Exploring the stakeholder’s role in promoting the Kelantan State Museum

Promotional activities are among the most significant aspects in ensuring continual visits and engagements from visitors to heritage sites and institutions, including museums. An ineffective marketing technique will make it challenging to attract visitors and communities. This leads to the decrease number of visitors, undermining the fundamental mission of museums as an informal educational establishment for the public. However, few studies have been done on a promotional strategy for museum management in Malaysia. This paper seeks to bridge the gap by exploring the current museum’s marketing technique, using the Kelantan State Museum as a case study. It aims to look further into the museum’s promotional strategy, the involvement of responsible bodies, and the challenges in promoting the museum, specifically during the covid-19 pandemic. The research employed a qualitative design with purposeful approaches and snowballing techniques by interviewing the personnel at the Kelantan State Museum. The collected data were then analysed by applying Braun and Clarke’s six-step thematic analysis methodology. The results identified three main themes: marketing strategies and activities, collaboration between stakeholders and challenges going forward. The overarching findings highlighted major stakeholders and their degree of participation in museum promotion. This paper also discussed the challenges posed by the museum management in promoting their establishment to the public. This include issues such as visitor expectations, funding cuts and digital adaptation; and the cessation of many museum hubs for physical visitations due to the Covid-19, leading to new rules being presented to adapt to the recent changes in ensuring visitors’ safety. It is believed that the new norm has impacted the museum management’s efforts to promote their institution, necessitating the development of new strategies to increase public participation.