Make the Most of Your Gold Membership
Gold membership gives you more opportunities to work proactively with Shakespeare’s England across campaigns, content, social media, PR and the travel trade.
The best way to get value from Gold is to bring us into your plans early. Tell us what you’re trying to achieve, share your important dates and give us time to identify where your business could fit into wider destination activity throughout the year.
Gold Membership
What your membership includes
Your Gold membership gives you an enhanced promotional package, richer website content and increased opportunities across Shakespeare’s England’s marketing and travel trade activity.
✓ Dedicated website listing with 5 images and 1 video
✓ Direct booking link from your website listing
✓ Event listings on the Shakespeare’s England website
✓ Consumer blog and email promotion
✓ Dedicated solus email opportunity
✓ Social media promotion and dedicated collaborations
✓ Destination marketing campaigns and influencer opportunities
✓ PR and media visit opportunities
✓ Trade shows, international sales missions and Travel Trade presentations
✓ Travel Trade introductions and familiarisation trip opportunities
✓ Selected trade event collateral opportunities
✓ Tourism Forums, networking, training, industry updates and member resources
*Fees may apply to selected activities.
Make it work for you
How to make the most of your Gold membership
Gold gives you more opportunities to work proactively with Shakespeare’s England. These 10 actions will help you connect your website, marketing, PR and travel trade activity and get more value from your membership throughout the year.
- Check that your website listing, images and video are accurate, current and showing your business at its best
- Bring Shakespeare’s England into your marketing calendar at the start of the year
- Plan the strongest theme and timing for your dedicated solus email opportunity
- Send us timely content for our consumer blog and email activity
- Plan how you will use your social media opportunities across the year
- Identify strong ideas for your dedicated social media collaborations
- Keep a pipeline of strong stories that could support PR activity
- Share your major campaigns, launches and important dates with us early, and submit your upcoming events
- Keep your travel trade information, rates, booking process and contact details up to date
- Attend Shakespeare’s England tourism forums, member sessions and networking opportunities
Bring us into your marketing calendar
Gold membership works best when we know what you are trying to achieve. Share your plans early so we can look for opportunities across email, social media, PR, travel trade and wider destination activity.
Major campaigns
Tell us about your biggest marketing campaigns and the audiences you want to reach so we can look for relevant ways to support them.
Launches and openings
Give us plenty of notice about new products, experiences, openings, refurbishments and other significant developments.
Seasonal priorities
Think about school holidays, Christmas, Easter, summer, autumn, seasonal offers and upcoming events.
Business objectives
Tell us if you are trying to reach a particular audience, grow off-peak visits, attract groups or develop a new market.
Try this: share a simple forward calendar with us covering your major campaigns, launches, seasonal priorities and key dates. The earlier we know what is coming, the easier it is to connect your activity to relevant opportunities.
Keep your foundations strong
Gold gives you more promotional opportunities, but the basics still matter. Keep your core content fresh so we always have strong material to work with.
Use all five images well
Choose images that show different aspects of your visitor experience rather than five similar shots. Give people a rounded picture of what makes your business worth visiting.
Keep your listing current
Check your description, links, contact information and visitor details regularly, particularly when your offer changes seasonally.
Keep supplying content
New photography, short-form video, useful visitor information and interesting stories give us much more flexibility when opportunities arise.
Make your dedicated solus email count
Your Gold membership includes a dedicated solus email opportunity to our consumer audience. Think carefully about the moment when having Shakespeare’s England’s audience focused on your story could add the most value.
Choose your strongest moment
A major launch, seasonal campaign, new experience, significant event or particularly compelling reason to visit will usually make the strongest use of the opportunity.
Give people a reason to act
Build the email around a clear objective – whether that is to book an experience, attend an event, plan a stay or discover something new.
Plan it early
Talk to us well in advance about what you have coming up so we can agree the strongest content and timing for your email.
Become part of our destination storytelling
Some of the strongest exposure doesn’t come from a standalone promotion. It comes from being part of a bigger story about why people should visit Shakespeare’s England.
Think in themes
Could your business fit naturally into stories around families, food and drink, culture, heritage, wellbeing, accessibility, sustainability, hidden gems or seasonal breaks?
Give us an experience
Think about what a visitor actually does, sees, tastes or feels with you. Experiences are often much easier to build into destination content than descriptions of facilities.
Make connections
Think about what else a visitor might do before or after visiting you. Linking complementary member businesses can create stronger itineraries and more useful visitor content.
Keep sending us suitable ideas for consumer newsletters too. A useful, timely story that fits a wider destination theme is much easier to feature than a general promotional message.
Make social media a collaboration
Gold gives you more social opportunities, including collaborations. Use them to tell different stories and show audiences something they wouldn’t necessarily discover from a standard promotional post.
Spread your stories out
Avoid using all your opportunities around the same subject. Different seasons, experiences and audiences give us more varied content to work with.
Create something together
Use collaborations for ideas with strong visual or storytelling potential – experiences, behind-the-scenes access, launches, itineraries or content that shows what makes your business distinctive.
Give us access
Sometimes the strongest content is created on location. If there’s something worth seeing, experiencing or filming, tell us rather than only sending finished promotional material.
Follow Shakespeare’s England and tag us in relevant visitor-facing content so our team can see what you’re up to.
Turn your news into PR opportunities
At Gold level, think beyond sending us finished press releases. Tell us about potentially interesting developments early so we can consider how they might fit into wider destination stories and media activity.
Look for the wider story
- ✓Significant openings and investment
- ✓New or unusual visitor experiences
- ✓Interesting people and human stories
- ✓Major anniversaries and milestones
- ✓Awards and significant achievements
- ✓Stories connected to wider tourism trends
Help us tell it
- Give us plenty of notice
- Explain what makes the story genuinely different
- Provide good photography
- Tell us who could be available for comment or interview
- Share useful facts, figures or context where relevant
Talk to us before you announce it
If you have significant news coming, let us know before it is public where possible. That gives us more time to think about the strongest angle and whether it could contribute to wider Shakespeare’s England media activity.
Get ready for the travel trade
Gold membership gives you greater access to travel trade opportunities. These can put your business in front of tour operators, buyers and intermediaries, but being “trade ready” makes it much easier for us to include you when suitable opportunities arise.
Know what you can offer
Be clear about which experiences, products or packages are suitable for groups, international visitors or travel trade buyers.
Have the details ready
Know your capacity, opening arrangements, lead times, booking process and whether you can offer commissionable or contracted rates where appropriate.
Respond quickly
Trade and FAM opportunities can move quickly. Make sure we know the best person in your business to contact and that enquiries can be answered promptly.
Are you trade ready?
- ✓You can clearly explain what a travel trade buyer can book
- ✓You know your group sizes, timings and operational requirements
- ✓You understand your pricing and commercial arrangements
- ✓You have strong images and concise product information available
- ✓You have someone who can respond quickly when an opportunity comes in
Use the network to create something bigger
At Gold level, there is real value in looking beyond your own business. Working with other members can create stronger visitor experiences, more interesting content and more compelling reasons to visit the destination.
Attend tourism forums, networking events and member sessions, but also think proactively about who else in the network could complement what you do.
Try this
Identify two or three Shakespeare’s England members whose offer complements yours. Could you create a joint itinerary, package, piece of content, competition, referral relationship or visitor experience that becomes more valuable when you work together?
Keep your membership working throughout the year
Gold membership gives you opportunities across several channels, so regular planning will help you connect them and maintain momentum throughout the year.
Every month
✓ Look out for member updates and opportunities
✓ Send us suitable content for consumer blog and email activity
✓ Tell us about anything new or newsworthy
✓ Submit relevant events
Every quarter
✓ Review your upcoming campaigns and priorities
✓ Plan your social media opportunities and collaborations
✓ Review your PR pipeline
✓ Check for relevant travel trade opportunities
Every year
✓ Plan your dedicated solus email opportunity
✓ Review your website imagery and video
✓ Map your key marketing priorities for the year
✓ Review which opportunities delivered the most value
Looking for more?
Would a closer partnership with Shakespeare’s England help you achieve more?
If you have a significant marketing programme, regular stories and campaigns, and would benefit from our highest level of visibility and priority access across marketing, PR and travel trade activity, it may be worth exploring Strategic membership.
