Opportunity
Create higher awareness of the event to increase attendance 5% or more versus the year prior
Strategy Approach
Begin by better understanding the target audience’s media habits, primarily Women 25-64, through the use of research tools like Scarborough, MRI and Nielsen. Turn these insights into a smarter media plan that delivered more advertising impressions for the same media budget.
Execution
Use a 2-prong media plan with pre-promotion media 4-6 weeks prior to encourage “saving the date” followed by high levels of media 2 weeks prior to promote ticket sales
Significantly increase advertising impressions from 4,718,800 to 10,356,666 YOY
Replace print media with outdoor to increase target audience reach and advertising frequency of message (62% of the target audience hadn’t read a local newspaper in the past 30 days, plus PR efforts focused on print coverage)
Increase the use of digital/social media (82% of the target visited Facebook in the past 30 days)—Facebook, Groupon, CincyChic and CincyMoms blog were key components)
Deploy a contest on Facebook to increase attention for the event—$1,500 Christmas tree give-away generated over 15,000 entries and email addresses for retargeting
Use :15 TV spots for more frequency/spots and the flexibility to run stand-alone or as :30 bookends; also 15’s more acceptable for no charge bonus spots
Results
The attendance goal of +5% was almost doubled at close to 10% increase in attendance and exhibitors surveyed were very happy with the revenue they generated.