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Volume Two
Issue Two
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For February's Arts
Marketer, we have crossed the Atlantic to feature Greg Hall,
Marketing Assistant for London's Victoria and Albert Museum,
who highlights some of the similarities and differences in US
and UK museum marketing. Read on . . .
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| Featured Arts Marketer: Greg Hall
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Greg Hall,
Marketing Assistant at the V &
A
| Greg Hall has been
the Marketing Assistant at London's Victoria and Albert
Museum for the past 18 months.
In this role,
Greg looks after the general promotion of the Museum --
concentrating on print and advertising as well as
overseeing the e-marketing initiatives such as editing
the e-newsletters, recommending web presence and
directly managing various areas of the website. Greg
also provides project support for major exhibitions,
devising and implementing campaigns that use all
elements of the marketing
mix.
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| Q&A |
IN CASE SOME OF
OUR READERS HAVEN'T BEEN TO LONDON RECENTLY, CAN YOU
TELL US A BIT ABOUT THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT
MUSEUM?
The V&A is one of the world's
greatest museums of art and design, with collections
unrivalled in their scope and diversity. On permanent
display are 3000 years' worth of amazing artifacts from
many of the world's richest cultures, including
ceramics, furniture, fashion, glass, jewellery,
metalwork, photographs, sculpture, textiles and
paintings. Complementing this, the V&A stages a
varied program of temporary exhibitions, including
recent blockbusters: "Art Deco 1910-1939," "Versace at
the V&A" and "Gothic: Art for England
1400-1547."
Entry to the V&A is free. The
Museum attracts around 2.5 million visitors a
year.
AND, YOUR BACKGROUND?
I have been
working in the Marketing Department at the V&A for
18 months. Prior to this I worked for an Arts Trust in
the Lake District (in the north of England), responsible
for the marketing of two museums, an art gallery and a
historic house. This last venue, a beautiful Arts &
Crafts Movement house, was restored and opened to the
public during my time with the Trust.
WHAT IS THE
ROLE OF YOUR E-NEWSLETTERS?
The V&A
e-newsletter runs in tandem with the broader marketing
objectives of the "Online Museum," driving audiences to
the web site while also providing a relationship with
our subscribers that is not purely based on sales.
Our aim is to achieve a sense of trust and
loyalty, and this has been essential in maintaining an
amazing patron growth rate which has seen our subscriber
numbers doubling to 40,000 in 16 months.
HOW HAVE
YOU ACQUIRED THAT MANY NEW NAMES SO QUICKLY? WHAT
TECHNIQUES REALLY WORK FOR YOU?
The million
dollar question! I think that we have succeeded by
continually looking at new ways to attract sign-ups,
both on- and off-line. We push the e-newsletter at every
opportunity -- whether this be on the back of all
promotional print, through an "e-mail me" postcard that
we leave at the entrance desks, through interactives in
the Museum or through various pieces of direct mail that
we send out. Perhaps the strongest technique is word of
mouth, using current subscribers and more importantly
our own front of house and box office staff to recommend
the e-newsletter to visitors whose trip to the Museum
has sparked a desire to stay in touch.
THE
V&A IS FUNDED DIRECTLY BY THE GOVERNMENT WHICH IS
VASTLY DIFFERENT THAN IN THE U.S. HOW DOES THIS WORK,
AND HOW THEN DOES IT AFFECT YOUR E-MARKETING?
The
V&A is a national museum and therefore directly
funded by the government. In 2001, admission charges
were scrapped for all national museums and the shortfall
of income was made up by additional grant-in-aid. In
order to justify this expenditure of public money, the
Museum has set yearly visitor targets to meet for
various audiences. These include: total number of
visits, number of visits by children, number of visitors
from particular demographic backgrounds and number of
website hits.
Naturally, this is reflected in our
marketing objectives, concentrating more on increasing
visitors and audiences rather than with generating
income (although this is still important). As a result
the e-newsletter is not a sales-lead generator but
rather concentrates on providing news and reviews,
information from behind the scenes and promoting a
varied range of free activities and events. This allows
us to give our subscribers a level of knowledge about
the V&A that would be impossible to find out
otherwise and in turn leads to a high "open,"
"click-though" and "recommend a friend" rate.
HOW ELSE DO YOU USE PATRONMAIL?
Of
course, we do generate sales through the e-newsletter,
particularly for the major paid exhibitions and events,
lectures and courses that are held throughout the year.
However, subscribers can be attracted to a purchase
without a hard sell.
It is clear from
"click-though" results (our average click through rate
for the last two months has been: 7.5%) that subscribers
love a good offer, competition or interactive experience
tied in with an exhibition or event (have a look at
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1231_vivienne_westwood/competition.html).
The e-newsletter can also be used for other
benefits -- it can add value to sponsorship packages, it
can be used for cross-promoting to carefully selected
partners and for third party offers with similar venues.
Our e-newsletter adds strength to the V&A brand but
is not precious by being solely about the Museum. We
recognise that our audiences like to visit other arts
venues, so why not add value to our e-newsletter by
giving subscribers great deals elsewhere?
As for
specifics, we use the indexed modern and indexed
standard templates for the e-newsletter along with the
postcards for smaller, more specific campaigns. The
V&A has a very strong logo which the brand toolkit
allows us to use quite freely and in any color (except
black). This use of color is carried across the entire
e-newsletter and gives each one a fresh and unique
feel.
WHAT ARE YOUR AIMS FOR THE
E-NEWSLETTER?
The V&A website is currently
undergoing a radical overhaul resulting in a fresh look
and much more user-friendly design. This will be
reflected in the e-newsletter campaigns which we also
intend to make more targeted so that the diversity of
the V&A collections can be explored depending on an
individual's interests. As with all venues, we want to
increase patron numbers, thinking of new and novel ways
to attract subscribers, thus reducing the amount of
printed material produced.
It seems, in many
ways, that whether in the US or UK, the nature of
e-marketing is the same, even if our ultimate objectives
differ.
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If you
have interesting and creative initiatives that you would like
to have featured or know of an arts marketer that you would
like to recommend for one of our upcoming editions, please
contact info@patrontechnology.com.
Please watch for the
next edition of our Arts Marketer of the Month, coming March
10, 2004.
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