Case Study 4 · Live work experience · Local attraction
Growing local engagement at Holmes Chapel Zoo.
Since July 2026, I’ve volunteered one day a week with Holmes Chapel Zoo while seeking a permanent marketing role. Working alongside the Marketing Manager, I’m applying my marketing degree in a live business environment and contributing to the zoo’s aim of increasing visitor footfall. My work spans promotional design, community outreach, visitor experience ideas and digital website improvements.
Ongoing · Work in progress01 / The brief
Supporting visitor growth through practical marketing
The placement focuses on three practical priorities: increasing visitor footfall, improving the presentation and usefulness of marketing materials, and expanding community outreach. My role is hands-on and varied. I support the Marketing Manager with research, planning, promotional materials and improvements to the visitor journey across digital and on-site touchpoints, as well as day-to-day administrative tasks.
02 / Current activity
What I’ve been working on
- Signage and poster redesign: Audited existing promotional materials and redesigned key posters and visual assets to give them a more modern, appealing look and help them capture visitors’ attention.
- Youth-group outreach and badge ideas: Researched activity and badge ideas for groups such as Brownies, then organised and attended a meeting with the Holmes Chapel Brownies leaders alongside the Marketing Manager.
- Exploring further community opportunities: Researched other youth groups and considered how activities or packages could be tailored to different audiences.
- Christmas planning spreadsheet: Created an Excel planning document for the Marketing Manager outlining activities and tasks to consider in the run-up to Christmas, with the aim of supporting seasonal footfall.
- Weekday toddler encounter: Helped bring the weekday toddler encounter to life, giving families with younger children an additional activity to enjoy: supervised guinea-pig cuddles in the marquee. This creates another potential reason to visit during the week.
- Website audit and link fixes: Reviewed the Holmes Chapel Zoo website alongside its linked Zoo2U website, identified broken links and navigation issues, and raised them with employees so fixes could be actioned. This work is ongoing.
- Halloween experience planning: Exploring ideas such as dressing skeletons, creating a scavenger hunt and giving visitors more opportunities to take part in activities during their visit.
Bringing the Zoo’s Personality to Life Through Clear Design
Building on an initial concept draft, I redesigned the Summer Safari promotional posters for Holmes Chapel Zoo to make them significantly more visually engaging and digestible. The original base drafts were overly information-heavy and AI-generated; I streamlined the content and refined the layouts using the zoo’s signature deep green and warm neutral palette, playful typography, foliage, and imagery. The updated designs cleanly balanced experience-led messages with essential visitor details—such as animal encounters, pricing, opening times, and booking links—making them both welcoming and easy for families to read.
03 / Visitor journey
Where this work can make a difference
I’m approaching each task with the zoo’s wider visitor-growth goal in mind. The work supports several parts of the visitor journey, from first noticing a poster or seasonal offer, to finding useful information online, to discovering an activity that makes a visit feel worthwhile.
These are the intended benefits of the work, rather than measured outcomes. I haven’t attributed increases in footfall or bookings to the activities without supporting data, until this is available.
04 / My approach
How I approach the work
I start by looking at the experience from a visitor’s point of view: what catches their attention, what information they need, and what might give them a reason to visit or return. I then combine practical research with creative ideas and organised planning, discussing options with the Marketing Manager and considering what is realistic for a small, growing business.
The variety of tasks has helped me connect different parts of marketing—from visual communication and digital usability to community relationships and seasonal activity planning—rather than treating each channel in isolation.
05 / Tasks
Current tasks
- Marketing collateral review and visual communication
- Community outreach and relationship-building
- Audience and youth-group research
- Campaign and seasonal activity planning in Excel
- Website auditing, user journeys and attention to detail
- Ad hoc support for events and experiences as required
- Collaborating with the Marketing Manager and other colleagues
06 / Next steps
Next steps and measuring impact
This is an ongoing placement, so I am continuing to develop Halloween ideas and seasonal activity while supporting day-to-day marketing improvements. To understand which ideas are most useful, I would look to track a small set of practical measures where the zoo can access the data:
- Visitor activity: attendance or bookings for the toddler encounter and other promoted activities.
- Community outreach: groups contacted, follow-up conversations and any resulting enquiries or visits.
- Digital usability: broken links identified and resolved, and key visitor information working as intended.
- Seasonal planning: actions agreed, completed and promoted from the planning spreadsheet.
These measures would help the team understand what is working and where to focus next. I haven’t included performance figures because results have not yet been confirmed.