Get Wise on the Web - a Marketing Conference organised by The Campaign for Museums at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on Tuesday 18 September 2001.

Ylva French, chaired the conference, and started by thanking the speakers, and the sponsors, Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

Loyd Grossman, Chairman of the Campaign for Museums, addressed the "Cultural Agenda". Museums and galleries had gained stature and importance through the growing stature of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the long-term service of Chris Smith as Secretary of State. Tessa Jowell was set to continue this. The bounties of the lottery had provided enormous benefits although there were still severe structural problems in the sector. The current economic climate and events in the United States would put enormous pressure on all visitor attractions and the next few years would be difficult. New media gave museums and galleries the opportunity to widen access, and to deliver those intangible experiences which visitor research could not measure, and establish long- term and evolving relationships with their visitors.

Rochelle Turner of MORI gave some useful statistics about who is using the web now - well over 40 per cent of the population. Increasingly the mix is similar to the UK profile with growing proportions of older surfers, and of CDE’s as well as ABs. She also worked through some recent research on what people look for on the web and how they use websites. Websites, she recommended, should be tested before going live on real users, and should be regularly researched.

Mike Ryan of Idaho Technology Consultants speaking mainly about the Cornerhouse site, and Graham Howard of System Simulation speaking about a new European initiative Open Heritage, both provided useful guidelines for anyone with an existing site which needed redeveloping and for those starting from scratch.

Mike believes that it "must work on paper" and produced the original model, on a huge plan, of the Cornerhouse site. This was carefully researched, brainstormed and planned, with all at Cornerhouse. "It’s important to keep everyone involved", he emphasised, "don’t let the techies run away with it."

Graham stressed the importance of thinking about the audiences, and from that deciding on the tone and style of the site. The simultaneous serving of many different audiences is possible through the net and should be the aim of a well-designed website. He also mentioned the need of selling in your ideas into directors and trustees and educating them about the web.

Jeremy Aspinall of Senior King Communications Group examined the changing society. There is a growing proportion of singles; by 2015, 40 per cent of households will be single. They are more leisure orientated but also short of time - so looking for that "perfect moment". They will criticise and not come back if things go wrong. The young, sexy and single are particularly hard to please but have plenty of money. Then there’s the huge growth of the proportion of people over 50 - 43% of the population is already over 45, with younger tastes and more money to spend.

Jane Finnis, Director of Development for the 24 Hour Museum, spoke about work now under way to improve various aspects of the 24 Hour Museum including the search capability. She encouraged museums and galleries to take up the opportunity of direct data entry. Out of 2,500 museums, galleries and heritage sites on the 24 Hour Museum, some 760 have websites. She suggested that museums on small budgets used the many low cost options for website development to get a stake on the net.

Mike Greenwood and Chris Warren of BBC Education Online confirmed that education for adults is part of the BBC core strategy. Programmes are the starting point for more active learning. BBC History had generated enormous interest in history over the past two years and had led to considerable involvement with partners such as museums, libraries and heritage organisations. BBC History website adds value to programmes with additional related content which museums can become involved in.

Shopping, ticketing and marketing generally were the subjects of the last two sessions of the day. Clare Gough of the National Gallery described the nine-month process of planning, implementing and launching the National Gallery shop. Having a very detailed brief and a realistic business plan were essential to success; a soft launch was very helpful. Being able to capture the data and managing it sensibly was an important part of the shop’s role in marketing.

Roger Tomlinson of tickets.com described new ways of marketing events with e-flyers using viral marketing, where people passed the email on to others. Ticketing online was just one part of the final process in the marketing chain. The panel discussion addressed the question of what should be free online; the National Gallery’s view was that all that was already free in the Gallery should be free; while the Museum of Science and Industry made material available to film-makers and others for a set fee.

The day also included a brief presentation of the Online Guide to Marketing which will be accessible through BTA’s www.visitbritain.org.uk site later this autumn.