Marketing Navigator: New Courses We’ve Chartered
The Printer Choice of Millennials
The Assignment:
Develop and implement a three-month digital media pilot in specific DMAs to reach the set lead targets for the roll out of a new multi-function printer that used high-efficiency ink. The goal was to get the national account.
The Challenge:
The strategy and targeted audience was pre-defined by another agency, with specific messaging themes. The “test” was to develop the right mix of media approaches within the provided budget to hit the goals.
The Obstacles:
Three issues immediately became apparent.
- One of the key messages of the product was the longevity of the ink, yet the messaging and strategy directed by the provided plan focused on messaging ink.
- The provided audience strategy and targeting was identical for each DMA, despite significant cultural and demographic differences.
- The primary age demographic was young professionals, who, by and large, do not own printers.
The Approach:
With the end goal in mind, we implemented our plan to reach the stated goals of this assignment, which was to ensure we made it to the next stage.
The Work:
- We created platform-specific campaigns
- We created DMA and demographic-specific campaigns
- We directed the creative (copy, graphic, video)
- We identified the platform targeting (In-Market, Interest Groups, etc.)
- We set up geo-fencing and mobile location targeting
- We created robust tracking and reporting workbooks
The Results:
- Month One
We quickly hit or surpassed the preliminary targets. With that, we delved deeper into the results to review against the obstacles we originally called out.We found that despite no direct targeting, the ACTUAL audience for the product was, in fact, finding the product ads, whereas the ads that promoted the ink, on an ink-efficient printer that was just launching, did not convert.
We quickly optimized the campaigns to refocus on the assignment goals (to reach the pre-defined targets) but due to the success we had, we were able to redirect additional campaigns to the audience and targeting we had identified, focusing on one specific DMA.
- Month Two
The original targeting and campaigns continued to perform well, and hit the month 2 targets, but we found that the additional campaigns we developed outside the scope of the provided strategy were out-performing the others, despite no additional budget allocation. We were on track to hit the project target within one week. We decided to take a chance and spread the testing of OUR strategy to the other DMAs for the final month.
- Month Three
We exceeded the targeted outcomes by over 50%, and were able to demonstrate the original strategy blind-spots. After reviewing the results with the client, we found that not only had we met the lead goals, but that our leads converted at a higher rate than any others. We were able to provide our initial strategy, along with the data.
The Outcome:
The client skipped the next round of agency testing and awarded the multi-million dollar national product digital account to the agency!