What do your visitors want?

It's a simple enough question, but do you actually know the answer? Understanding your visitors to critical to developing your attraction.

I have been guilty of assuming I know what visitors wanted. It was generally based on the business benefits I wanted to achieve and how I thought I could meet them, rather than knowing what people actually wanted to experience.

Audience insight is essential. If you understand what your visitors want and you deliver it, you will inevitably reap the rewards be that financial (more money), physical (more people) or emotional (greater connection).

You can spend a small fortune on this using professional market research companies and there is absolutely a place for that - never underestimate the power of great audience insight for big funding applications in particular. But you can do some simple things yourself to inform your plans.

Ask yourself some questions:

• Who visits already? Where do they come from? What are they like? How do they use the site?

• What are they telling you about your experience? How are you collecting feedback? What are you doing with it?

• What does your future visitor look like? Are they someone different? How do you reach them? What are your competitors doing to attract them?

You may already know a lot of this, but if you don't, just ask your visitors. Short face-to-face questionnaires can tell you a lot; being proactive with comment cards is helpful; using your front of house team to focus on a simple question to ask every visitor can be insightful; and if you can do them, small focus groups made up of visitors can be eye-opening. In short, there are lots of simple things you can do without spending a fortune.

But one of the most powerful things you can do is to just observe your visitors. See who they are, how they explore, where they stop. Simply by tracking their journey through your site you'll get some really valuable insight that can tell you what works and where to focus your energy.

And don't forget the look at external trend research which can help inform you. Every attraction will have some element that's unique, but visitor behaviour will also track social norms that can be helpful to understand. There's lots of insight available - ALVA, BVA BDRC, VisitEngland are just some examples.

Understanding audiences will help deliver on all your visitor-related objectives. Ensure you include it in your business planning and if you need some help, I can advise you how to use audience insight to deliver great experiences that will make you money.