How the Museum of London doubled its visitor numbers

The Museum of London had a problem.

Its Barbican location isn’t easily visible to the public, and for this reason it has decided to relocate that site to Farringdon in 2022. But ahead of the move, it needed to get the word out about its plans.

To help with this, Cision partnered with the museum to develop a measurement framework that achieved three core objectives:

First, the museum wanted to raise awareness of its existing locations and plans for the future. Then, it wanted to show that its comms programmes can help to attract more visitors, and thirdly to determine the popularity of individual exhibits.

Building a PR measurement framework that aligns comms activities with corporate objectives

To achieve this, Cision worked with market research firm Opinion Matters to survey 10,000 UK residents on a wide range of topics – including their lifestyle preferences, attitudinal statements, purchasing intents and media consumption habits.

This information was then combined with media content analysis to paint a complete picture of how best to reach the museum’s target audience and create a shortlist of publications to pitch to.

Finally, Cision helped the museum monitor and optimise its outreach activities by providing it with access to real-time analysis tools, monthly updates and quarterly evaluation reports.

Laura Bates, the Museum of London’s PR manager, explains: “To do our jobs most effectively, we need to gauge our successes and see if we’re reaching the right people through the right medium.”

She adds: “We worked closely with Cision to share our audience research, target media, key messages and visitor number information so we can accurately track the links between our media relations and what that means for our KPIs.”

Proof that earned media programmes raise awareness and drive visitor numbers

Over 75% of the coverage in the museum’s target publications included its key messages, while social media engagement rose 60% year-on-year.

Bates concludes: “We are now able to use media intelligence to better target our audience, tweak messaging in forthcoming announcements based on previous message cut through, compare stats year on year to draw comparisons and directly link visitor spikes to boosted media coverage.”

Cision’s latest white paper, Driving growth with PR measurement, reveals how you can apply the same techniques in your own comms strategy.

With case studies from Bacardi, The Stroke Association, Slimming World and more – it outlines how the latest measurement techniques can help you maximise the impact of your earned media programmes. What’s more, it provides a closer look at the technology set to revolutionise the PR industry in the coming months.

Download Driving growth with PR measurement today using the form below today to discover the analysis breakthroughs set to bring earned media to the top of the marketing mix.

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