Communications and Marketing Consultancy

​​​Hackney Council secured funding from the NLHF to develop ambitious plans to transform and reimagine Hackney Museum, including its digital activities. The Museum team wanted to improve audience access to collections and Hackney’s rich histories, and communicate the different phases of their transformation over the course of the proposed redevelopment project. The team recognised that it needed support to navigate the infinite possibilities and make the most effective use of its limited capacity.​​

​​Hackney Museum appointed The Audience Agency (TAA) to support the creation of a resourced digital communications and marketing plan, alongside training and resources to implement the plan. TAA ​​was commissioned in June 2024 with the plan needing to be created and submitted to NLHF by July 2024. Through this tight turnaround, we were able to create a practical and exciting digital marcomms plan that was rooted within the museum team’s capacity and context.​​ ​ 

Due to the tight turnaround of the project, we spent the first week reviewing  relevant documents that the ​Museum team sent to us, to get a sense of both the proposed NLHF transformation project and ​the Museum’s​​ ​digital activities to date. This enabled us to create a base for proactive discussion, later in the project.

Once we’d developed our understanding of the organisation and reviewed their digital engagement data, we then ran a structured in-person SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results) workshop with Hackney Museum ​staff ​and some members of​ the​ wider Hackney Council team. This gave us the opportunity to bring in their thoughts, opinions, hopes and aspirations for what marketing and communications would look like across the different phases of their transformation project.

We then created a draft plan, based on our reading, research and structured conversations, which was actionable and deliverable across the stages of their transformation project. 

We supported the Museum team in creating an actionable and realistic ​digital ​marketing and communications plan, taking into account their resources at present and their potential resources across the timeline of the transformation project. As this is a plan that will need to be in use until late 2028, it also needed to be flexible in approach to platforms and technology.  

In terms of what the plan has achieved so far, the Hackney team felt: 

• Involved and supported throughout the process 
• Enthused about creating exciting and engaging content for their visitors and potential visitors 
• Able to submit their plan to the NLHF on time, to a tight timeline.