Unknown Speaker 29:50 Good morning everyone. My name is Caitlin long I'm the director of the Worthington Historical Society and a region, six representative for a while, ha, and I am excited to welcome you to our first session today, marketing 102 With Jamison pack and me beach from the Ohio History Connection. Jamison pack has over 20 years of experience spanning Public Health Public Media public transportation and today public history as Ohio History Connection is Chief Marketing Officer Jamison lens her expertise to deepen engagement through marketing communications and visitor studies with her leadership, awareness of and participation in Ohio History Connection, It is growing her team's actions resulted in record breaking visitation to signature events, unparalleled media coverage and social media engagement metrics that outperform national and regional museums Jamison has spoken at the Smithsonian Institution Institute and American Association of State and Local History on how to develop and implement a new image, and increasing awareness of and support for cultural and history organizations. Me Beach is the Assistant Director of Public Relations and content marketing for the Ohio History Connection. She's a seasoned professional specializing in media strategy and training crisis communications and video production as Ohio History Connection, Assistant Director of Public Relations and content, content marketing, Emmy uses her expertise to secure impactful media coverage oversee the organization's successful social media strategy and provide guidance to State and Local History organizations on their communication strategies. During her time with the organization me has served as an expert voice in support of history's relevance, appearing in national publications such as the Guardian and The Associated Press, and as a regular contributor to many other print, TV and radio stories, and he has spoken at the American Association of State and Local History on how heritage sites can develop and implement successful marketing strategies. So before I turn it over to the two presenters just reminder you can put your questions in the q&a and we will address them at the end of the presentation. Now we'll turn it over rate. Unknown Speaker 32:14 Thank you so much, Kate, thank you, Samantha Kate when you get a second. If you want to go ahead and transfer the host duties to Samantha so she can unmute Jamison, that would be great. But I will go ahead and get us started, and share my screen with you all first of all, thank you so much for joining us this morning we're really really excited to speak with you about marketing for your historic site for your organization. We know it's something that is at the forefront of your success, to get folks to your site and to get more engagement and keep your relevance, and here's some things we're going to talk about today. So our goals, we want to provide essential communications tools and strategies, share the latest marketing tips and provide helpful takeaways and as Kate mentioned earlier, we'll share some of those takeaways before q&a So you can you can grab those before you leave. We want to offer a refresh on some basic tactics to grow your engagement, and then we'll leave some time at the end to answer your questions. And then I'm going to hand it over to Jamison. Unknown Speaker 33:31 So while we are working out the tech issue with get activating my video, we're gonna dive right in. So we're going to start at the high level what is the communication strategy, communication strategy supports the short and the long term goals of your organization. With your organization's goals in the center, you can determine your audience, your message and what channels will be used. It looks like my videos come in. Y'all gonna see me now. So the best way to do that is to have a plan, which is our first tip. It's easy to get away from a plan and planning, you know, we all get caught up in the daily work, but a plan, creates a shared understanding among staff which saves time and money. It supports follow through on tasks, and is a guide for measuring. So to help with your creation plan, we have provided this template and there will be a link to this in all the resources we share, you're going to see that link. When we get to the q&a section of the presentation. We wanted to give you all a template that you could use for communications plan, as well as a template for creative brief. Today we're going to focus on the channels which you're going to see at the bottom here, the paid social earned in own, but if you need help or support and understanding how do you get to that understand what your goals are your audience, your message. We're going to give you that creative brief and we're going to give you this template. So moving on to our communication channels. Commonly we call these peso, and we define the the peso and these are our four categories if you will. We have our own so think about your website your newsletters your E News in your on site communication, shared or social is just that and that's your social channels, not just for your organization, but also your influencers earned is media that's your relationships with your reporters and journalists and the last is paid money that you're spending to beyond other channels. So, which one do you use the, the short answer is you use all but we all know in reality it varies depending on what kind of organization you are and what resources you have. But there's one thing that we all have in common. Many of us rely on our own channels as the primary source for promotion, and our own channels, shouldn't be underestimated. In addition to speaking directly to your audience, your website and newsletters can do, and serve a valuable resource for garnering media. For example, you can have a journalism certain many of you have experienced this where maybe someone is following your newsletter or see something on your website and all of a sudden, they're covering it, and you're paid your earned in your social all connect back to your own channels, such as your website. Now that we've talked about high level about the mix of channels, we're going to dive into our second tip and you're gonna see how we're leveraging these channels. We tried to identify this with an icon on the side, and we'll be reflecting on that in our remarks. The next tip is up your digital game we're going to cover this in two ways, we're going to talk about online programs and paid advertising. As this chart shows COVID created a rapid shift toward interacting with customers through digital customers now more than ever are much more likely to interact online. And while this behavior might even out as the risk of COVID becomes less digital programs and content should be a part of your mix of offerings for the foreseeable future. And we know accessibility is everything. The good news is digital crosses really, it says shows owned and shared here but it also, we know crosses are paid and earned just as much. Unknown Speaker 37:59 It is, you know, we all live have been living through COVID and we know that we have to be thinking about the type of digital experiences that we can do best and what is the unique offerings that we can provide that no one else can, and that's simply because our competition is everyone, right. Um, so here are a few additional tips for us to all be thinking about when you're looking at the digital space, offer a mixture of paid and free content programs offer captions and review for readability so today we are using otter.ai, which offers live transcription for zoom programs. Don't be shy about repurposing and re sharing your content, especially if it's relevant. Let the data guide your decision making about when a piece of content is no longer relevant or interesting to your audience and partner up with sponsors and community organizations to increase your channels of communication. Let's say you have a community partner that has this staff newsletter, ask them to promote your event, or your site at through their communication channels. And we have an example of visit and he's going to talk about. Unknown Speaker 39:24 Yes, thanks Janssen so this is something that when we are offering digital programming, we try to hit all of these buckets on the side so this is an example of a program that we did last November Thanksgiving traditions fast action. And this was a program that we held virtually. In November, during excuse me around Thanksgiving. National Native American Heritage Month, and the purpose of this program was to share an authentic and accurate history of Thanksgiving with the need of perspective brought in, and to do this, we partnered with the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. We are a Smithsonian affiliate so we took advantage of that partnership. And we brought in a special speaker from that museum directly to talk about this issue, which we know was relevant in the moment we knew that news organizations often will reach out to us during November to talk about Native issues but also to talk about Thanksgiving and the history of Thanksgiving, so we wanted to tie into that conversation with our programming. And we'll also use this again this year for National Native American heritage month so we initially have as a paid option for visitors. But we're releasing it this year as a free option on all of our digital channels so we'll share it on social we'll share it on our website within our E News. And then we'll also share it with media, as we're talking about this special month, and how people can get a more authentic history of the holiday so you'll see it hits relevancy, timely, we partnered up, we repurpose content. So we get that return on investment for all the time that we're putting into it. Unknown Speaker 41:17 Yeah. And now we're going to shift to advertising, and we all have limited dollars so we want to be sure that we're maximizing our efforts. Digital promotion provides the biggest bang for the buck. It's relatively lower in cost than traditional advertising and the data provides you instant feedback on effectiveness. So here are a couple options that we want to share with you for your consideration. First, hopefully everyone is aware of the Google Ad grant program if you're not mighty citizen calm offers a free step by step guide to securing Google Ad Grants, Google Ad Grants are a great way to increase your exposure, without any spend on your part. Facebook ads are also a very cost affordable and still very helpful way to reach audience. But in addition to boosting posts so understanding that your budget might be very limited. You can look at the range of actually placing ads to just boosting a Facebook post that is performing well. YouTube is definitely more on the, on the expensive end, but it's important to recognize that, with the majority of social shares existing in YouTube. If you do have a larger budget or a bigger project, YouTube is a great place to get those eyeballs and increase awareness. However, streaming services on the opposite end, like our, I hurt radio or Spotify. Those tend to be a little bit more cost affordable than your traditional radio outlets. So that allows you to get more Meech in frequency. And then we popped in here geo fencing and podcasts, there to do avenging has been around for a while but it's with COVID Again, it's probably less popular, but something to think about geo fencing is where you can place a digital ad that will target a specific location. In this specific time. So think about your Friday night football games. If you have an event that you want to reach that type of audience, you could target that football game and get, get those folks that are on their devices to see your ad and podcast, podcast crossover from paid to shared meaning you could be a guest on a podcast which is oftentimes more valuable than that paid placement at the beginning. So what's the most effective way to spend your ad dollars, it's counterintuitive, but working with a media planner can help you maximize your dollars, and don't be shy, media planners are can and do work with really small budgets, why we recommend working with a media planner is because they have extensive knowledge of where and when to place ads. They're also tracking consumer trends and behaviors on a daily basis. They also bring negotiating power that can make your ad dollar go farther. So while you're investing in a media planner and you're paying for that service. Oftentimes, you can get greater value than what you have paid to work with that buy, or that planner. And if you don't know where to begin, start with asking local partner of other cultural institutions that might be in your area that are familiar or do work with media planners and ask them how they do it, ask them for recommendations or referrals, and you can always reach out to us. Unknown Speaker 45:13 So we talked about digital advertising we talked about reaching your audience through really relevant programming. And we talked about all of our different buckets in our PESO model. So, when we bring in the audience through all of these different tactics we then want to manage expectations. We want them to know what they're getting. And to be happy with that. So, James is going to go into this a little bit for us and that's our tip number three. Unknown Speaker 45:45 Yeah, we know one of the best ways to provide a positive on site experiences to help your guests know what to expect. And we know that the rules are changing daily. So what we recommend, and probably many of you are already well in motion on is help your visitors stay up on the latest in manage their expectations by communicating safety practices in advance and provide clear on site communications. Um, you can see some of these visual examples that we have here. We also recommend using QR codes at the interest and if you are one of the, if you are location has a ticket in or requiring advanced ticket purchases, that's a great way to intervene with your guests, without creating this rush of disruption at the front desk, get them to snap that QR code and purchase their ticket online before they get into the door. And we have one example of this. As we approach the date of one of our biggest events storybook village. The Delta variant was on the rise, and as you all know this information and news changes daily. This happened days before, our biggest event one of the largest events that we have at the Ohio village in Columbus, Ohio. So what we did is we immediately shifted to layering in additional advanced communications via emails to ticket holders to let them know about our safety protocols and how we were enhancing them, we posted it on our website, and we had the opportunity to work with our local TV partners to promote additional safety protocols that we wanted our customers and our guests to expect when they came in the door. We also have had additional communication to our staff and change in policy and practice it with a new mandate for wearing mass m, and we chose to hand out masks at the front gate which was a shift in decision making at the last moment, which was also, it is a form of communication in and of itself to indicate to our guests coming on site that we really have their, their safety and security in mind, and that this was a priority for our organization, our exit data showed an overwhelming positive response to our enhanced Health and Safety Communications and protocols. We do believe that has a lot to do with managing their expectations. Now we're going to turn our attention over to earned media. Unknown Speaker 48:33 Jamison mentioned a little bit about how to work with media in setting those expectations, but a lot of times your Unknown Speaker 48:42 communication with a media person or journalist is via a media kit and so we want to talk a little bit about that and how you can up your game there. So, traditionally you will provide reporters with press release about an event or an exhibit or a special program that you're holding. But in addition to that, we recommend that you add some additional tools to the mix, something that we've done in the past is we leverage our owned media on Ohio history.org Our website, and we create blog content that provides a lot of great history background on a specific event or program that we're prioritizing. So for example, for our Dickens of a Christmas celebration that we do each year in Ohio village, It's a 19th century holiday celebration. We will often share different blog posts and stories about what Christmas was like during the 1890s, specifically how folks might have decorated their Christmas trees, the different foods and recipes they would have made, and some of the characters that you might see when you come and visit. And then within that blog contact, we will include a link to tickets, a link to more information about the event so if people want to come, it's a great way to do it and this is a nice complement to a story that a reporter my right. And it's a nice way to engage not just the media, but you can add blogs, into your E newsletter, you can add them into social and again as Jamison mentioned earlier, sometimes journalists will just pick up what you add on social and create their own content that way. We've seen that happen several times, another, another piece that we like to offer to our reporters is video content. And more specifically, we'll do drone footage. And we've done this for, again, our Ohio village historic site will will kind of do that look from above with, You know bustling streets and business owners and towns people, but we'll also do this with our American Indian historic sites and earthworks to provide that full picture of what people can expect from the visit and we do this a lot with Serpent Mound. Places like for ancient and the New York earthworks and will often include that, when we're talking about a special event with reporters, and then of course we always like to include high resolution photos, and we know that these. These files can be very large, so we always recommend a file sharing service. It's, you can do it via Dropbox or another service, and then we recommend you to share all of these resources via email, you can attach your release to that email directly or post it into the content section. Something else we've done is create a media kit on our website so we'll set up a separate web page, where we'll add a PDF of our press release, we'll add links to different blogs, will include that Dropbox link to video and photos, which we find to be really helpful and easy for us on our end, to share these items very quickly. And I'm going to show you an example of a time when we've used our blog content to leverage our earned media to get those reporter relationships and to also have them cover our events in a little bit more detail. This is a blog post that was written about Serpent Mound, which is in Adams County, Ohio, and this was written by our archaeology curator Brad lapper, in partnership with Ben Barnes chief of the Shawnee tribe and every year we hold a summer solstice event at serpent now, where we explore the history of this site, and its significance from an indigenous perspective. And this year, we invited the Shawnee tribe in the Eastern Shawnee tribe to join us for this event, to share their perspective. So this particular blog post went into that background of the archaeological history but then also the meaning of this site today, and you'll see that we were able to turn that blog post into some media coverage for our Columbus Alliance publication which is an online publication here in central Ohio, they shared a lot of our event information, and they also shared that that blog posts, which provided additional context and what people can expect, and why they should want to visit. So, this is another example of that where with Columbus alive they excerpted our blog post, they didn't use the whole thing, Richland source which is located in Knox County, they, they totally pulled the blog post into their own news site and that sometimes will happen with local or regional media outlets where they will really just take what you provide, and make that a news story and so we encourage you to think that way as well. And and create content that you know could be newsworthy. Unknown Speaker 54:00 And when we think about this, we talked about all of our different channels, he talked about earned media and reinventing your media kit. Paid media owned and shared. We want you to feel comfortable with change, we're giving you all of these tips right now because these are the latest best practices within our industry. But we know that things can change at a moment's notice we know if anything in this last 18 months has taught us is that things change quickly. So when we think about social media we think about, specifically on Instagram I know those of you who manage social media for your organization know that Instagram recently changed his algorithms to, to really prioritize video content over photo sharing content to more closely aligned with the popularity of Tik Tok. So that of course required us to pivot, how we present this content, and we're still, you know, changing the way we do things and then Facebook as well, has recently changed their algorithm so being comfortable with that. And even with the types of information that you provide to you know your paid media like often you'll switch from like print advertising to digital advertising, and knowing that this industry just changes so frequently and be okay with that and be versatile and flexible but knowing that no matter what challenge you're using, and you know what content they prioritize storytelling will always rule. You just have to be flexible in how you share that content. And that's something that we found that, you know, if we're telling a good story if it's compelling, no matter how we share it if it's on our website or with our reporter friends, or on social or in a video. We know that that content is going to be successful and people will come back again and again for it. And then that takes us to our latest tip which Jamison will present. Unknown Speaker 56:07 That's right. This is our last tip, and I would encourage you, we both encourage you that if you have specific questions, now's a great time to start putting those into the q&a and Kate is going to read those questions. So we hope that we can have a little bit of a dialogue and and be have any kind of technical support for you all. So, if you have a question or comment or if there's another area that you're curious about please go ahead and pop those into the q&a. So our last tip is stay up within this industry trends. We know that it's much like it can be really easy to get away from a plan. It can also be really easy to just have your head down in the work and get through the day to day operations. And what we want to encourage all of you to do is to find small ways to stay up with industry trends. And so we have provided. Just a couple here on the left side of your screen, you're gonna see some of those links that we referred to in the presentation on the right side, we are putting in some of our favorite resources and we encourage you to drop in the chat, your favorite resources. When we think about macro trends, we're thinking about outside of our field, what are people doing broadly how are behaviors changing what are people's interests. And how are people spending their time more broadly. So for macro trends we have two resources that we really like pew research is phenomenal. For years now, they have been doing a study on Americans and their internet behavior, and you can find that resource, very easily at their website in the drop down menu you're going to see something like internet and technology, you can see what the behavioral trends are for social media you can see what the, you know, adoption is of online behavior of like mobile devices versus desktop. And then you can also look at other really helpful demographic information. Similarly, mckinsey.com has excellent resources, again for understanding human behavior more broadly. And when we get into the industry resources, calling Dylan Schneider who runs the blog know your own bones, I'm certain. Many of you on today's call have have heard of her because she is a bit of a rock star in our field, excellent resource, excellent data available there and then Susie Wilkening of Wilkening consulting is a partner that we work on, work with on a regular basis, on her website, she actually has a resource where you can look at her data trends via infographics, it really simplifies information and makes it very easy to understand and apply to your own organization. So we encourage you to take a look at those two resources. And then lastly, me and I are here to be a resource to you as well. We hope that Kate will be serving up some questions for us to discuss with you all here soon, but if you feel more comfortable. We're always available via email as well. So Kate, handed to you my friend. Unknown Speaker 1:00:04 Okay, so our first question is what is the best marketing a small Historical Society with a tiny budget can market their programs. Unknown Speaker 1:00:14 Yeah. Well, we're gonna go back to that owned media piece first and foremost, and if your resources are really, really small. Invest in your digital platform, make sure that your website is really strong. Make sure that you have good Google Analytics if you don't have that. I know that, that's like, oh geez that isn't getting. That's not an instant gratification right like I have an event next week, I need to get people there, I, I want to say I understand that. But sometimes we need to we need to get back into making sure we have a strong foundation before you can actually build up to get those people to your event so I'm investing in your own media is really important, making sure you have a top notch newsletter. And if you're not sure what your audience thinks about it, maybe investing in a small survey or leveraging Survey Monkey, I would. So, first and foremost, it's, you know, take care of the assets that you have the most authority of, and that's where we have seen those journalists in the there's other partners will become more curious and interested in want to use that content on their platforms. And then when you, it's so when you move out of that owns media space, making sure that you have a really strong, your own channels are shrunk, then you can start to move to the, the social and the earned and I would kick it over to me to share some thoughts on that. Unknown Speaker 1:02:03 Yeah, something that we've done and this is kind of more of that instant gratification, kind of pieces within our shared media of our social or social spaces is often put a little bit of money towards a Facebook event that we might be, you know, holding and I when I say little bit of money I mean like you can put $25 on this particular event, and you can target, who you want the event to reach by age, by location, it really lets you get down into a lot of demographics that are going to target specifically who you want to come, or if you want to engage with you. So if you have like $25 to $100, and you really have an event that you want people to come to our program you want people to know about. I recommend that directly. And when you think about, you know, leveraging that earned media, we know that photography is so important to that. And this is something where if you know, I'll give an example of our All Hallows Eve celebration Ohio village is coming up this Saturday, Actually it's like first first Saturday of our event it's a 19th century celebration. Sometimes we will stage photos with our living history villagers will stage different scenes, and we'll just like take photos with our, our cell phones, and then we'll use those photos in our own like our website we'll use them in social with our journalist contacts as well. Media. It's just a great way to have that visual component, and it makes if you're working with a reporter, it makes their job a lot easier because then, kind of get photos or they don't have to search around for past events to see, to see what happened maybe in their archives. So that's tips that I think would be really helpful if you are on a very limited budget. Alright, Unknown Speaker 1:04:10 So another question is with limited resources and staff, would it be worthwhile to create a media kit online that has only press releases and photos. Unknown Speaker 1:04:22 Yes, I would say you know other example that I shared was kind of like the ideal example. We know that like video like shooting drone photography is something that can be costly, especially if you're a smaller organization or a volunteer run organization. But if you know someone that has a drone that you feel comfortable with that you know will do a good job with it, I say go for it. But yes, In the meantime, if you just want to include like a few press releases from your latest events or including latest news, and then some, you know photos that can be very general, even just like five to 10 photos would be really a really great resource for reporters looking for that information or if you're trying to partner with another organization. You know you can send them your media kit to so they get to know you a little bit better and can get a framework for the work that you do before you know partnering up or sponsoring something you might do. Unknown Speaker 1:05:25 Alright and next question is can you discuss how you might use podcasts. Unknown Speaker 1:05:31 Oh, yeah. Um, well, we are not advocating that you go out and create a podcast, I will say that first and foremost because that is a lot of work. There are many. I'm certain that many of you are probably listeners of podcasts, there are, there's a podcast for every subject out there, like for example we have a board member, Alex Hasee who runs, Ohio V the world, and it's all about his Ohio History, um, Alex has invited us on the show as a guest, and we have also benefited from being promoted for our resources and specifically we have promoted our membership, because this is an audience that has a natural interest in history, we want to connect with that audience and share our resources with them. So that's what we're when we say podcast we're advocating that you actually look for a placement and, which a lot of the podcasts, depending on the size, you're, you're probably just talking to the person who creates it, and it could be as simple as offering them a free membership or have a couple free tickets in exchange for a promotion and do an in kind agreement, rather than actually spending any dollars at all, or suggesting ways that you could be, or your staff could be a guest on that show. And if you have a follow up question more specifically, please go ahead and put it in the chat. Unknown Speaker 1:07:15 Well if you're like looking for a podcast that might be relevant to the storage, or telling oftentimes a lot of universities will have their own podcast like digital. I know Ohio State University here in central Ohio has a lot like a few history podcasts that they have that are student run, or even Professor run, so that, that you might want to look into and I know there are several archaeology podcasts and and pop by subject area so thinking beyond just your specific geographic location and or to subject areas you can show yourself as a trusted authority in this space, you know, if for example you're talking about 19th century life or you have a specific house museum speaks about a very niche piece of history, even if the podcast is based in California, you'll still be able to yourself as a resource and expand that audience and expand your engagement. So we encourage you to do that. Unknown Speaker 1:08:23 Alright so now that someone says, There is a famous quote something like this I'm sure that I'm wasting half of my marketing budget I just don't know which half. Sounds like this may be changing, you focused on the two dues are there outdated examples of marketing tactics that you'd suggest moving away from. Unknown Speaker 1:08:42 Well that's a, that's a great question. Um, I have to think about what we've moved away from so give me a moment me if there's something that the top of your head go for it. Unknown Speaker 1:08:53 I know that you know we so we talked a lot about digital. And we talked about advertising, and I know folks, especially in smaller communities will still love their like local newspapers and publications to place print ads. And, you know, you can look at that on a case by case basis, but we've really moved away from that type of advertising in favor of more digital options. For example, we still might place an ad in a local convention and visitor Bureau publication, because we know their audience is very targeted, but if it's something like like we don't do, we don't place ads in the Columbus Dispatch, for example, we focus more on leveraging our reporter relationships to get a story, rather than just placing a print ad so if that's something that you're doing and you've never, you know, on into the waters of digital, that's something that I would look into is, is, you know, Walking away a little bit from that print perspective, and seeing what else is out there from the digital side. Unknown Speaker 1:09:59 Yeah, we definitely I think that's spot on, we don't do advertising in print, except for those publications that will be around for a long time. But I want to I want to put a plug in for print, not necessarily advertising, one big shift that we are actually in the middle of experimenting right now is creating our own travel guide, Many of you are familiar with the CVBS, and of course this is something that is unique to the History Connection, given the fact that we have so many sites, but we decided to create our own specialty publication and distributed on our own. Knowing that museums are one of the trusted most trusted resources. It made sense for us to just own our own stories and tell those stories, and it looks very much like a publication but in the entire intent of it is to drive people to our sites and be curious about Ohio History and one to learn more. So I do think absolutely the big shift is toward digital, it's more affordable, it's flexible and you learn from the data instantly. And then getting more savvy about how you can use print in place on site that will really also help drive those customers or your visitors that really do want to get out and experience in person in real life event or site. Okay, so Unknown Speaker 1:11:52 what would you recommend for starting your own podcast. Unknown Speaker 1:11:58 Oh, Big question Well here's what I will say, um, and this is something that we've experienced firsthand from our organization and you know, myself included, that when you have an idea for a podcast or a blog or like any kind of content based series. If you you know you really just have to imagine yourself in three years or one year. And, you know, do you have the time to continue with it. I think that oftentimes it with podcasts and and with other you know content driven series, It's, there's a lot of excitement in the beginning, and it requires so much time to build audience on those particular channels because you're creating something completely new that you kind of think about is this, and I'm not trying to like dissuade anybody from starting a podcast, but it definitely is something that requires a lot of work on the back end. And a lot of hitting the pavement to share with others. But if you're going to get started. There, I can actually send some after this presentation, but there are several sites that are kind of aggregates for what you might need to get started from a technological side, and then from a content side what I would recommend is thinking about podcasts that you really like and the information that they present, and how you can make it unique to you offer, but also provide that like, you know, that national relevance or local relevance that would apply to an audience maybe outside your geographic location, and that expertise that you can provide that nobody else can. So that's a big question, and you know hopefully that was that was helpful to you, but if you're out there trying to do podcasts like, good luck I feel like that's like it's such, it's a medium that is, you know, it's so popular right now I'm always listening to podcasts, or just, it takes a ton of work. Unknown Speaker 1:14:04 It does. I would also encourage you to think about your audience reach and prioritize your own channels, um, you know, social is still really helpful to our kind of organizations, and making sure like when I think about when I was listening to me talk about okay, you got to do the prep work I think about how we set up social here at the history connection, and all the work and the people that go into it behind the scenes. Um, it makes me, it absolutely made me think about the experience there and with podcasting it. There is also this technological hurdle that if you don't have that background making sure that you get someone who is familiar with production, who can help you clear that hurdle and, and help you produce but the number one thing is have an editorial calendar and stick to it. Unknown Speaker 1:15:17 And I think you can even just like, you know, search out other local people that might be doing a similar thing or wanting to do a similar thing, again I'm gonna bring up the local universities that might have their own podcast and see about, you know guest, you know, as a guest panelist. See, you can establish that relationship so you can get that behind the scenes look of what it's like to do the podcast day to day, and then see if that fits within your mix within your time and your abilities and if it does go for it. Unknown Speaker 1:15:52 Okay, where is the best place for small museums to start when it comes to digital marketing, Unknown Speaker 1:16:00 we often recommend Facebook, um, you know, when I hear small museum I also hear small budget. And, like me, said earlier, um, you know you can you can place $25 And you can target your audience. And you can see the instant results and data of how effective your ad is and why that's helpful and important is if your ad is not working you can stop it, and you can reconfigure you can redesign the ad, you can tinker with the messaging and reload it, in a matter of hours. So it is really a very efficient way to use your dollars, and there are still many people on Facebook to communicate to. Unknown Speaker 1:16:57 I have a question. What do you think about events that have a really small capacity that you know you'll probably sell out or not be able to accommodate that many people, is it worth putting an effort into spreading the word about something that's gonna be full, really quickly. Unknown Speaker 1:17:18 Um, well this is assuming that you are already communicating the event through your own channels whether that is like informal, email, or an E News, or newsletter. If you can cover with your own channels, and you know you're going to hit your attendance Mark. Yeah, redirect the your time and your money for that might be designated this to this for another event, a case, it really specific example for us is we don't advertise, we don't spend paid advertising on obviously everything we do in fact, it is incredibly narrow even though we are very large organization, um, we don't. We have to be very strategic about how we spend our dollars just like all of you do. And that goes so far as if we see something selling out. We pulled advertising, which is something that you can do. So if you're in the middle of a spend, and you know that you're like it 75% capacity, you can, you can look at redirecting those ad dollars, and your time, energy, to something else. Unknown Speaker 1:18:36 So it looks like that's all the questions that are in the q&a right now. If anybody has anything else you want to pop in there. There were some comments in the chat that I can highlight that Andy veer off, said he wanted to emphasize repurposing content, are there items in your newsletters or website that you can revise for Facebook or other social media, make sure to include images. Unknown Speaker 1:19:04 And that's a really good point that I want to highlight to you is that often we will use and this is something that not everybody can do but we have a history publication called Echoes, magazine, that's for our members, and oftentimes we'll take old stories from those publications, and we'll put them in our blog spaces, and then we'll share those blogs on social we'll share them in our newsletters. It's a great way to use that content that's already been created. And, you know, use it in a lot of different places at a time that's really relevant, especially if it's like a subject you know people are really interested in, or it's around a specific holiday or commemoration, we have, you know, every year, of course, we, we share information about Veterans Day in Ohio veterans, and we have a couple of history articles that reflect directly on that, so we'll share those every year. Unknown Speaker 1:20:01 And then Andy also wrote that it bears repeating storytelling will always rule in stories that are sourced and true as can be. And one thing that helped him when he was a site manager was to be able be available to local media when they called with questions about history for other stories, they were working on serving as a trusted source builds relationships. Local media that helped. When it was time to promote his, his. Unknown Speaker 1:20:27 Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:20:28 that's a real go on Andy. Unknown Speaker 1:20:31 Andy do you want to be a panelist. Um, so, I will say that, you know we love that we are able to secure coverage with our local media when we have an event going on, but to get a relationship to build that relationship, it's really good for you to be a helpful resource for there are other stories that may not like directly benefit you from a monetary tip. We get a lot of questions about different aspects of Ohio History that may not be something that we're actively pushing, but this is an authority they see us as a trusted resource, and then we come back, and we need something from them we want them to talk about Dickens of a Christmas or something, they will already have known us and know that we create good content and that we have, you know the history background that they want. So, yeah, to Andy's point it's a resource be helpful to them and be available and also don't be scared of them because they're your friends and they're real people. Unknown Speaker 1:21:34 They're real people they're not. Most of the type of reporters that we work with are not gotcha kind of folk, so you know if you tend to feel a little nervous and feel like everything you're going to say is on the record, just remind yourself but yeah, that most of the folks, we're working with, actually really think we're cool, which is kind of fun. Unknown Speaker 1:21:59 Let's take in time, you know, a lot of people like 10 years ago or even more recently than that, I feel like people really saw us as as a very kind of like old school history organization that maybe we didn't have a lot of stories that were relevant to a modern audience or the history, or people just weren't interested in history, but I feel like, over the last several years we've been really able to demonstrate our relevance and put ourselves in conversations that are happening today and explain why it's important to have a history perspective. And so folks are thinking about us more and they've changed the way that they've thought about us and about history in general. So, yeah, it's really important to have those good relationships with your reporters. Unknown Speaker 1:22:42 Yeah, and I'm sorry, Kate, I'm gonna throw in one more thing. Since we're talking so much about media relations is not only okay but advisable that if you do not know the answer to a question that you just say, I don't know. Let me find out for you. And give yourself a break to go and figure out if your organization is the right organization to speak on the subject, or if you can be that wonderful connector, and it's that wonderful connector role that will you know if you're not the right one, your reporter the person on the other end no one is going to so much more rather and appreciate you being honest and direct about well we're not the best subject expert on this but I can tell you who is, they're going to keep calling, and that's how you're going to build trust and build a relationship with your media partners. Unknown Speaker 1:23:41 Yeah I do that a lot, you know, because sometimes you know people see us as, you know, the place for all things Ohio History and we are, but sometimes they want very specific information about a particular locale, like if, for example, if they had a question about Worthington history. You know, I would tell him to go talk to Kate, you know, because, because Kate's gonna have that really in depth info that's going to be helpful for their story. We can of course provide that broad overview but if you're talking about something very specific, it's helpful to pass them on to someone who may have that more, you know, that closer relationships that I history that can provide that story for them. Unknown Speaker 1:24:25 All right, you got two more here. Do you use specific tools to market to particular groups like a summer camp or retirement community, How do you assess them. Unknown Speaker 1:24:36 Yes. So, our tool is our. If we're talking about paid placement, we work with a media planner, and what they do is they go into digital and they identify the demographics of the, the people that we're trying to reach so like your summer camp, you're gonna go for moms, dads, decision makers who are of a certain age, possibly even a certain income depending on your business structure, and then will serve up those ads you can serve those ads up also in a geographic way where you're targeting specific zip codes in addition to all that demographic data. Um, so that's, that's really how we do it on the paid and I will say in our own channels, we'd love to get more sophisticated in this space, Some of you might be familiar with marketing automation. And that's where, in your own database you're keeping good information about your stakeholders your members and once you have those attributes you can serve things up that you that you know they like, but oftentimes, in what we do until we can get there is we push this information out through our own channels through social and then depending on the unique attributes of the event or activity. It might be of interest to media as well. Unknown Speaker 1:26:06 Our last question here is, aside from engaging with set hashtags within the history related field. Do you have advice for keeping regular engagement on Twitter. Is that worth the effort. Hmm. Unknown Speaker 1:26:18 Well, Twitter is, is a place that we use a lot. It's within our social media channel mix so we have, we spend a lot of time on our Facebook audience because we know the most about them and it's the largest, and then Instagram and Twitter and also started Tik Tok so if you're on that platform and wanting to follow up, that'd be great Jamison I see your face stuff. So, Twitter is a place that I feel like as a history organization. It's a really great place to share articles that we've done it seems to be a little bit more like academic thought leader driven, so you can create yourselves as a thought leader in your space. It's also a great way to connect with other history professionals in your field. So if you're trying to grow your network as an organization, there are lots of museum chats, you can be a part of and you can get to know museums from all over the world. So I would say, you have time to do it. You know just outline what your goals are, and if you have the ability to spend that amount of time spend those resources, I say go for it. Try it. Unknown Speaker 1:27:29 And me, would you say if there isn't the time there you would prioritize Facebook and Instagram, Unknown Speaker 1:27:35 definitely you know we, as a larger organization we have the capacity to do all three. But if you are volunteer run or very small organization, just focus on Facebook. That's where we found the most return on investment. You know, if you just don't have the time, that's where I guess my energy. Unknown Speaker 1:28:00 All right. So I think that that probably brings us to 10 o'clock. And if other people have other questions, they can contact you, the two of you, and all the information in the recorded sessions will be on the local history Alliance website. I think it's going to take two weeks to get everything up there, but people can go back and find more information. So thank you guys that was excellent. I told Thank Unknown Speaker 1:28:28 you. Well thank you Kate and thanks to Samantha who's running tech on the back end really appreciate your support and the opportunity to be with you all here today, don't hesitate to reach out. Yeah, here, here. Unknown Speaker 1:28:45 All right, Thanks, guys. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai