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 20132016 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
2. 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
3. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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
4. 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.
5. 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
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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 brianm@creativecultures.co.uk no later than 28th
March 2013. We will be very pleased to hear from you.