The environmental issues to be considered would normally include the following variables: politics, economics, legislation, technology, competition, and the market. To these, museums need to add a further variable: the museum's stakeholders and other publics. This chapter will look at each of these variables in turn. It will assess trends and developments for each, focusing particularly on the UK situation, although many of the issues are universal.
