Engaging Elizabethans

The museum currently suffers from “Hidden Heritage syndrome”, in that most people just do not know about our most important asset, our unique Elizabethan wall paintings. A common exclamation from visitors when they visit is “Wow, I had no idea these were here”. Our site is multi-faceted and our marketing in the past has wanted to capture all that we have to offer on a limited budget, the result being that the paintings go unnoticed by key target audiences. We have launched an on-going project that will draw key audiences to visit the site to engage with our Elizabethans.
We have recently been awarded £500 for our Tudor Costumes project by HAM Small Grants Scheme, to have one of the most impressive dresses in The Judgement of Solomon wall painting made by London School of Fashion Student and aspiring costume designer Megan Doyle. Her latest blog on the project can be found at http://showtimestitches.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/tudor-costume-initial-research-at-v.html. Also one of our volunteers is creating education materials and resource boxes to complement the dress.
With “Engaging Elizabethans” have expanded on this project to include a social media strategy targeting Tudor enthusiasts, an email marketing campaign to target schools, colleges and home educators and we are developing partnerships with other museums holding Tudor exhibitions.
We want the world to know about our internationally important paintings, schools to use our resources and visit our site and other museums and heritage sites to display our dress and a panel about our paintings.
We are offering taught sessions in schools and talks to adult education groups during term time and are loaning out the material for display at other museums holding Tudor exhibitions and Tudor heritage sites during school holidays, with a 2 for 1 entry offer to encourage their visitors to come to us.
The aim is to target key audiences, increase our outreach numbers and increase visits to the museum by people coming specifically to see the wall paintings.

For more information visit http://www.hadhammuseum.org.uk/