Friday Five – websites

I’m starting a new series – Friday Five – where each Friday I’ll share five resources or voices that I find insightful and interesting for people who work with audiences in museums, heritage, and cultural organisations.

All are sources I regularly read or listen to and learn from. Over the coming weeks I’ll be covering websites, e-news, people, podcasts, books, courses, agencies, data and more.

Kicking things off, here are five websites that are packed full of free research, tools, and case studies, the first four are fully free to access:

1.     Culture Hive: the Arts Marketing Association’s (AMA) free online resource hub, full of contributions from its community. Recent content includes: findings from the AMA’s research into how arts and heritage marketers across the UK are navigating three critical challenges (communicating in polarised times, adopting AI responsibly, and generating income under financial pressure); a deep dive re-branding case study of The Story Museum by DC&CO, and my piece ‘Five key audience trends reshaping arts marketing in 2026’.

2.     The Digital Culture Network (DCN): DCN’s Knowledge Hub has over 300 free practical resources (including articles, podcasts and webinar recordings) across different specialisms and granularity, from Strategic positioning, to How to choose the right CRM, to Long-tail vs short-tail keywords. Plus the free 1-2-1s with their Tech Champions are brilliant.

3.    The Audience Agency: the website shares research, think pieces and articles about the challenges and opportunities facing our sector, from the recent Audience Development Playbook, to the audience legacy of Covid, and its monthly Digital Snapshot, as well as loads of data and insights from its Audience Spectrum segmentation tool. Their data sharing has been a gamechanger for my work with smaller organisations, which don't always have access to much of their own, especially during the pandemic.

4.     MuseumNext: a great way to stay up-to-date with international projects, trends and ideas that are shaping museums. Museum marketing examples include: How micro-influencers can turn museum visitors into brand ambassadors; Museums and Snapchat: Engaging the next generation of visitors; and What does it take to run a meaningfully inclusive communications and marketing campaign?

5.     Arts Professional: full of news, analysis and opinion pieces on the arts sector. I find their summaries and takes on policy development valuable, such as the recent Arts Council England response to the Hodge review; a breakdown of what All-Party Parliamentary Groups are and why they are important to the arts sector; and how HMRC tax digitisation impacts freelancers. Much of the content is behind a paywall, but at £55p/a it’s around the price of a coffee a month.

Look out for my next Friday Five on 1 May!