Historic house or garden could be Catapulted with free marketing support

A PR and content marketing agency, that has now been creating award-winning campaigns for historic houses and gardens in Cumbria for 25 years, is looking to create ‘big hitting’ impacts for a similar tourism and heritage business, free of charge.

 Catapult PR, with addresses in both Cumbria and Lancashire and clients UK-wide, has recently won its 15th award for campaigns conducted for historic houses, and now picked up a further two shortlistings.  

To celebrate, it is looking for the heritage and historic houses ‘next big story’ and is ready to help create it, with the free support it is ready to offer.

 The consultancy, which has one of its specialisms in tourism PR and heritage PR and marketing, was delighted with judges’ comments that accompanied its recent win in the PR Moment Awards 2025. 

 The judges of the Culture, Media, Sport and Travel Communications Campaign of the Year category said: “This campaign highlights what can be done with a small budget, massive creativity and determination to meet client objectives. Up there with the big hitters.”

One of those big hitters, in the same category, was theme park, Alton Towers.

Jane Hunt, managing director of Catapult PR, said: “We have never offered anything like this to the heritage sector and we are sure it will help catapult the winner forwards with their marketing, building their profile amongst prospective visitors.

"We wish to create a great case study, so we can inspire other heritage venues to think differently about their marketing.  

"The temptation for heritage attractions is all too often to just jump on social media because they think it is the thing to do, even though our independently commissioned consumer research shows that consumers do not use social media as a reference tool, when planning a heritage visit.  

“We want to demonstrate that are far more powerful marketing tactics to be using and wish to set another historic house and garden or heritage attraction along that more fruitful marketing path.”

 As a result, Catapult PR is determined to spread the benefits of its approach even further within the heritage sector, 25 years after it won its first heritage-sector awards, for a Holker Hall and Gardens campaign in 2000.

 To do this, it is offering four months of free marketing support to a historic house, or house and garden, or heritage visitor attraction of another kind, that wishes to boost its marketing.

This will be its powerful PR for SEO Plus service, which leverages PR and content in a high-impact manner, for business benefit.

 The support will allow the winning business, which can be based anywhere in the UK, to gain an insight into tactics they may not have used previously and see how these can deliver business benefits.  

 The tourism PR and heritage sector specialist wishes to create a case study demonstrating the value of its PR for SEO Plus service.  It will set the winner on a path that will grow its profile and visitor numbers, with a strong four-month kick-start to this process and lots of advice, guidance and mentoring so all can then be continued by the venue.  

The support will demonstrate that historic houses and gardens and other heritage visitor attractions should be doing far more than focusing solely on social media, which often fritters away time and resource, for relatively little impact when not used as part of a holistic strategy.

To be considered for the prize, suitable heritage attractions or historic houses and gardens, just need to send an email suggesting why they would welcome marketing support in the 2025 season and why they think their attraction/venue would be a deserving winner.

Within their submission, they should detail their current marketing strategies and provide their website address, along with the contact details of the person applying for the support prize.

The closing date for applications is 5pm on May 12, after which all will be reviewed and a winner chosen.  The free marketing support will be available from mid-May to mid-September, or from June to October 1.  

To be considered for this prize, applicants should email all of the required details to  [email protected]  Applicants can be a historic house and garden, formal garden alone, or a heritage visitor attraction, such as, for instance, a heritage railway.  

For more information about Catapult PR, please visit www.catapultpr.co.uk