Ali Forbes, Head of Marketing, and Louise Cohen, Head of Digital Content, talk about how by being clear about purposes, values and goals and taking a joined-up approach, you can create effective, consistent messaging across your channels.

1. Ali Forbes, Head of Marketing
@ImAliForbes
Louise Cohen, Head of Digital Content
@louiseacohen
Joined up
digital
marketing

2. Creating
consistent
messaging
across digital
marketing
1. What role does digital marketing play in
communicating brand integrity?
2. What’s content for? How being clear about
purpose can make your content better.
3. Always on and campaign moments, and how
those work across organic and paid digital.
4. Things we’ve learnt along the way.

3. The Royal Academy of Arts
Who we are
● We were founded by King George III in 1768
● We’re an independent charity (we don’t get any
funding from the government)
● We’re led by eminent artists and architects
● We’re a home for art and ideas
What we do
● We host exhibitions (about 9 across our 3
spaces) and events all year round
● We have a free school of contemporary fine art
● We are the voice for art and artists

4. Our approach
We are audience centred
- Know our audiences
- What story are we telling them
- Where are they and how are we meeting them there
We are data informed
- Test & learn approach
- Use audience insight to make informed decisions
- Using campaign learnings to inform future decisions
We are joined up
- Considering all aspects of the RA - nothing happens in isolation
- Making the most of crossover opportunities

5. The role of
digital content

6. What role does digital content play?
RA digital content strategy, 2016

7. What role does digital content play?

8. Editorial content
For the RA, that’s…
★ Championing creativity
★ Providing a platform for artists voices
★ Promoting debate
Ongoing mission-led content

9. Drive reach and interest audiences in
particular campaigns…
Editorial content
Content by campaign
★ Editorial designed with exhibition target
audiences and campaign priorities in mind

10. Editorial content never sells
to its audiences. Think like
a publisher, not a brand.

11. Social media: organic and paid

12. Social media: organic and paid
We used to try
to do all this all
the time…

13. Social media: organic and paid
It didn’t work.

14. Organic
After a dip in engagement,
we’ve been experimenting
with lo-fi ways to boost
organic performance...
Social media: organic and paid

15. Six things we’ve learnt
about organic social...

16. 1. Stop trying to
sell things.
Start trying to
offer
something of
value.
Taking a different approach to covering
‘Friends Week’ at the RA – a mindfulness
exercise, illustrated by our Collection,
about gratitude for friends, family and
kindred spirits.

17. 2. Make content that
reflects what you’re
about – no exceptions.

18. Target
users’
needs
Organisation
needs and
values
Only post things that go in here
(...and if that
means posting
less, that’s ok.)

19. 3. Be reactive and
topical – but
think about what
you can add to
the discourse.

20. 4. Apply narrative (and treat
Stories as actual stories).
Summer
Exhibition
preview
party – our
most viewed
Instagram
Story ever.

21. 👎 Gratuitous use of Cookie Monster
👎 Badly written
👎 Not funny
5. You have to own
your bombs if you
want to stop bombing.

22. 6. Use a real
voice to say
real things.
A naturist visit to the RA
– and honest reflections
that contributed to a
viral Instagram story.

23. 1. Forget conversion. Go for love, not money.
2. Every post should reflect what you’re about.
3. Be reactive – and think about what you can add.
4. Apply formats. Narrative is your friend.
5. Own your bombs. Then stop bombing.
6. Be brave: use a real voice to say real things.
Six tips for
growth and
engagement
in organic
social media

24. Paid
Targeting
audiences by
campaign
★ Drive traffic
★ Generate
revenue
Social media: organic and paid
Organic
Growing and nurturing a network of
RA-loving followers for the long-term
★ Grow awareness
★ Build perception of your brand
★ Get audiences more deeply
engaged with what you do

25. Case studies
Investing in digital

26. The Renaissance Nude:
Investing in paid social

27. The challenge
Maximising a strong offer - sales were strong but there was very limited investment in social.
How could we maximise a solid and popular offer to run an effective test on social investment?
Selling tickets
We needed to drive ticket sales to hit ambitious targets
Driving membership acquisition

28. What we did
We invested budget
We took a joined up approach across membership and the exhibition campaign
Identified target audiences
and their potential audience size
● 5 prospecting audiences
● 4 targeted audiences
We optimised throughout
● Tested different messaging on different audiences
● We used our data
● We learnt when not to serve an ad (FB likers didn’t buy any tickets, so we switched them off)

29. What we learnt
We should do things differently
● Being joined up is effective and built brand awareness
● Take more of an always-on approach
● Our membership campaigns drove ticket sales
We have high drop offs at add to cart - this is a behavior indicator
It’s worth investing (we saw a positive ROI across the board)
● We sold 393 tickets = £8K in revenue
● We sold nearly 100 memberships, over £13K in revenue
● There was a halo effect - 30% of campaign revenue going to other sources

30. National Theatre Barber Shop Chronicles:
Diversifying audiences through digital

31. OOH
Hyperlocal using data to make targeted location decisions
Diversifying audiences through display
Non-cookie-based social data that informs programmatic buys (Fifty media)
Reaches people who are posting/tweeting on a certain topic and following the right influencers.
Cookie-based programmatic (Crimtan)
Overlay UK census ethnicity targeting
Used browser language targeting
Social advertising
At least 30% of the budget went on social advertising
Using data to make informed decisions

32. ● Be where your audience are
● Continued FB investment throughout
● Content is the driver
○ Vox pops – was central in reflecting the audience
○ Take a risk - Improv video took place in a barber shop, wasn’t directly linked to the play but
was really accessible
Content with purpose

33. BAME: 34%
First timers: 32%
Under-35s: 30%
Audience numbers

34. Always on - being practical
Nothing happens in isolation
Make sure all your channels are working together (CRM, organic, paid, website etc)
Be joined up across your messaging (paid should be as quality as organic)
Invest
In the content itself and getting it to audiences
Use your data (if you can)
Who - is it for? What matters to them
Plan - being flexible means planning
Test - what is resonating?
Learn - feed into the next campaign

35. 1. We don’t market the RA. We are the RA.
Royal Academy digital content strategy 2016
2. Be audience–centred. Meet them where
they are and be relevant to them.
3. Be joined up, and be clear about all
your goals.
3
top
tips

36. Thanks!
Questions?
Ali Forbes, Head of Marketing
@ImAliForbes
Louise Cohen, Head of Digital Content
@louiseacohen