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Doubling the presence of Hancock gallery

4X

Increase in sales enquiries

/ WORK

Doubling the presence of Hancock gallery

4X

Increase in sales enquiries

BACKGROUND

Hancock Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery situated in the UK. It works with a variety of emerging and established local and international artists, showcasing their art both in the gallery and online.

The gallery opened with two very clear objectives: 

  • To reach a global audience of active luxury market buyers with their highly collectable artists. 
  • Make art accessible to the closer 'footfall' audience. 

With knowledge of the local area, and a comprehensive understanding of the gallery's brand and vision, we developed a holistic marketing plan and approach strategy. This was delivered over a two-year period. Within that time, Hancock Gallery increased website sessions by 1,238%, leading sales enquiries to quadruple, all while navigating a global pandemic which saw the gallery close its physical doors for 9 months.  


DELIVERABLES
brand-strategy

Marketing strategy

paid_socials

Paid social, search and email marketing

seo-1

SEO management and implementation

blog_creation

Blog creation and management


THE STORY

Hancock Gallery

The privately-owned Hancock Gallery opened in the Spring of 2019, and is situated in a five storey Georgian townhouse within an affluent suburb of Newcastle City Centre.

With a dedicated art advisory team specialising in selling artwork by - and creating partnerships with - celebrated national and international artists, Hancock's vision was to create a curated selection of fine art for both the UK and global market.

OBJECTIVE

Cutting through a crowded market

Hancock Gallery needed an agency to undertake all marketing responsibilities. This included creating key strategic campaigns with the aim of raising awareness, cementing brand tone, and increasing both footfall and sales. To achieve this, they wanted to build a close relationship that considered the agency as part of their own team.

The brand was already developed and served the market well, but there was a need to create a personality for the gallery and deliver this through the marketing activity. We wanted to make the customers' experience memorable and personal. The marketing not only needed to appeal to the customer, but also the potential artists the gallery sought to work with.

OUR COLLABORATION

A close relationship unlocks great reactivity

As a local agency that had already created the gallery's brand and website, Code Milk already had a clear understanding of the target audience and the business' value proposition.

We understood that the relationship with the gallery was crucial to success, and that achieving this would mean prioritising excellent communication and supporting on key decisions. Our track record of successful online and offline campaigns meant Hancock Gallery fully trusted us to deliver.

APPROACH

How Code Milk responded

We started this project by extensively researching the market, target audience and competitors (both global and local) to identify opportunities, develop an approach and define Hancock Gallery's unique positioning.

We had conversations with the gallery's team, conducting workshops, buyer persona development activities and extracting information from their expertise. This was key in gaining invaluable knowledge from their wealth of experience. This gave us insights that helped to drive key strategic choice. 

With the foundations in place, we created a comprehensive communications plan that gave Hancock Gallery full visibility of all activity, complete with clear objectives; ranging from increasing sales to growing brand awareness. We also managed the website and maintained healthy SEO performance by optimising existing content and blogs.  

To develop brand awareness, we focused on highlighting the expertise, knowledge and personal interests of the gallery team across organic social content - particularly Instagram, which is a key channel for the audience. To build trust, we established Hancock Gallery as a credible gallery through regular blogging and email activity.

For footfall, the key to success was our approach to exhibition campaigns. This involved targeting specific audiences with Paid Media activity consisting of well-tested messaging and creative. Pushed across both Google and Search networks, we ensured the most dynamic ads were used to drive engagement and attendance. We also worked with PR publications to further position the Gallery as a market leader and build relationships with publications that are trusted by the audience.

hancock_overlay

Understanding the gallery's roster of artists and their individual value was crucial in driving sales. We created a matrix of artists to map this value and help us estimate ROI, and plan routes to market. We then promoted these key artists in our paid media campaigns, blogging strategic and organic social focus. We used Hubspot to help manage the full sales funnel, where we tracked inbound leads from enquiry to sale. 

THE RESULTS

Standing out in the art industry isn’t easy; Hancock Gallery needed an evolved brand position and marketing campaigns that elevated its visibility.

Code Milk identified opportunities to use the gallery's social media platforms to promote the type of content their audiences were interest in. Instagram was key in raising brand awareness, while regular newsletters, features in industry publications and regular blog content all brought the gallery to life.  

Read more +
125%

growth in social following and newsletter subscribers within 2 years.

362%

Increase in traffic from organic searches.

109%

Increase in blog views.

1,260%

Increase in new website users.

372%

Growth in sales enquires.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Book a consultation to review your digital marketing strategy