Make the Most of Your Silver Membership
Silver membership gives you a number of opportunities to put your business in front of Shakespeare’s England audiences throughout the year.
The key is to plan ahead. Rather than waiting for opportunities to come along, think about the moments when your business has something interesting to say and work with us to make the most of your consumer blog and email, social media, PR and travel trade opportunities.
Silver Membership
What your membership includes
Your Silver membership gives you greater visibility and access to a wider range of marketing, PR and travel trade opportunities.
✓ Dedicated website listing with 3 images
✓ Direct booking link from your website listing
✓ Event listings on the Shakespeare’s England website
✓ Consumer blog, email and social media promotion opportunities
✓ Dedicated social media collaboration opportunities
✓ Destination marketing campaigns and influencer opportunities
✓ PR and media visit opportunities
✓ Access to 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 Silver membership
Silver gives you more ways to get your business in front of visitors and the tourism industry. These 9 actions will help you plan ahead and make better use of the opportunities available to you.
- Check that your website listing is accurate and make sure we have your best current imagery
- Put your Shakespeare’s England opportunities into your marketing calendar
- Plan the stories and activity you want to put forward for consumer blog and email opportunities
- Send us relevant content for our consumer newsletters
- Plan content for your social media promotion and collaboration opportunities
- Think about stories with potential for PR, media or influencer activity
- Submit your upcoming events and tell us about new or seasonal activity
- Keep an eye on member communications so you don’t miss opportunities
- Attend Shakespeare’s England tourism forums, member sessions and networking events
Strong foundations still matter
More promotional opportunities only work if we have great information and content to build them around. Keep the basics working alongside your Silver activity.
Keep your listing fresh
Regularly check your description, contact details, links and visitor information. Your Silver listing can feature three images, so make sure they show your business at its best.
Refresh your imagery
Send us new photography when you have it. Strong landscape, portrait and people-focused images give us much more flexibility across web, email, social and PR.
Keep us informed
Continue submitting events and telling us about launches, new experiences, seasonal activity, awards and other reasons for visitors to take notice.
Plan your year with us
The more we know about what you have coming up, the easier it is for us to spot opportunities for your business. Take a little time to map out the activity you already know about.
What’s new?
New products, experiences, menus, rooms, exhibitions, packages or anything else visitors can discover.
What’s seasonal?
Think about school holidays, Christmas, Easter, summer, autumn, seasonal offers and upcoming events.
What’s your big moment?
Identify your biggest launches, anniversaries, campaigns or periods of the year and tell us about them early.
What’s the story?
Think beyond the offer itself. People, history, milestones, behind-the-scenes activity and unusual stories can all give us something interesting to share.
Try this: at the start of each quarter, send us a simple list of what you have coming up over the next three months. It gives us a much better chance of matching your activity to relevant marketing, PR and content opportunities.
Make the most of your email and blog opportunities
Silver membership gives you opportunities to feature across our consumer email and blog activity. The strongest content gives us a clear, timely reason to put your business in front of visitors.
Choose the right moment
A new experience, major event, seasonal campaign or particularly strong reason to visit will usually give us more to work with than a general introduction to your business.
Give us strong content
Provide a clear story, strong imagery and the important details. Think about what would make someone who doesn’t already know your business stop and pay attention.
Have one clear action
Decide what you want the reader to do next – book, buy, find out more, view an event or explore an offer – and give us the best link to send them to.
Best advice: don’t wait until you urgently need promotion to contact us. Tell us what you have coming up in advance so we have the best chance of matching it to relevant opportunities.
Give us something to share in our consumer newsletters
Our consumer newsletters give us another opportunity to put relevant member content in front of people interested in visiting the Shakespeare’s England region.
Good things to send us
- ✓Upcoming visitor experiences
- ✓Seasonal reasons to visit
- ✓New products or experiences
- ✓Events and special activity
- ✓Useful inspiration for a day out or short break
Make it easy to use
When you send us an idea, include the essential details, a strong image and a link where visitors can find out more.
And send it early. Our newsletters and campaigns are planned in advance, so something we know about ahead of time is much easier to include than something arriving after it has launched.
Make the most of social media
Silver membership gives you social media promotion as well as dedicated collaboration opportunities. Think about the different role each can play rather than using every opportunity to say the same thing.
Use your posts well
Your social content is strongest when there’s a clear story: something new, seasonal, visual, surprising or particularly useful to visitors.
Plan your collaborations
Use collaboration opportunities for content with strong visual or storytelling potential. Think experiences, behind-the-scenes access, launches or content where our audiences can discover something genuinely interesting.
Make it easy to create
Give us good photography or video, the important information and enough notice. The stronger the ingredients, the stronger the finished content can be.
Follow Shakespeare’s England and tag us in relevant visitor-facing content so our team can see what you’re up to.
Think PR, not advertising
Your Silver membership gives you access to PR, media and influencer visit opportunities. Strong member stories may also contribute to wider Shakespeare’s England press activity, but the best PR gives journalists and creators something genuinely interesting to share with their audiences rather than simply advertising a business.
Good PR stories
✓ A significant new opening or experience
✓ An unusual or genuinely distinctive story
✓ A major anniversary or milestone
✓ An interesting person or human story
✓ A significant award or achievement
✓ Something that connects to a wider visitor trend or destination story
Usually not a story on its own
A general description of your business
A standard discount or sales message
Something that has already happened
A small operational change
A promotional message without a wider news angle
Tell us early
If you think you have a potential PR story, tell us before you launch it publicly. More notice gives our team more opportunity to consider how it could fit into wider Shakespeare’s England media activity.
Use the Shakespeare’s England network
Your membership isn’t only a collection of marketing opportunities. Being part of Shakespeare’s England also connects you with businesses, organisations and people working across the region’s visitor economy.
Attend member events and tourism forums, read member communications and respond when relevant opportunities are circulated. Partnerships, referrals and collaborations often begin through the network rather than through a formal marketing campaign.
Try this
When you meet another member whose audience complements yours, think beyond exchanging business cards. Could you recommend each other, create an itinerary together, develop an offer or collaborate on content?
Keep your membership working throughout the year
Silver membership gives you more opportunities to promote your business, so a little planning will help you make sure you use them throughout the year.
Every month
✓ Look out for member updates and opportunities
✓ Send us suitable content for consumer email and blog activity
✓ Tell us about anything new or newsworthy
✓ Submit relevant events
Every quarter
✓ Review what activity you have coming up
✓ Check your website listing and imagery
✓ Plan your social media opportunities
✓ Think about potential PR stories
Every year
✓ Map your key marketing moments
✓ Identify strong stories for email, blog and social opportunities
✓ Review which opportunities delivered value
✓ Plan what you want to achieve next year
Looking for more?
Ready to work with us more proactively?
If you’re regularly generating content, campaigns and stories and would benefit from enhanced website content, dedicated email activity and increased opportunities across marketing and the travel trade, it may be worth exploring Gold membership.
