Dallas TX 75219 Communications - AAF Website Content/202... · Distribution System: Eventbrite,...
Transcript of Dallas TX 75219 Communications - AAF Website Content/202... · Distribution System: Eventbrite,...
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AAF-Dallas
PO Box 192505 Dallas TX 75219
Communications 2016-2017
Our Mission 1. Provide thought leadership by discussing the latest trends in technology, creativity and
marketing.
2. Protect and promote advertising within all levels of government.
3. Honor advertising excellence.
4. Support and grow future industry leaders via our educational Foundation.
5. Promote diversity in advertising.
The Dallas chapter of the American
Advertising Federation is the oldest
civic organization in Dallas and
celebrated its 100th year anniversary
in 2008. We are the only association
that represents all facets of the
advertising industry.
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2016-2017 The Rejuvenation and Revival of AAF Dallas
We started the 2016-2017 year with two major hurdles we needed to overcome for
communicating with the public.:
1. No Volunteers: We have struggled to keep Marketing Communications Chairs over the past
few years, and this year was particularly challenging because we didn’t even have a committee.
This forced our team to work together and get creative to promote what we do for our members.
It was eye opening for other board members to see how much consistent, hands-on work went
into the communications role. Our executive board evaluated how we could remedy the situation
long term, and decided to create Communication Co-Chair roles for future board years. One will
handle project management and strategy and the other will manage the look and feel of all of
our marketing communication efforts.
2. Identity Crisis: Over the past few years, AAF has become known as “the luncheon and ADDYs
people” in the Dallas advertising industry. We recognized this misconception was on our team
because we relied heavily on event promotion emails that were reactionary in nature. We
decided 2016-2017 would be the year to have a solid, strategic communication plan in place. We
streamlined and clarified our mission at the beginning of our board year and made our mission
our mantra. Our ultimate goal moving forward is to be an informative resource for our members,
have more original content and branding that represents AAF Dallas as an industry thought
leader across multiple channels to help our community recognize the value of AAF.
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Regular Communication with Members
Vehicle 1: Email (Tab A)
Goal: Maintain open rates of our email communications and reduce unsubscribe rate by 5%
Summary: Email has been our primary form of communication to promote events with members
and non-members of AAF Dallas. However, there was no clear plan in place to communicate
with our subscriber list at the beginning of the year. Most times, we were promoting events only
at the last minute with emails sent every day the week prior to the event. We began to rapidly
lose subscribers. So we evaluated the effectiveness of our campaigns by testing subject lines,
dates, and time sent. In January, we began to send email blasts about government affairs and
calling our members to sign petitions regarding state legislation, members-only benefits like
discounted tickets to SXSW, and sponsored emails. We also began to include mission-centric
messaging in our event promotions such as promoting donations to the District 10 AES fund to
reinforce our new identity.
Target Audience: Current members and prospective members on our subscriber list. Segmented
list includes: ADDYs Winners, Previous ADDY Participants, Event Attendees
Budget Recap: Mailchimp is $60/monthly
Distribution System: Mailchimp account to a general subscriber base.
Results: We sent 117 email blasts to approximately 4,820 average subscribers from 2/28/16 -
2/28/17. Through testing, we found that our emails were more likely to be opened on weekdays,
during early evening hours, and were less likely to be opened on weekends and holidays. Subject
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lines with emojis had open rates as high as 24%! Our open rate decreased slightly by .47%
during our strategy test, and we reduced the average unsubscribe rate by 9%.
Vehicle 2 - Social Media (Tab B)
Goal: Increase followers across all social channels by 20%.
Summary: We identified social media as our biggest opportunity to spread the good word of
AAF Dallas. Starting in November, we began working with a local social media agency to create
and implement our social strategy. We began to incorporate sharing industry-related and AAF
National news, created original videos to promote events, and social infographics with a unified
look for each of our mission statements that were easily shareable. We began to regularly post
across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and added a group page on LinkedIn page to officially
communicate on the business social networking site.
Target Audience: Current and prospective members such as client-side marketers, traditional
advertising agency, and digital marketing agency employees in the Dallas area.
Budget Recap: Donated strategy for social strategy and implementation valued at $10,000;
$2,500 annual budget for paid social advertisements.
Distribution System: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Results: +38.2% Total Fans (across all social channels)
Facebook: +20.1% Followers
Twitter: +32.5% Followers
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Instagram: +172.3% Followers
LinkedIn Followers: +100 Followers
Vehicle 3 - Surveys via Google Forms (Tab C)
Goal: To provide better value and programming to our members.
Summary: We wanted to give our members a chance to let us know what they think. Starting
January 2017, we implemented Google Forms feedback for both events and general
membership feedback. We will send surveys after events and general members.
Target Audience: Event attendees and current members.
Budget Recap: This is a free tool included with our Google for Business Suite.
Distribution System: General membership survey: email blast sent from [email protected] to
our subscriber list and posting on social media; Event feedback survey: segmented email sent
from our executive director’s email to event attendees only.
Results: Our very first general membership survey received 31 total respondents. Our very first
event feedback survey received 18 total respondents.
Events or Meeting Promotions and Announcements
Vehicle 4 - Omni Channel Marketing for Luncheon Series (Tab D)
Goal: To increase event attendance and brand recognition for AAF and our innovative
programming.
Summary: In January, we rebranded our luncheons from “The Monthly Luncheon” to “Food For
Thought” to rejuvenate the perception of our club and differentiate ourselves from the many
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other marketing association luncheons in our market. We created a unique logo and a
templated description to communicate more clearly that our luncheons featured industry
thought leaders with relevant topics to our members. In October, we went digital by streaming
our luncheons on Periscope to share the knowledge of our speakers for those who couldn’t
attend in-person.
Target Audience: Current Members and Advertising Professionals in Dallas
Budget Recap: FREE
Distribution System: Eventbrite, Facebook Events, Periscope, Email Blasts, Facebook, Instagram,
Results: We had an increase of 40 more attendees for our Food for Thought Luncheon than we
had at our January 2016 Luncheon. The Food For Thought branding was a hit. One respondent
said, “May very have been one of the best AAF Luncheons I’ve ever attended and we’re talking,
maybe 8-10 years.” The event was polished because our marketing materials from the digital
promotions to the name badges had a unified look.
Vehicle 5 - Omni Channel Marketing for the ADDYs (Tab E)
Goal: To increase ADDY entries and increase sponsor revenue.
Summary: We partnered with a local branding agency to create “The World Ego Building
Championship” theme for the 2017 ADDYs. This branding partner created elements to carry the
theme from start to finish by managing the look and feel of the entire ADDYs season. We started
with our EgoADDYS.com microsite with a three phase rollout: 1. Entry Phase (Live after Launch
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Party): Information about entering the ADDYs only, 2. Post-Judging Phase (Live after judging
weekend): We included information about our judges, the gala and purchasing tickets for the
ADDYs, 3. Post-Gala Phase (Live after gala): We included pictures of the event, winners’
information, and duplicate trophy information. During each of these phases, we added a video
series with a personal ego building trainer to promote the ADDYs and added sponsors logos on
the microsite.
Target Audience: Creative Agencies in Dallas
Budget Recap: FREE - Donated Production, URL cost ~ $10
Distribution System: A. We drove all traffic from social media and email blast campaigns to the
egoaddys.com. B. We distributed the Speedos and posters through direct personal interactions.
We handed both out at our ADDYs launch party in November, and our new executive director
physically visited the agencies with high numbers of entries in 2016 the week prior to the late
deadline.
Results: We had a total of 102 entrant teams which was a year over year increase of 21%. Our
cash sponsorship revenue was $18,200 which was nearly a 200% increase from last year! The
competing agencies LOVED the additional marketing materials as well. The personal delivery of
these additional marketing pieces gave agencies the opportunity to establish a more personal
relationship with AAF by putting a face with the name. Agencies have even requested additional
speedos to display with awards.
Communication with Non-Members
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Vehicle 6 - Secret Social Media Groups (Tab F)
Goal: To recruit new members and sponsors through hidden social media groups
Summary: Social media effectiveness cannot always be measured through likes, shares, and
follows. Dark Social refers to exchanges on social channels that cannot be tracked because the
content is shared or discussed in Secret Social Groups, 1-on-1 through messaging apps like
Slack or WhatsApp and in native mobile apps like Facebook or Instagram. We recognized the
Dark Social as an incredible opportunity to monitor our target audience of prospective members.
Target Audience: Dallas Tech Groups, Dallas Startup Company Groups, Dallas Event Groups
Budget Recap: FREE
Distribution System: Currently just Facebook, but we plan to use this method to recruit new
members with other groups and social channels such as Dallas Reddit Groups.
Results: We have only just begun testing this tactic, but we were able to engage in a discussion
in a Secret Group about finding a Dallas branding agency. From that one post, we found a
potential new member, sponsor, and disciple of AAF Dallas.
Conclusion: This year’s struggles were great because they forced us to reflect on our identity
as a club. This perspective made us rely heavily on vendor partners, re-evaluate current tactics
that were ineffective, and incorporate new best practices and emerging tactics into our
marketing approach.
Exhibit A1: Reactive email blasts campaigns for a single event and losing subscribers prior to
strategic implementation.
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Exhibit A2: Adjusted campaign for a single event has higher open rates and has less
un-subscribers in total.
Exhibit A3: Snapshot of YTD Stats vs Jan-Feb after we evaluated and adjusted strategy.
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Exhibit A4: Email open rates increased as we adjusted the strategy of timing, day, and simplified subject line.
Exhibit A5: Snapshot of email campaigns that add value and include mission-centric messaging.
Exhibit
B1: Graph
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with total number of followers in March 2016 to February 2017 across all social channels
with percentage increase
Exhibit B2: Unified Look: Snapshot of an ADDYs campaign with multiple posts
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Exhibit B3: Unified Look: Example of one Food For Thought post in a campaign series that appeared
across all channels
Exhibit B4: Example of one Government Affairs post in a campaign series that appeared across all
channels
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Exhibit B5: Example of one Education post in a campaign series that appeared across all channels
Exhibit B6: Screenshot of one video from our ADDYs social campaign
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Exhibit C1 and C2: Screenshot of social post and email campaign with unified branding asking for
survey respondents for general membership survey
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Exhibit D1: Food for Thought Rebranded Logo to be used for all future luncheon events
Exhibit D2: Examples of Food For Thought Banners for different channels
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Exhibit D3: Photo of attendees wearing event branded name badges
Exhibit D4: Close up of a name badge
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Exhibit D5: Example of Follow Up email after Food For Thought luncheon with an invitation for our next
event and to fill out a survey. Sent to 125 attendees, Opened by 48.9%, Survey Completed by 15% of
total subscribers
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Exhibit E1: Screenshot of egoaddys.com during phase two
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Exhibit E2: Screenshot of an ADDYs Gala promotional email that was sent to 4,800 subscribers and
scored a 24% open rate.
Exhibit E3: Photo of ADDYs Speedo promo poster
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Exhibit E4 & E5: Bucket of promo speedos before we delivered to agencies prior to the ADDYs, and photo
of an agency winner during the ADDYs Gala
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Exhibit E6: Screenshot of congratulatory email sent to winning agencies from our ADDYS committee,
Subject line: Congratulations *|FNAME|*! You are a winner! (Please note: First name was populated
with agency names) . Sent to 42 agencies, Opened by 89%
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Exhibit E7: Screenshot of email inviting winning agencies to book full tables at the ADDYS sent from
our executive director, Subject line: Is << Test First Name >> ready for a victory lap at the ADDYS?
(Please note: First name was populated with agency names) . Sent to 42 agencies, Opened by 83%
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Exhibit F1: Screenshot of discussion identified as relevant to AAF in Dallas/Fort Worth StartUp
Community Facebook Group
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Exhibit F2: Screenshot of prospective member asking questions and tagging friends in post
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Exhibit F3: Screenshot of Facebook conversation after getting acquainted in the Secret Facebook
Group