Development of the Blenheim Palace Annual Pass Scheme
Blenheim Palace is a World Heritage site and home to the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Over the past 4 years, Adapt Communications has been working with Blenheim Palace, producing an extensive range of digital marketing activity, all closely aligned to Blenheim Palace's key business objectives. In particular, Adapt Communications developed the Annual Pass platform and reporting tools that have helped Blenheim Palace to facilitate a database of over 150,000 members. Adapt Communications has continued to develop and support the platform, delivering new features on-time and to budget.
In late 2008, the marketing team identified an urgent need to increase their market share but also to appeal to a wider target market. The team had the idea to launch the Annual Pass. The rational behind this initiative being to sell a higher priced ticket (a full price ticket could be converted to an Annual Pass) and therefore increasing turnover, which in turn would encourage repeat visits and increased revenue from catering and the gift shop while at the same time generating a database of visitors with whom the Palace could communicate and from whom the Palace could learn. The Annual Pass was launched in February 2009 with staggering results:
“In the first year we increased our visitor numbers by 41% and to-date we have over issued 300,000 Annual Passes, increasing our revenue by over £1.3m. Adapt Communications played a key role in making this happen. With very short notice they created software to launch and manage the Annual Pass system. They were quick to react, offered expert insight into developing the product and were hands-on throughout. We like to keep ahead of the curve and for us Adapt Communications is the perfect partner to help achieve this. They genuinely understand what is important to us and what will help drive business.”
Dominic Hare, Finance Director Blenheim Palace
