Running a museum’s marketing operations, event creation and management is no small feat—the workload adds up fast. Add tight budgets, donor relations, and reporting to boards into the mix, and it’s clear: museum marketers have a lot on their plates.
Museums serve as cultural anchors while embracing the complexities of education, engagement, and technology. From managing memberships and donor relationships to hosting events and engaging visitors, they rely on tools that streamline operations and enhance their impact. For many, Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) provide the structure needed to strengthen relationships and foster growth.
With so many CRMs out there—Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Blackbaud Altru, Neon CRM—choosing the right one can feel overwhelming. To help, we’re breaking down how HubSpot compares to other leading solutions so you can make the best decision for your museum.
Why HubSpot? (Hint: It’s Built for Relationship Building)
At their core, museums thrive on building connections: attracting visitors, converting them into members, and nurturing donors into lifelong supporters. HubSpot’s CRM streamlines this process by centralizing all your data in one place, making relationship management effortless.
With HubSpot, you can track every interaction—from newsletter opens to event RSVPs—and gain actionable insights to optimize follow-up and engagement. No more guessing who’s engaged or how best to connect—HubSpot empowers you to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
HubSpot’s Standout Features for Museums
- Custom Dashboards: Gain real-time insights into donor engagement, campaign ROI, visitor trends, and more—all within a single, user-friendly view.
- Unified Data: HubSpot’s flexible CRM and custom objects empower museums to manage a wide array of processes, including memberships, donations, events, ticketing, grants, and corporate sponsorships. With customizable objects, HubSpot can function as a tailored database, serving as your all-in-one solution for operations. Seamlessly link various business processes like support tickets, events, and memberships to contacts (visitors) and companies (donors) for a comprehensive view of all your touchpoints.
- Event Management and Ticketing: HubSpot’s CRM can be configured to manage event and ticketing processes directly. Custom objects can be manipulated to act as any type of database, enabling your museum to track and optimize every aspect of event planning and visitor experiences—all within a single platform.
- Marketing Automation: Effortlessly create and send personalized email series for event invitations, membership renewals, and more, tailored to specific audience segments. This ensures consistent engagement across every touchpoint.
- Seamless Integration: While HubSpot is powerful on its own, it integrates effortlessly with platforms like Mailchimp, Eventbrite, Shopify, and more for ticketing, sales, and communications. With over 1,000 integrations available, you can expand HubSpot’s capabilities to meet your museum’s unique needs.
- User-Friendly Design: HubSpot’s intuitive interface makes it accessible for teams of all skill levels, ensuring adoption and efficiency. Whether managing donor relationships or planning a major event, HubSpot simplifies the process, providing a one-stop tool for everything.
Special Offer for Nonprofits
- 40% Discount: Access premium-level software at a fraction of the cost.
- Premium-Level Software: Industry-leading tools designed to scale with your needs.
- Nonprofit-Friendly Onboarding: Tailored support to help you hit the ground running.
Who’s it for?
- Small museums: Start with HubSpot’s free tier to manage the basics.
- Large institutions: Paid tiers offer advanced analytics, automation, and integrations to scale your efforts.
Want to learn more? Explore why a holistic tech solution beats a patchwork approach.
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Real Results: A Museum Success Story
The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) partnered with Nonprofit Tech Shop to implement HubSpot and saw remarkable results, including a 25% increase in donor engagement and a 30% boost in staff productivity.
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HubSpot vs. The Alternatives: What You Need to Know
HubSpot is widely recognized for its user-friendly interface, robust integrations, and scalability, making it a top choice for museums of all sizes. But is it the right fit for every museum?
We’ve already had a look at HubSpot’s standout features in the previous section, now let’s take a look at some of the top alternatives to HubSpot, highlighting their key strengths and limitations so you can make an informed decision about what works best for your museum.
1. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud
| Best for: Museums requiring an all-in-one solution for ticketing, membership, and fundraising. |
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Pros:
- Comprehensive Platform: Salesforce offers a wide range of features such as donor management, program tracking, volunteer management, and marketing automation.
- Customizable: Highly flexible and adaptable to meet unique nonprofit workflows.
- Integration: Seamlessly integrates with a variety of third-party applications.
- Scalable: Suitable for nonprofits of all sizes, from small to large.
- Support: Strong user community and vast support resources.
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Cons:
- Cost: While Salesforce offers discounted pricing for nonprofits, the platform can still be expensive, especially for smaller organizations.
- Complexity: Due to its vast capabilities, Salesforce can be difficult for non-technical users to navigate, requiring training and external support.
- Learning Curve: It can take significant time and effort to implement and fully learn how to use Salesforce.
- SF Sunsets NPSP: Salesforce is phasing out its Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), forcing nonprofits to transition to the Nonprofit Cloud. NPSP has been widely used by nonprofit organizations for years. These organizations are now required to migrate to the Nonprofit Cloud, generally at a much higher cost and complexity.
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2. Blackbaud Altru
| Best for: Museums requiring an all-in-one solution for ticketing, membership, and fundraising. |
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Pros:
- Comprehensive Solution: Altru offers an all-in-one solution for ticketing, membership, and fundraising.
- Intuitive Point of Sale: The system is easy to use for front desk staff, facilitating smooth operations.
- Constituent Tracking: Provides a 360-degree view of each constituent's activity, enhancing the ability to engage and retain visitors, members, and donors.
- User-Friendly Interface: Many users find Altru's interface intuitive, especially for ticketing and event management.
- Customer Support: Excellent customer service with multiple support channels, including knowledge base and online chat.
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Cons:
- Complex Reporting: Some users find Altru's reporting capabilities challenging, especially for advanced queries.
- Limited Customization: While great for basic functions, Altru’s customization options for complex workflows can be limited.
- Email Capabilities: The email functionality is not as robust, making it harder to execute and track targeted email campaigns.
- Learning Curve for Complex Functions: Some users report that Altru's advanced features, like multi-session event registration, are not intuitive and require workarounds.
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3. Neon CRM
| Best for: Budget-conscious small to mid-sized museums. |
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Pros:
- User-Friendly: Known for its easy setup and intuitive interface, Neon CRM is simple to use without needing extensive training.
- Customizable: Offers flexibility in configuring donor forms, reports, and engagement strategies.
- Affordable: Offers a cost-effective solution, particularly for small to mid-sized nonprofits
- Strong Donor Management: Provides excellent tools for managing donors, organizing events, and tracking fundraising efforts.
- Good Customer Support: Generally positive reviews of Neon’s customer service and support resources.
Event Management: Offers features for event registration, ticketing, and volunteer management.
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Cons:
- Limited Reporting: While basic reporting works well, some users feel it lacks depth in advanced analytics
- Limited Integrations: Compared to larger CRMs, Neon CRM has fewer integration options, which may be limiting for larger organizations.
- Customer Support: Some users report inconsistent customer service, with occasional delays in responses.
- Feature Gaps: Lacks certain advanced features like auction management, which some organizations seek.
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4. Tessitura Network
| Best for: Arts and cultural institutions needing integrated ticketing, CRM, and fundraising solutions. |
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Pros:
- Comprehensive CRM: Tessitura excels in consolidating ticketing, membership, and fundraising data into one platform.
- Customization: Highly customizable to suit the specific needs of arts and cultural institutions. (TrustRadius)
- Integrated Ticketing and Fundraising: Strong features for ticket sales, donor management, and event marketing. (TrustRadius, Capterra)
- Robust Reporting: Tessitura offers powerful reporting features that help with strategic decision-making.
- Community Support: Tessitura provides a strong community with ample resources like webinars, training, and a forum.
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Cons:
- Steep Learning Curve: The system’s complexity requires extensive training and may be overwhelming for new users.
- High Cost: Tessitura’s pricing structure is high, making it less accessible for smaller organizations.
- Outdated Interface: The user interface is often considered outdated and not as intuitive as other modern CRM platforms.
- Technical Issues During Upgrades: Custom plugins and updates can cause issues during new version rollouts.
- Limited for Smaller Organizations: The complexity and cost make it less suitable for small or less complex institutions.
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5. ArenaMetrix
| Best for: Museums focused on personalizing visitor experiences. |
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Pros:
- Visitor Engagement: ArenaMetrix provides advanced visitor segmentation and personalized outreach, enabling museums to create tailored experiences.
- Data-Driven Insights: The platform offers real-time analytics and predictive modeling, helping museums understand visitor behavior and trends
- Multi-Channel Marketing: It supports multi-channel marketing, allowing museums to engage visitors through various communication channels like email, social media, and direct messaging.
- Personalization: ArenaMetrix uses visitor data to create personalized experiences, improving engagement and retention.
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Cons:
- Limited Donor Management: While strong in visitor engagement, ArenaMetrix lacks robust features for managing donor relationships, which may require using additional tools.
- Narrow Focus: It’s heavily geared towards visitor engagement rather than being an all-encompassing CRM solution.
- Integration Challenges: While the platform integrates with many tools, it may not offer as many third-party integrations as larger CRMs like HubSpot.
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6. Doubleknot
| Best for: Small to mid-sized museums needing ticketing and membership management; especially useful for museums with less complex needs. |
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Pros:
- Comprehensive Functionality: Manages membership, donations, programming, and events all within one platform.
- Ease of Use: Simple setup and easy to pull data for reports.
- Automated Features: Automation for payment reminders and registration helps save staff time.
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Cons:
- Customer Service Issues: Inconsistent response times and lack of direct phone support.(Capterra)
- Poor Online Registration Experience: Visitors report difficulties with registration and payment.
- Accounting and Reporting Limitations: Issues with accrual-based accounting and lack of detailed reporting options.
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7. Cuseum
| Best for: Museums prioritizing mobile-first visitor engagement. |
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Pros:
- Mobile Engagement: Cuseum focuses on mobile-first solutions, offering powerful tools for engaging visitors via smartphones, such as digital memberships and interactive exhibits.
- Visitor Interaction: Helps museums create interactive experiences that enhance visitor engagement, such as mobile tours and custom experiences.
- Modern Interface: The platform has a modern, user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate for both museum staff and visitors.
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Cons:
- Limited CRM Functionality: Cuseum is highly specialized for visitor engagement, but lacks the full-featured CRM capabilities, particularly for donor management, compared to other solutions like HubSpot.
- Primarily Focused on Visitor Engagement: Its focus on visitor engagement means that it lacks the comprehensive marketing and fundraising tools that a museum might need in a full CRM solution.
- Limited Customization: While Cuseum offers great engagement tools, it may be less customizable when compared to larger CRM systems that provide extensive configuration options.
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8. Versai Museum Management Software
| Best for: Museums requiring integrated CRM, ticketing, and POS systems. |
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Pros:
- Comprehensive Integration: Integrates admissions, membership, ticketing, and POS systems into one platform.
- Customizable: Offers flexibility for small to large museums to handle various needs, from ticketing to donor management.
- Robust Reporting: Strong reporting and data management capabilities.
- Great Support: Responsive support team and continuous software updates based on user feedback.
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Cons:
- User Interface: The web and mobile application interfaces can be outdated, with limited customization for branding and user experience.
- Complex Queries: Reports and data queries are difficult for non-technical users to set up.
- Limited Customization for Web: The platform lacks advanced customization options for the online presence, such as better brand integration.
- Performance Issues: The software can sometimes run slowly, particularly with large data sets.
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9. PastPerfect
| Best for: Museums focused on artifact cataloging and collection management. |
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Pros:
- Affordable: Provides a cost-effective solution for smaller museums.
- Comprehensive for Collection Management: Great for managing collections, loans, donations, and archives.
- Easy to Learn: The software is intuitive for small museums and new users.
- Searchable Database: Excellent for managing and searching through museum collections
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Cons:
- Outdated Platform: PastPerfect is considered outdated by some users, with limited modern features and a lack of mobile optimization.
- Customization Limitations: While robust for collection management, customization for object types and reports is restricted.
- Integration Issues: Difficult to integrate with other CRMs, particularly for donor management and fundraising reports.
- Steep Learning Curve for New Users: It can be difficult to train new users, especially volunteers who don’t use the software regularly.
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Now that we’ve explored the strengths and limitations of HubSpot alternative solutions for museums, below is a break down of the key areas where HubSpot excels, solidifying its position as a game-changer for museums and nonprofits of all types and sizes seeking to enhance their operations, engage visitors, and drive fundraising efforts.
1. Centralize Visitor Data
HubSpot collects visitor data from multiple sources—ticketing systems, memberships, RSVPs—and compiles it into a single, unified record. This creates a comprehensive profile of each visitor, giving you a clear picture of their journey and engagement with your museum. Whether they’ve visited exhibits, attended events, or made donations, you can easily track and manage all interactions in one place.
For example, let’s say your museum is holding a special exhibit. When a visitor buys tickets, here’s what HubSpot can do:
- The system automatically logs the transaction and adds them to a custom list for that exhibit
- This then allows you to not only segment visitors based on their interests but also send personalized communications based on their specific behaviors.
- Additionally, you can track visitor engagement across multiple channels, including email, website visits, and social media interactions, to understand how they engage with your content. This data enables you to segment audiences more effectively and target them with the right messages at the right time.
Leveraging AI tools in nonprofit fundraising can further enhance how you engage and retain your audience. HubSpot’s AI-powered insights can predict visitor behavior, allowing you to tailor your outreach and increase engagement with targeted campaigns. Whether you’re promoting a new exhibit or encouraging donations during a specific campaign, these tools help you refine your strategy to maximize impact.
2. Streamline Marketing Campaigns
Automation tools let you send targeted email series without manual effort. For example:
- A visitor buys a ticket online.
- HubSpot sends them a “Welcome!” email with exhibit highlights.
- Two weeks later, they receive an invite to an upcoming event.
- A month later, a message encourages them to support the museum through membership.
These marketing campaigns can be streamlined and targeted even more!
For instance, when a visitor buys a ticket for a special event or exhibit, HubSpot can:
➡️Automatically add them to a list of interested visitors for that specific exhibit. ➡️ From there, you can send targeted emails with additional details about the exhibit, exclusive behind-the-scenes content, or special promotions related to the event. ➡️ You can also create custom ads targeting these individuals, encouraging them to donate to the exhibit or inviting them to future events related to that exhibit.
This level of personalization keeps the engagement ongoing and builds a stronger connection between the museum and the visitor.
By leveraging HubSpot’s AI during critical fundraising periods like Giving Tuesday or Holiday Campaigns, you can further refine these workflows to maximize engagement and increase donations during high-impact times.
3. Boost Fundraising with Donor Insights
Understanding the impact of your outreach is key to building stronger donor relationships. HubSpot’s tools allow you to track how donors engage with your campaigns, segment them based on behavior, and deliver personalized messages that resonate. Here’s how HubSpot can help you boost your fundraising efforts:
For example, let’s say your museum is running a fundraising campaign to support a new exhibit. When a donor makes a contribution, HubSpot can:
- Automatically segment your donors into targeted lists based on their behavior. This means you can send highly personalized communications to different donor groups—whether they’ve supported specific exhibits or participated in past events.
- Continue engaging donors post-contribution with custom workflows that keep them updated on the impact of their donations and invite them to further engage, ensuring ongoing support.
Additionally, HubSpot's behavioral segmentation helps you:
- Identify which donors are most likely to increase their support or become recurring donors.
For example, if a donor who made a one-time contribution last year opens an email about an upcoming campaign, HubSpot can notify you to follow up with a personalized ask. Additionally, the platform’s AI-powered insights predict which donors may be inclined to make a larger gift or increase their membership based on their previous engagement levels.
- With the use of HubSpot’s reporting tools, you can measure the ROI of your fundraising campaigns and:
➡️Easily track how donors are responding to specific messages, campaigns, or events. ➡️Share clear, actionable data with your team or board, showing how your outreach is directly impacting your fundraising goals.
This level of donor insights not only empowers your fundraising strategy but also allows you to continually refine your approach to engage donors more effectively, ensuring every interaction moves them closer to becoming lifelong supporters of your museum.
4. Track What Matters
From newsletter engagement to social ad performance, HubSpot’s reporting tools let you measure ROI and share clear results with your team, board, or donors. Here’s how HubSpot helps you track and refine your campaigns:
For example, let’s say your museum is running an email campaign promoting your annual gala::
- HubSpot tracks the open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate for each email sent.
- It allows you to see how many visitors who clicked on the exhibit link went on to purchase tickets or become members, providing clear insight into the ROI of the campaign.
- You can segment the results by demographics, engagement, or past interactions, allowing you to refine your strategy for future campaigns.
Similarly, for social ads:
- HubSpot integrates with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, giving you detailed reports on how your social media ads are performing.
- You can track ad performance based on clicks, impressions, and conversion rates, enabling you to measure how well your ads are driving engagement, ticket sales, or donations.
Additionally, HubSpot’s analytics tools allow you to:
- Compare performance across multiple campaigns to identify which strategies are most effective.
- Measure the success of fundraising campaigns, exhibit promotions, or event invitations, allowing you to make data-driven decisions moving forward.
With HubSpot’s robust reporting and analytics, every decision is backed by solid data, ensuring you’re always on track to meet your museum’s objectives. Whether you're reporting to your team, board, or donors, you’ll have the insights you need to demonstrate the success of your initiatives and continually improve your strategies.
DIY or Partner with Experts?
Here’s the truth: HubSpot is an incredible tool, but getting the most out of it requires thoughtful planning and implementation.
If you have the in-house expertise to manage data migration, customize workflows, and create tailored campaigns, you might be able to handle it yourself. But for many museums, hiring a partner can be the fastest path to success.
A HubSpot expert can help you map your audience journeys, integrate third-party tools, and build automations that save your team time. More importantly, they’ll ensure your data is clean, segmented, and ready to fuel growth.
Let’s chat about how we can help you implement HubSpot and hit your marketing goals. You can also explore our full library of nonprofit marketing resources to discover strategies and tools tailored to your organization’s needs.
Take the First Step
Your museum’s mission deserves a marketing platform that works as hard as you do. Whether you’re looking to bring in more visitors, deepen donor relationships, or grow your memberships, HubSpot is the tool that can help you do it all—efficiently and effectively.
Need support with getting started? Nonprofit Tech Shop specializes in empowering nonprofits and mission-driven organizations to make the most of their technology investments.