How do you see the wood from the trees? In teaching marketing to galleries all over Wales, this has been a key point of discussion. The challenge of marketing is to continually keep in touch with the needs and wants of your audiences, but how to do this? You might expect that as a researcher I would be pushing galleries to buy in professional research at the earliest opportunity, but actually I see money being wasted on answering questions that could easily be answered by watching and listening to visitors. How long do they spend in the gallery? (I bet it’s much less than you think!) What kinds of conversations are taking place between visitors? Do they actually read those interpretation materials you slaved over for hours? And the best thing is…when you can afford to commission that professional research you really know what you want to ask and what the main areas for exploration should be.

We worked with Nab Wood School in Bradford back in the Spring on its communications and marketing. Research with parents, pupils and teachers helped us highlight the strengths of the school, for use in a surprisingly competitive education marketplace.

Helping to rebuild some of Nab Wood’s self-confidence was the net result of the process, and it’s fantastic news that the school’s fortunes seem to be turning around, with GCSE results up and renewed interest and enthusiasm from would-be students (and their parents). Congratulations to the staff - Nab Wood could well be finding itself the next ‘in thing’.