pr and marketing tips for museums at night 2016
TRANSCRIPT
Museums at Night PR & marketing tips
Rosie Clarke
Culture24
Festival PR
• National PR campaign aims to raise awareness of the festival as a whole
• The goal: to drive new audiences to the Museums at Night website
• Usually one quirky or standout event highlighted
• Regional / specialist PR – we slice and dice
• How to make your event stand out
Marketing outcomes
• Storytelling
• Leveraging event to attract positive PR for your organisation, raise awareness
• Audience development
• Sell tickets, generate income
• Give visitors great experience – WOM
• Develop skills, confidence
Target audience
• Who are they?
• Where are they, in real life and online?
• How can you reach them?
Marketing channels
• Product – event description, press release, images
• Traditional media – print & broadcast
• Online coverage, social media
• Email newsletters
• Your own printed publicity
• In person
Event description • Creative copywriting
• Why should people come? What’s unique, exciting, different? Positioning
• Collection objects / highlights / extra information about your venue
• Night time atmosphere?
• Sensory descriptions – not just sight
• Is this for people like me? Overcoming resistance
• Food and drink
• Ticket pricing
Writing a press release
• Who, What, Where, When, Why, How
• Quote curator / funder / celeb endorsement
• We can provide a personalised quote
• 2 pages max in body of email
• Great images
• Notes to Editors – standard boilerplate
• Named contact – respond quickly!
What’s your angle?
• Local media want a local angle
• Features journalists look for human interest
• Topical – link to a historical event, personality or anniversary
• Anything being revealed for the first time, unique access?
Getting a good image
• Your target audience having a good time, engaging with collections, doing the thing
• Photo call / your own photoshoot!
• Create a night-time atmosphere
• Get parents’ permission
• Print quality – over 300 dpi, A5 size, minimum 2MB
• Filename, caption – title, venue, photographer, (c), date
Sending a press release
• Find out deadlines (weekly papers usually 2 weeks ahead, broadcast 1 week)
• Contact details (print = news, listings, features editors; broadcast = producers)
• Don’t forget local blogs, forums, podcasts, newsletters
• Follow-up phonecall
Extra tips
• Set up a photocall
• Create a competition with newspaper
• Invite picture editor to send photographer on the night
• Take your own photos, visitor vox pops – can repost and reuse in future
• We always want your photos for our media image library!
Radio and podcast interviews
• Key points - soundbites
• Facts in front of you – dates, times, numbers
• Drink water
• Next step, listeners should …
• Tell us and we’ll tweet the link!
Your print publicity
• Posters
• Flyers
• Your brochures
• Download our logos and templates – new design coming soon!
Poster designs
Where to display print publicity
• Venue – café, entrance, back of toilet doors
• Community noticeboards
• Shops, cafes, libraries, churches, community centres
• TICs
• Hotel information packs
• Other arts / heritage venues
Online coverage
• Your own website / blog
• Telling stories, drawing people in, news updates, set building, styling practice
• Immediacy: type what you’d say out loud
• Guest posting e.g. LinkedIn, Medium - include call to action and link back
• I want your case studies!
http://museumsatnight.org.uk/category/case-study/
Social media
• Communicate directly, immediately
• Simple, authentic, human voice
• Track what’s being said about you, respond openly
• Connect with local community, interest groups
• What does success look like – conversation, follower numbers, ticket sales, post-visit comments and images?
Social media tracking tools
• Storify to save Tweets, republish stories
• Facebook and Twitter analytics
• Newsletter open rates, clickthroughs
• Google Analytics – time on site, sales funnel, where next?
• Take baseline measurements now!
Using Twitter
• Creating buzz, building community
• Connect with other museums, wider audiences
• Join global initiatives - #AskACurator, #MuseumSelfie
• Share local news and photos
• Respond to questions
• @MuseumsAtNight we’ll RT
• #MatN2016
• Where are your target audience?
• Can create events, invite friends, they invite friends
• Share stories
• Track engagement – best times to post
More social media channels • YouTube – calls to action, subscribe: long-
tail content
• Vine
• Periscope
• Flickr
Email newsletters
• Engaged, opted-in list
• Separate, targeted messages to public, teachers, Friends of museum
• Seasonal highlights, upcoming events
• Deepen relationship – perks e.g. launch invitations, competitions
• Cheap / free – Mailchimp, Aweber
• Involve your fans in your story
Growing your mailing list
• On your website – homepage, About, Contact
• In person at venue
• Signup sheet at external events
• Email signature
• Joint competitions
Word of mouth
• Good experiences recommended, bad experiences shared widely (TripAdvisor)
• Welcome and farewell in venue
• Word of mouth influencers – taxi drivers, trustees, Young Friends
• Online influencers – local bloggers, Facebook groups
Slow ticket sales? • Contact us early – 01273 623266
• Look at your event description – is it as full and exciting as possible? Is it clear who would enjoy this event?
• Walk through your user’s buying journey
• Chase up all press releases
• Event promotion tips http://museumsatnight.org.uk/marketing-pr/3-days-to-go-9-top-
event-marketing-tips/
• Ticket giveaway – radio, newsletter
On the day
• Don’t worry about number of Facebook attendees
• Tweet your preparations
• Share your wifi code at the event
• Invite visitors to tweet / instagram / film themselves on the night using hashtag #MatN2016
• Designated selfie spot!
• Visitor surveys, join mailing list
Follow-up coverage
• Share a quick run-down of your event: what happened that was quirky, new, exciting and different?
• Top line stats: visitor numbers
• Quotes from the night
• Future plans “Our next Late is on 17 June, tickets on sale now!”
• Link to others’ coverage, blog posts etc
• Share your images
– Invite visitors to tag themselves on Facebook, tweet / instagram their reviews and pics with #MatN2016
Any questions?
Thank you!