Saxon Heritage is a charity that maintains buildings, gardens and monuments that are of national interest on behalf of the Government. Examples of sites of national importance are: Stonehenge and Tintagel Castle. The locations of sites are distributed across England. However from a marketing perspective, England is divided into a number of regions so the sites are actually located in a region. There are 6 regions: These are: South East; London; South-West; Midlands; North East and North West.   Each site has its own charging structure for members, non-members; adult, child and family rates. These rates are based on popularity.

Each heritage site is flagged as a Gold, Silver or Bronze site, which denotes the popularity of the site. Sites, which receive less than 10000 visitors per annum, are tagged as Bronze; Sites, which receive between 10000 and 30000 visitors, are tagged as Silver; Sites, which receive more than 30000 visitors, are tagged as Gold Sites. Each year on Dec 30th the tagging is required to be automatically set based on the preceding year’s figures. During the tagging process, prioritisation for inclusion on any marketing campaigns is also decided.

Periodically, each region will run its own advertising campaigns, which will focus on a number of sites. Each campaign has a specific focus. For example, “Castles in Wales” was the last focussed marketing campaign. The Marketing Manager is responsible for ensuring that no site features in two consecutive marketing campaigns. If a site features in a campaign, then the visitor targets for that site are updated with an additional percentage as there is historical evidence that marketed sites always do well. Once a campaign has been run, the visits to the featured site are monitored and senior management requires reports on visits.

Senior management also require reports, which enable them to compare targets and performance of regions. Senior Management will set targets to regional directors on the number of visitors to each site and for the region as whole. The region target is based on the sum of the all the site targets and an additional 10%. Individual sites, which fail to meet their visitor targets by more than 20%, are priority sites for the first marketing campaign for the region in the next year.

Saxon Heritage manages a membership scheme where membership of the charity is encouraged. Membership provides a number of benefits such as free entry to the sites; a monthly magazine; various promotions and half price entry to the equivalent Celtic Heritage Charity. Benefits are constantly updated to reflect the competitive nature of the charity industry. Members are encouraged to submit visitor reports. If they submit 5 reports they are entitled to free entry on their next visit. Reports on the visits to sites made by members are also monitored and updated for the website. There is a membership fee and a membership only becomes active if the fee has been paid. If the membership has been paid by direct debit then a letter is sent out to members letting them know that a payment has been collected. The administrator is responsible for this. If payment was received by cheque, then a reminder is sent to the member to renew their membership four weeks before the membership is due to expire. Members who renew their membership after the renewal date are charged an extra 5 pounds for administration.

Sometimes a member may elect to suspend their membership for some reason (e.g. out of the country for period of time).  They must state how long the suspension is for. The renewal date is consequently pushed back. If a member cancels a direct debit then the membership is also suspended.

There is a requirement to design a new information system, which will handle reporting of site visits for regions; performance setting and membership.  In addition there is a great desire to push as much responsibility to the customer wherever possible. So for example, it is preferable that members administer their own details.