Audience Development and Marketing Strategy for Museums in Wales

Audience Development and Marketing Strategy for Museums in Wales

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE CONSULTATION DRAFT, MARCH 2013

WHY A STRATEGY & WHO IS IT FOR?

The Audience Development and Marketing Strategy for Museums in Wales is written for everyone involved in working in museums or in partnership with them including tourism and educational organisations. Its aim is to support all these individuals and organisations to work together to improve marketing of museums and raise the number and range of visitors using them. Implementation of the strategy in the period 2013-2016 will be managed by the national marketing team funded by CyMAL, who are hosted and managed by Wrexham CBC. The strategy was commissioned by Wrexham CBC with the support of CyMAL and developed by consultants Creative Cultures. It is hoped that this short summary will enable a wide range of people to comment on what the strategy proposes to do for museums in Wales.

WHAT DID THE RESEARCH AND CONSULTATION FIND?

After researching available survey data and talking to museums of all kinds and their stakeholder and partner organisations, three major conclusions are drawn:

1. Available data on users and non-users indicates a substantial proportion of potential visitors with negative or out-dated views of what a museum can provide by way of visitor experience and the benefits of museums

1. With only a few exceptions, marketing within museums takes place with very limited resources in terms of skills, understanding, staff time and budget - and there is a clearly stated need within a considerable proportion of the sector for support in developing marketing skills and practice

1. The existing infrastructure for museums in Wales already provides valuable support and advice to the sector (as well as good online resources to support marketing and audience development work) and offers the national marketing strategy a strong array of potential partners with which to work noting that museums were keenly aware of the diversity of the sector and they did not want a strategy that offered 'one size fits all' solutions.

WHAT DOES THE STRATEGY PROPOSE TO DO?

In total, nine initiatives are being proposed by the draft strategy. All will involve working with a range of partners in the museum support and visitor economy sectors in particular, such as the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries in Wales and AIM and tourism bodies like Visit Wales and also draw on the existing expertise among Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum of Wales among others. The initiatives are arranged under two areas on which the strategy will focus:

Building the capacity and sustainability of marketing work across all museums in Wales

1. Training - marketing for beginners and marketing on a shoestring for museums at any level

A specially developed series of training programmes accessible to and relevant to all museums including the smallest and subsidised to encourage take-up by staff and volunteers. Areas to be covered could include: marketing concepts, modern approaches to marketing and advocacy, visitor research, customer service, use of online marketing and social media and other promotional methods.

1. Skill development and spreading good practice - promoting and developing online resources and support

One of the many strengths of the museum sector, in Wales and across the UK, is the range of online support material for skill development and spreading good practice. Not all museums are aware or actively drawing on these resources and many more could be actively encouraged to make use of them. This initiative will actively promote and help develop these resources to further strengthen marketing work.

1. Volunteering - developing the range and skills of volunteers in museums

Volunteers are already a key element in the running of museums, especially in the independent sector. It is proposed that a volunteer development programme for museums is discussed with partners including WCVA and local Volunteer Centres, AIM and FMAGW. The programme would seek to attract this wider range of volunteers and students to assist museums undertaking marketing research work, assist with promotion, develop and manage social networking and other related tasks

1. Providing focused benchmarks for future marketing and audience development - researching user and non-user perceptions and needs

User and non-user data for museums in Wales is limited and patchy with too little of it relating to the quality and nature of the experience of visitors and the barriers, perceptual or otherwise, that deter local people and tourists from outside Wales from including visits to museums in their leisure time or itinerary. It is proposed to encourage a well planned programme of surveys and research to help museums as a whole understand who visits and why and who does not visit and why.

1. Improving links between the national media and museums

Many museums have excellent links with the local media. Most museums recognise however that for the national media it is AC-NMW who is likely to be approached for comment on anything related to museums and that good media relations at the national level are largely limited to AC-NMW. This initiative will seek to broaden media coverage to highlight the good work that a wide range of museums do and strengthen media links with them.

Promoting, profile raising, and advocating the benefits of museums across Wales today

1. Promoting museums through an online 'Museum story of the month'

It is proposed to research a monthly 'museum story' featuring museums and their activities, the experience of those who visit, and of volunteers, and to use this story as a lively link to further information to be found online which will encourage further exploration online and actual visits to museums.

1. Promoting a biennial series of Welsh Museum Awards

A high profile series of Welsh Museum Awards is proposed that will recognise and celebrate the successes and contribution that museums make to life in Wales and to the country's image across the UK and worldwide. Rather than featuring a single ‘museum of the year’ these awards will include several carefully designed categories and aim to promote museum work which provides exciting and informative visitor experiences, offers involvement for local communities and volunteers, links with education, promotes Wales to visitors etc.

1. Promote selective, targeted marketing and engagement via a wide range of national initiatives

National initiatives provide an opportunity for museums to promote themselves to wider audiences. It is proposed to make known and promote a full range of these opportunities to museums so that they can asses whether involvement will be beneficial to them.

1. Developing key messages and advocacy resources for museums

Advocacy work needs to be an integral part of the audience development and marketing effort on behalf of the museum sector as a whole. This could take the form of online support, publicity about examples of good practice and success in advocacy and training in recognising and working with key partners and stakeholders.

If you would like to comment on these proposals, or anything related to the marketing of museums in Wales, please email your comments to no later than 28th March 2013. We will be very pleased to hear from you.