This two-year project (2005-07) was delivered through a partnership between MLA South East and amh. The project was externally evaluated and further funding enabled the work to continue through 2007-08.
The partnership aimed to improve our understanding of the marketing needs of museums, libraries and archives in the South East and devise sustainable means of meeting these needs.
The project had three phases. Phase One produced a Marketing Needs Assessment of Museums, Libraries and Archives in the South East. Phase Two is informed by that assessment and develops best practice through working with seven selected organisations in the South East. Phase Three was informed by the evaluation of the preceding work and concludes the project by working with five organisations.
Phase One
The Marketing Needs Assessment of Museums, Libraries and Archives in the South East is reported on through the report, After Value.
The After Value report develops a strategic context for museums, libraries and archives through John Holden’s work in Capturing Cultural Value and the MLA Partnership's Strategic Framework.
MLA South East’s domain strategies were used to structure the consultations which clarified the marketing needs of the sector in the South East.
After Value complements the explicit marketing needs of the sector as articulated by museum, library and archive professionals with implicit marketing needs derived from marketing theory.
Explicit marketing needs of the sector are summarised as follows:
- Customers - the retention and recruitment of current and potential customers
- ‘Known culture’ – reflecting everyday experience and meeting consumer expectations derived from shopping and commercial services
- Capacity - staff skills need developing and sharing whilst the economies of scale represented by partnerships need to be maximised
- Market Intelligence - improved market intelligence to develop the segmentation and identification of target groups, and to enable real evaluation of product and service development
- Online - development of online 'offer', customer communications and relationship building
- Marketing communications - the need of the sector for effective marketing communications
- Return on investment – the expansion implied by reaching out to current and new customers requires more-from-less on an ongoing basis
- Advocacy - increased custom needs to be communicated to stakeholders to ensure sustainable funding
To define implicit marketing needs, a Marketing Planning Framework is developed which has the following key steps:
- Goal setting
- Review
- Strategy setting
- Implementation
- Evaluation
Phase Two
The After Value marketing planning framework was piloted with seven organisations to develop best practice.
Phase Three
In 2007-08, five organisations were further supported through facilitation in implementing and evaluating their marketing activity.
