By Maryke Benadé
Writing for museum communications and marketing is related to any message that you need to create and deliver to an audience about a museum programme. It can also share the message about the museum’s purpose, mission, vision and values.
When you start to write, you will look at the specific communication plan you have created for the museum activity (for example an exhibition, event or programme) to create an outline. This will ensure that you cover all the information you need to share based on the museum’s goals.
Create a writing outline
Your communications plan outlines the goals of the museum activity, who you are writing for, what they need to know, what action they need to take. Measure and review the outcome the writing had on meeting the goals of the communication plan.
Use the following elements of your communications plan to outline your writing:
Goals of the activity
Audience
Content
Content Format (blog writing, website text, social media post,)
Channels (website, social media platform)
Time and frequency of the museum activity (for example, do you need to write different content for different times?)
Measure and review the outcome
Content: What do people need to know
Your communications plan provides you with an outline of what people need to know about a specific museum activity.
Awareness - Provide an overview of what the museum activity is, venue, time and day and accessibility.
Why should they participate - Provide more information by making it relatable to your reader and explaining how their participation solves a problem they have or how it benefits them.
What action they need to take - Tell them clearly what they have to do next.
You can use this structure regardless of who you are writing for and which communication format or channel you are using.
Audience
Communicate what problem the museum programme solves and what benefits people will get by participating. For example, museum activities focused on age groups like ‘Toddler time at the museum’ or groups that benefit from visiting the museum during ‘Quiet Hours’.
Demographics can play a part in understanding where people find their information. Social media demographics are widely available for researchers to analyse, and can provide you with some insight. Use your own museum data to learn more about where people find their information. This will be important to know as it will inform you of which channels and formats to use.
Start writing
As outlined in my blog Starting your museum writing habit, use your established writing habit start and start writing. Follow your writing outline and write as much as you can. Remember that you will have time to edit! The number of drafts you decide to write will depend on your writing experience and time. This is why you constantly need to refer to your writing outline. Unless you are writing a novel or manual, the number of drafts will most likely be under five.
Drafts and Editing
When you have completed your first draft, read it once and walk away from it for either a day or an hour (depending on your deadline!) Once you have distanced yourself from the writing, return to it and start making edits. You can either ask someone else to edit your first draft, or edit your first draft yourself. Giving your first draft to someone else is a great way to receive valuable feedback. After the second draft is completed, go back to your writing outline to make sure that you are still on track. Another set of eyes is useful at this stage. You can give it to the same person who edited your first draft, and perhaps someone who would know nothing about the topic or the museum. Doing this ensures that the writing is in plain language and free of jargon.
Remove anything that is not useful. I often find that my first couple of drafts might even include ideas for future writing projects. Removing it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t useful information, it might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Always have another document open or a piece of paper where you can note down any information that you can use at a later date.
Word Limits
Word limits vary depending on the goals the content needs to reach, content, content format and channel. The channel will often dictate the length of words you can write, for example character limits on social media posts. Having a word limit for the different content formats and channels is a great way to start a habit of writing intentionally. It also forces you to write succinctly. Following the ‘less is more’ advice is a good starting point, especially on digital communication channels. It can be difficult at first to stick to a short word limit, but with a clear writing outline it will become easier. There is a lot of noise to cut through, so make sure you follow your objective, write for your audience and stick to the point.
Over to you
Stick to your writing habit and follow your writing outline to help you stay on track, write efficiently and create impactful museum communications and marketing content.
In the next blog we will look at how specific formats and channels impact your writing.
Images:
Photo by Monstera Production
Photo by Monstera Production
Photo by Kaique Rocha
Huberta Consulting blogs covers communications strategy, museum communications, content strategy and a range of other museum-centered topics.
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