Marketing a marvel: How digital is bringing people to The Chester House Estate
The Chester House Estate is one of Northamptonshire’s newest attractions - a historic site hosting all kinds of events throughout the year.
Georgia Wales, Business Development and Marketing Officer at Chester House, shares her passion for bringing the site’s incredible past and present to life through digital marketing and more.
We’ve got 10,000 years of history here.
This site dates back to 8,000 BC. We've got a huge walled Roman settlement in the fields. We've also found medieval jewellery.
The archaeological digs that take place every year provide a way for local people to get hands on with the history of their community.
Our archaeological resource centre is incredible - there's nothing else like it outside of London. It holds all of Northamptonshire's finds and beyond.
It's a state-of-the-art facility and it changes the way we carry out archaeology. We can resource finds properly now and keep them in a temperature-controlled space.
Our beautiful 17th-century buildings, like our farmhouse, are grade two star listed. It was an original working farmhouse. The farmer would have lived there and it would have been rented out to workers on the site. It's now our cafe and conference rooms, it's also a bed and breakfast so you can come and stay here overlooking the Nene Valley. It's a lovely venue to come and have afternoon tea.
The threshing barn, which would have been where hay was kept, is now a space for us to hold weddings, parties and conferences. That's in our courtyard, where we also have shops selling Saxby's Cider, a visitor's centre and gift shop, a florist, a farmshop, a vintage shop, the Canine Cottage selling dog treats and toys.
There's plenty of shopping to do on-site and we have a learning centre as well, hosting school visits and family activities. We also hold events throughout the year including pumpkin patches, Father Christmas experiences and Easter lambing days.
Whether you like history, attending events or you just want to do some shopping, there's something for everyone.
Chester House has changed so much in my time here. I've worked here since December 2020. When I first started, there were four of us sat at one small desk in a little shed. We had no wi-fi and no working toilets. There was nothing on-site.
Because I've been here from the start, this feels like something I've built. It means I know how far it's come and how exciting it is. Every single time I post about something, I am excited. It's always amazing that we've got to this point, hosting massive events with thousands of people coming along. That makes me want to talk about it on social media.
Social media grew so, so quickly. That came through people talking about us and sharing on Facebook, because it was like they were having a conversation. The best thing I've done on social media happened very early. That was a 'Coming Soon' feature, building anticipation.
So we had 3,000 people following us on Facebook before we even opened. It was pure excitement - people wanted to be involved, wanted to come down and volunteer, to see what was happening. They were sharing it with their friends, to say this is something we could do. That was the biggest thing I did to make it how it is now.
What also worked well is that we were excited about it, so we were just sharing our excitement. We knew it was going to be good but it was hard to show in person before it was open when it was just a building site, so instead we did it online through artist's impressions.
Chester House is all things to all people.
I've never had to focus on just one thing.
One day I'll be targeting people interested in history, the next it's families wanting a fun day out and after that it could attracting teachers to bring students onto the site.
It can be tricky to maintain one consistent tone of voice while still appealing to all these different types of people.
There's no way of targeting all these people - you have to change it around to meet all of their needs. It feels unique.
It's not a challenge you get at many places.
The way I've approached it is to try to use a voice that feels personal. I'm not trying to promote it as a business. It's almost more like a person. For each thing I'm doing, I talk to the person who needs to hear it. Social media is a way of talking to people.
I have to judge who's going to be using each platform and why. We have dabbled in print marketing but with where we are in our progression, getting things out online is the easiest way to reach people. That's the only thing that's proven to have got results.
Our main social channels are Facebook and Instagram, which work well for family activities. For the more educational and historical aspects, I tend to use Twitter and LinkedIn. Twitter is mainly historical, about the site, what we're achieving and how you can get involved. We don't get as many people looking for a day out on Twitter, but when we talk about the archaeological digs or we're talking about something we've found that's now in our archives, that's when Twitter works really well.
I enjoy the challenge of getting people in the digital age excited about history and heritage. A lot of people who come here will still say 'I didn't know you were here', but they have made it to us somehow. So I'll ask, and it invariably comes back to Facebook. Whether they use it or not, either they or someone they know will have been tagged into a post at some stage.
It's eye-opening how many people will interact with a post but not do anything with it. People working here will see the number of likes and say how well a certain post has done, but actually we'll get nothing from it.
If I share something I've done on Instagram onto Facebook, to get it to that audience as well, often people will just hit Like and scroll on because there's no information attached. As a result, I'm trying to keep Facebook more information-based rather than just eye-catching. We want calls to action, where people want to be a part of what they're seeing.
Competitions and posts asking people to tag in others they think will be interested - they both do really well for us. People will tell us they know about the site because they were tagged in on Facebook.
Instagram is mainly for when I'm trying to show off how good the site is and the beauty of it. If you scroll through our Instagram feed, it's so varied. There are so many things going on. That makes the page look appealing. With a heritage site especially, it can be easy for it to look quite beige - just the colours of the buildings. Ours pops because we have so many things going on. Our Christmas events look very different to photos of historical things we've found on-site. It's quite an eye-catching page.
I look at the statistics a lot. If people are liking something, are they doing anything with that? I do a lot of boosted marketing on Facebook. When I'm looking at that, I want to know who's clicking on things and where are they going? Are they going to our website?
It's not just a case of bringing people to a physical location through our digital platforms.
Our outreach work in local communities often involves doing things the other way round. We go to speak to groups like the Women's Institute and we'll show them a presentation that includes things like our website. They may not be able to access it, so we bring it to them and they will tell others.
Older people in groups like that can do so much here - they can have a conference as part of their group, they can bring their grandkids or they can just come for a nice afternoon tea.
It doesn't have to be a one-time visit - people will hear about other events and either they come back for those or they tell someone they know.
I've always worked in tourism. I worked at a farm park in Peterborough and I told the manager there I wanted to work in marketing. He got me involved in social media, but I couldn't really get what I wanted out of it. I went on to be an admin assistant at a life insurance company and supported their marketing, managing their affiliates. That was where I saw how important it was to get digital marketing right. Just having one offer on would make product sales skyrocket.
So when I came here, I applied to the marketing and PR internship. I learned a lot about promotional writing which has helped with my social media. Then I could see the social media growing before we opened. It showed me how clever it was. Throughout my degree I talk about the importance of talking about heritage, embracing the technology and bring it with us into the digital age. The combination of old and new is really interesting to me.
We are still so new and what we've done so far is great but it's now about taking the next step in the digital landscape.
I'm excited to see Chester House become more digital. The next stage is to introduce QR codes and interactive technologies around the site, so you can scan a code and be able to see straight away how the buildings looked and were used. I would have loved that as a child - to see that be brought to life.
Students are learning digitally so much in schools now, it means they expect to be able to learn digitally here. They aren't blown away by the smallest bit of technology any more. So we want to impress them when they come here.
I'll always stay in heritage from now on. I want to become a business and project manager in the heritage industry. But I want to take with me how important the digital aspect is. I'm in the third year of a Business Management degree at University Centre Peterborough, focusing mainly on capital projects involving heritage sites and how they're restored.
I like developing business plans. I'll always make sure any business plan I write includes the importance of a good website, strong social media presence and online bookings. Doing digital excellently is make-or-break for a destination like this.
Working with One to One Development Trust has been amazing. I've worked alongside them for a long time. They do our website and drone footage. I've got a strong relationship with them. Next year will be a big year for us, working with them to bring the site to life. They are the experts and I'm learning a lot from them.
We look at other local attractions and Delapre Abbey stands out. Delapre is fantastic. We learn a lot from how they've done things. Both Chester House and Delapre are restoration projects, so I've looked a lot of at their restoration work. Their digital work is amazing and they're continuing to develop too - that's the best way. You're never done when you work with digital - it's always developing and there's always more you can learn and do.
Interested in digital marketing?
The second in our current series of Digital Marketing Meet-Ups takes place in the Waterside Bar at the University of Northampton on Monday 7 November (5.30pm - 7pm). Visit our LinkedIn page to find out more.