Strategic Pete · Museums, theme parks, zoos & aquariums
Attractions Marketing Agency
for Museums, Theme Parks, Zoos & Aquariums
You already own the thing people would drive two hours for. What you do not own is a reason for them to believe it before they get in the car — and that gap is a marketing problem, not an attendance problem.
Documentary-led storytelling, earned media, and the search and booking work that catches the demand those two create. One accountable team, not a film vendor and an agency and a freelancer who never speak to each other.
Tell us what visitors expectRead this before you enquire
We are not a promotions agency. If you need attendance this weekend, a discount and a paid boost will do more for you than we will, and we will say so on the first call rather than take the retainer.
What we change is what people believe about your attraction before they ever look at a ticket price. That takes a season, not a weekend — and it is the only work that also moves memberships, donations and the goodwill you need when a county commission asks what you are for.
What we actually run for attraction operators
Four things, and they are sequenced. The last one does not work without the first two.
Story capture
Long-format film shot on site with your keepers, curators, educators and operations crew — not actors reading your brochure back to you.
Earned distribution
National and regional press, streaming placement and social distribution, so the story reaches people who have never heard of you.
Search and booking paths
The route from “I just saw that” to a ticket in a cart, fixed so the attention you earn does not leak.
Membership and donor work
The second visit and the annual pass are cheaper to sell than the first visit. Most attractions market only for the first.
Attendance, membership and community goodwill are one marketing problem
Operators usually bring us one of the three and discover the other two were the same problem wearing different clothes. A family that does not understand what you do will not buy a ticket, will not renew a membership, and will not defend you at a county commission meeting.
The perception gap is the real problem
People think they already know what a zoo, a museum or a family entertainment centre is. Most of what they think was formed twenty years ago, or by a headline about somebody else’s facility. Paid media does not move a belief that old.
Proof beats persuasion when you sell an experience
You cannot sample an attraction before you buy it. The nearest substitute is watching somebody else have the experience, honestly filmed and long enough to be believed.
Then, and only then, the performance layer
Ads, listings and booking-path work multiply demand that already exists. Run them first against a perception gap and you pay full price to be misunderstood faster.
How the work actually gets made
Five stages, in this order, because each one needs the one before it.
Map the perception gap
What visitors, lapsed members, local media and your own staff believe about you — and where those four disagree. The disagreement is usually the campaign.
Find the stories that already exist
A conservation programme, a rescue, a restoration, a forty-year employee, a species nobody in the state has seen. Attractions are the rare category with more real material than they can use.
Film them without sanding down the truth
No script that flattens the work into a brochure. Visitors have seen ten thousand promotional videos and can smell the next one; what they have not seen is the thing that is plainly, verifiably real.
Put it where the decision gets made
Earned media, streaming and social — not only your own feed, which mostly reaches people who already bought a ticket last year.
Convert attention into tickets, memberships and donors
Search, site and booking paths fixed so somebody who just felt something about your park can act on it in under a minute, and so this season’s attention is still working next season.
Who we work with
Attraction operators. If you are a tourism board or a destination marketing organisation, we are the wrong agency for you and there is a note about that further down.
Zoos, aquariums & wildlife parks
Accredited and independent, single-site and multi-site — including facilities running an active conservation or breeding programme the public has never heard about.
Museums, science centres & historic sites
Where the collection is not the problem and the reason to visit this year is.
Theme parks & family entertainment centres
Regional operators competing against a two-hour drive to a national brand, and FECs competing against a living room.
Attraction associations & member networks
Where the perception problem belongs to a whole category and no single operator can fix it alone.
What the work has produced in this category
One engagement, published in full: a pygmy hippo born at Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas, on 26 June 2025, and what happened when it was framed as a conservation story rather than a cute-baby-animal story.
Read it in full: 48 Hours to National News — the Kansas hippo media outreach case study.
And what the figures do not show
The calf stayed behind the scenes while it bonded with its mother, so there were almost no visuals to pitch with. The placements came from the framing — reframing a newborn as a rare conservation moment, with fewer than roughly 3,000 pygmy hippos left in the wild — and from a release timed to a midweek news cycle. None of it was bought, which is exactly why it worked, and also why this category rewards patience. Earned attention compounds; it does not do emergencies.
An agency, a video vendor, or your first in-house marketing director
Most attractions our size are choosing between these three, and the honest comparison does not flatter any one of them all of the time.
| What you need | Video vendor | First in-house hire | This |
|---|---|---|---|
| A film made well | Yes | Rarely | Yes |
| Somebody who will get it placed | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Day-to-day social and email | No | Yes | No — keep that in house |
| Accountability on one number | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cost of being wrong | One project | A year and a salary | Ninety days |
Where we are the right answer — and where we are not
A strong fit
- You have real conservation, education, restoration or craft work that the public does not know about.
- Attendance is flat and you suspect the reason is what people assume, not what you charge.
- You can commit to ninety days and one number.
- You want one accountable team rather than three vendors.
Not a fit
- You need attendance this weekend.
- You want somebody to run local listings and review platforms and nothing else.
- The story you want told is not one your keepers, curators or educators would recognise as true.
- You are a tourism board or a destination marketing organisation. Different buyer, different work, and we would be guessing.
What people in the category have said about it
“Peter is a true multiplier for those around him. Since we began working together, we’ve 2X’d our revenue and 10X’d our reach with his project management and strategic guidance. Peter’s ability to design and execute comprehensive growth plans has been critical in bringing Tanganyika’s ambitious goals to life.”
LynnLee Schmidt — COO, Tanganyika Wildlife Park
The first ninety days
No mystery phases and no strategy sprint that produces a deck. A sequence you can hold us to.
Days 1–30 — the perception read
Visitor, lapsed-member and local-media research, plus interviews with your own staff. You get the gap, named, and the one number the next sixty days are measured on.
Days 31–60 — the plan and the shoot
The story shortlist, the film plan, and the first shoot on site. You get footage, not a deck about footage.
Days 61–90 — distribution and measurement
Release, pitch and placement, with the booking and search paths fixed before the traffic arrives. You get the placements and the read on that one number.
Questions we get asked on the first call
We are a non-profit with a small budget. Is this realistic?
Sometimes. The work is priced as a ninety-day engagement rather than a film budget, and the material we need already exists on your site. What it needs is your staff’s time, which is the cost most operators underestimate.
Do you handle our day-to-day social?
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who wants to. Daily posting belongs to somebody who is at the park every day. We make the material that is worth posting and get it placed beyond your own channels.
How do you measure this?
On one number chosen in the first thirty days — tickets, memberships, enquiries or donations. Placements and views are reported, but they are not the number.
We are accredited and our animal-welfare messaging is sensitive. How is that handled?
Your veterinary and curatorial staff review anything that touches welfare before it leaves the building, and animal-care realities set the schedule rather than the media calendar. On the Tanganyika hippo release the calf stayed behind the scenes with its mother throughout, which cost us the visuals and did not change the plan. We have never shipped a frame over that objection.
Tell us what visitors are getting wrong about you
That sentence is usually the whole brief. Send it and we will tell you, free, whether it is a story problem or a booking problem — those need opposite budgets.
Start thereRelated reading
48 Hours to National News: Kansas Hippo’s Media Outreach Success
The full case study behind the figures above — the conservation-first reframe, the release timing, and the placements.
B2C marketing services
How the same method runs for consumer businesses that sell an experience.
Documentary storytelling
What long-format film actually involves, and what it is for.