Make the Most of Your Strategic Membership
Strategic membership is designed for organisations that want the closest level of engagement with Shakespeare’s England and the greatest opportunity to work with us throughout the year.
The key to getting value from Strategic membership is to start with your objectives rather than individual benefits. Tell us what matters to your organisation, bring us into your plans early and work with us to identify the campaigns, audiences, stories and opportunities where we can have the greatest impact together.
Strategic Partnership
What your membership includes
Strategic membership is our highest level of partnership, giving your organisation priority visibility and priority access across Shakespeare’s England’s marketing, PR and Travel Trade activity.
✓ Dedicated website listing with 10 images and 2 videos
✓ Direct booking link and event listings
✓ Priority consumer blog and email promotion
✓ Priority dedicated solus email opportunities
✓ Priority social media promotion and collaborations
✓ Priority destination campaigns and influencer opportunities
✓ Priority PR and media visit opportunities
✓ Priority trade show and international sales mission opportunities
✓ Priority Travel Trade presentations, introductions and familiarisation trips
✓ Priority collateral opportunities at selected trade events
✓ Priority introductions to other Shakespeare’s England members
✓ Tourism Forums, networking, training, industry updates and member resources
*Fees may apply to selected activities.
Make the partnership work for you
How to make the most of your Strategic partnership
Strategic membership works best when we understand your organisation’s priorities and can plan activity with you in advance. These 10 actions will help us work together throughout the year and identify where Shakespeare’s England can add the most value.
- Start the year by sharing your objectives and priorities with us
- Build Shakespeare’s England activity into your annual marketing calendar
- Share your major campaigns, launches, upcoming events and key dates with us early
- Plan how to use your priority dedicated solus email opportunities across the year
- Think about how your organisation can contribute to destination campaigns and content
- Plan your social media activity and collaborations across the year
- Keep us informed about strong stories and developments with PR potential
- Keep your travel trade information, rates, collateral and contacts up to date
- Make use of training, tourism forums, networking and introductions across the membership
- Review activity with us during the year and adjust the plan as priorities and opportunities change
Start with your objectives
At Strategic level, the most useful conversation isn’t “what benefits do we still have left?” It’s “what are we trying to achieve, and where could Shakespeare’s England help?”
Who do you want to reach?
Think about the audiences, visitor segments or geographic markets that matter most to you.
What do you want to grow?
This might be particular products, experiences, seasons, markets, visitor types or areas of your business.
What are your big moments?
Share significant launches, anniversaries, investments, campaigns and events before they happen.
Where could we add value?
Think beyond promotion to PR, trade, destination content, partnerships, insight and connections across the network.
Try this
At the start of your membership year, send us your top three objectives and five most important dates. That gives us a simple framework to refer back to when opportunities arise.
Make your listing a showcase
Your Strategic listing gives you much more space to tell your story visually. Use it to show the breadth of the visitor experience rather than simply adding more versions of the same image.
Use your 10 images to tell a story
Show different experiences, seasons, spaces and audiences. Include people enjoying your offer where possible and refresh the selection when you have stronger content.
Make video earn its place
Choose videos that bring the experience to life quickly. A strong visitor-focused film can communicate atmosphere and personality in a way that static imagery cannot.
Review it regularly
Your listing should reflect the business visitors would experience today. Review the copy, links, imagery and video whenever your offer changes significantly.
Build an annual plan with us
Strategic membership gives you enough activity across the year that it is worth planning the different elements together. Rather than treating email, social, PR and trade opportunities separately, build them around the moments that matter most to your organisation.
Start with the calendar
Map your major campaigns, launches, seasonal priorities, upcoming events and other important dates across the year.
Choose the right channel
Think about which opportunities are best suited to email, social media, PR, travel trade or wider destination activity rather than trying to use every channel for everything.
Leave room for opportunities
Not everything can be planned a year in advance. Leave enough flexibility to respond to new destination campaigns, media opportunities, trends and partnership activity as they arise.
Think partnership, not inventory: the aim isn’t simply to work through a list of benefits. Tell us what you want to achieve and we can look at how the different parts of your membership can work together to support it.
Use your priority email opportunities strategically
Strategic membership gives you priority access to dedicated solus email opportunities. Think about how these can support different moments in your annual plan rather than treating them as standalone pieces of activity.
Create interest
Use an opportunity to inspire audiences with something significant, new or particularly distinctive about your organisation.
Tell different stories
Look for opportunities to showcase different seasons, experiences, campaigns or reasons to visit rather than repeatedly promoting the same proposition.
Drive action
Where appropriate, use email around moments when there is a particularly strong reason for visitors to book, visit, attend or find out more.
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 organisation 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
Strategic membership gives you priority social media promotion and collaboration opportunities. Use them to tell different stories throughout the year and create content that audiences wouldn’t necessarily discover through a standard promotional post.
Spread your stories out
Avoid concentrating activity around the same subject or point in the year. 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 organisation 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.
Turn your news into PR opportunities
Strategic membership gives you priority access to our PR, media and influencer activity. Bring us into significant developments early so we can consider how your stories could contribute to wider destination narratives, media opportunities and influencer visits.
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
Strategic membership gives you priority opportunities across Shakespeare’s England’s travel trade activity, including trade shows, international sales missions, presentations, introductions and familiarisation trips. Being trade ready makes it much easier for us to put your organisation forward when relevant 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 organisation to contact and that enquiries can be answered promptly.
Keep your collateral ready
Make sure we have concise, current product information and suitable imagery that can be used for trade presentations and selected collateral opportunities when required.
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
Strategic membership gives you priority opportunities for introductions across the Shakespeare’s England network. Think beyond your own organisation and consider where relationships with complementary members could create stronger visitor experiences, new partnerships, useful content or commercial opportunities.
Attend tourism forums, networking events and member sessions, but also tell us about the types of organisations you would particularly benefit from meeting so we can look for relevant introductions.
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 Strategic partnership working throughout the year
A Strategic partnership should evolve throughout the year. Regular communication helps us understand what is changing in your organisation and where Shakespeare’s England can add the most value.
Every month
✓ Keep us updated on news and new opportunities
✓ Keep campaign, PR and trade activity moving
✓ Share relevant content and visitor stories with us
Every quarter
✓ Look ahead to the next few months
✓ Review your email, social, PR and trade activity
✓ Tell us about upcoming campaigns and priorities
✓ Let us know if your objectives or priorities have changed
Every year
✓ Review where your Strategic partnership delivered the most value
✓ Share your objectives, campaigns and key dates for the year ahead
✓ Review your imagery, videos and core information
✓ Agree where we can work most effectively together next year
Make the most of your partnership
What do you want to achieve next?
Tell us about your priorities, campaigns and key dates so we can identify where Shakespeare’s England can add the most value and plan activity with you throughout the year.
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