Marketing Your Historic Place Toolkit

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Like you, we believe Canada’s historic places are cornerstones of our communities, linking us to our memories and cultural identity. We also know that these special places have enormous potential to generate economic, social and cultural benefits for our communities. From website tune up tips to growing your audience, there are many different ways to increase your marketing know-how. Dive in and learn something new to help you improve your historic site’s marketing.

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Tip Sheet: Creating a Virtual Tour on Your Phone

Digital Storytelling makes use of new and existing technology to enhance the story or narrative of a space. For heritage sites, this creates the potential for the retelling of stories of lost or forgotten sites, and to recreate the stories of existing sites with an innovative and engaging twist.

Tip Sheet: How to use online events to attract and engage young people during COVID-19

What do young people want from heritage organizations? They want to enjoy images, content, and stories about historic places.

Tip Sheet: Social Media and your Historic Place

If you’re looking for a great way to attract a broad range of supporters and to nurture a younger audience, social media is the way to do it.

Tip Sheet: Turn Your 1^st Time Event Attendees Into Loyal Supporters

One of the goals of any event is to introduce new people to your heritage place and your organization in the hope they will become loyal supporters, donors, and volunteers. But you need to do more than hope for that. Bringing new donors on board is a process that takes planning, execution, and careful timing.

Tip Sheet: Pricing for Profit and Purpose

Many historic sites struggle to set prices for admission, tours and gift shop products. Setting prices isn’t random but doesn’t need to be difficult.

Tip Sheet: The Essentials for Marketing Your Event

You don’t have to spend a lot of money on paid advertising to market your event. Through your social media, email, and community media you have what you need to run an effective and cheap marketing campaign. Just add creativity!

Tip Sheet: Expanding on 8 Pricing Strategies for Historic Sites

In order to determine the best price for your organization’s products or services, and once you’ve calculated the unit cost to create those products or services¹, you can employ one or more of the following pricing strategies and achieve the marketing goals of your organization.

Tip Sheet: 10 Great Events for your Historic Site

Hosting events is a great way to attract first time visitors to your site. If there’s a particular demographic you want to target (i.e. seniors, millennials, families) tailor your event to the experience they’re looking for. Remember there’s competition for events, so really think outside the box. Come up with themes that will create a memorable experience for your visitors that will keep them coming back.

Tip Sheet: Use Creative Event Themes Tailored Out to New Audiences

Want to increase traffic to your site? Reach out to new audiences? Designing events that create experiences specifically tailored to your target audience will increase traffic to your site and expand your base of supporters.

Tip Sheet: Branding Your Historic Place

When we think of branding, logos and taglines are often the first things that come to mind. But branding is much more than a simple logo. Branding is a way to put your values as a heritage place on display. Branding can be a part of how your audience connects with you. And, so everything you say as an organization, everything you put out there, becomes a part of your brand. And, the clearer your brand is, the more compelling your marketing efforts will be.

Tip Sheet: The Power of Video

Video is an incredibly powerful tool. With video, you can inform and entertain a large group of people in a creative way without having to worry about your audience getting bogged down by looking at too many words. And not only is it more engaging, but it can evoke feelings and tug on heart strings in a way that words on a page can’t.

Tip Sheet: Telling Your Story to Grow Your Audience

Everyone loves a story – and heritage places have stories to tell. Your story is a great way to communicate what is special about your heritage place. You can also use it in all your marketing materials: flyers, website, e-mails, and social media posts.

Tip Sheet: Website Tune-up Tips for Historic Site Operators in Canada

Your website introduces your visitor to your historic places. Your website needs to be simple, easy to navigate and give the visitor the information they need.

Tip Sheet: Top 10 things you can do to up your tourism game

Tourism is about expectations – what visitors hope to see and experience, and how the many parts of the community can benefit from the influx of travellers. Historic places can be key to attracting visitors to get a better sense of a locale’s people, places and events.

Case Study: Beaubears Island

Often called “the sight to see in the Miramichi,” Beaubears Island hosts thousands of visitors each year and offers costumed historic characters, immersive tours and other engaging activities. After being an integral part of an ecotourism initiative for four years, Beaubears Island needed to find a new marketing strategy once the project ended. They bounced back with new marketing strategies and support from friends.

Case Study: The Diefenbunker Event Marketing

The Diefenbunker in Carp, Ontario has enticed many visitors in its 20 years as an eccentric and unique museum. Now, it also lays claim as host of the world’s largest escape room called “Escape the Diefenbunker” and an interactive zombie experience that runs every Halloween season.

Case Study: Fort Frances

Since its opening in 1978, the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre has had a mission to “collect, preserve, research, exhibit, and interpret the artifacts that depict the story of people and nature as it relates to the history of Fort Frances and the surrounding Rainy River District.”

Case Study: Toronto’s First Post Office

The building that houses Toronto’s First Post Office has changed owners, uses, and shape many times since its opening in 1833. It was the first functioning post office to serve the city of Toronto.

Interview: Annie-Claude Beaudry, Parks Canada

Annie-Claude Beaudry works at Parks Canada as the event coordinator of the Mauricie and Western Quebec field unit. She is now acting manager for the Fort-Chambly, Fort-Lennox and Louis-S. St-Laurent National Historic Sites. With over 10 years of experience in special events and community relationships, Annie-Claude brings both creativity and comprehensive project management expertise to the teams she manages.

Interview: Susan Kennard, Parks Canada

As part of an ongoing collaboration, Parks Canada Agency staff graciously agreed to lend their marketing and community engagement expertise to the National Trust for Canada’s Marketing Your Historic Destination Tool Kit. The following is an interview with Susan Kennard, Manager of Heritage Programs for the Banff Field Unit, which includes Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site.

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