Digital Marketing
mdg attributes much of its growth (and many client successes) over the past decade to the expertise, resources and overall prioritization it has placed on data-driven, results-focused online marketing. Our team develops strategic marketing plans and tactical components that build awareness, increase engagement, generate a positive brand association, re-envision content or concepts, prompt further consideration, drive visitors back to websites and, ultimately, convert prospects into attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, members or brand loyalists. Using performance modeling, journey mapping, agile methodologies and a fully-integrated approach, we blend paid media, SEM, data, automation and the best practices in UI/UX to move your prospects from awareness to conversion.
our approach
Intuitive technology and constant connectivity have seamlessly slipped into every aspect of our lives. Yet, the way we think about marketing labors far behind reality. “Digital” marketing is really just “marketing,” isn’t it? A great customer experience is one that satisfies and sells with precision alignment of brand, data and content just underneath the surface.
Our strategists in digital, data and development work horizontally with our account team and creatives to develop attendee and member acquisition, retention and growth campaigns that align with the customer journey and not our agenda. The result of this approach is best viewed through our clients’ results.
Erin Lee
vice president of digital marketing strategy
how did we do it?
A multidisciplinary team, 20-strong, begins by mapping the customer journey across the buying cycle, aligning that journey with required data and content, then modeling the projected performance of attendee or membership acquisition overall, by channel and by segment.
This approach leads to the constant adjustment through an agile methodology to identify the best hypothesis for our media mix of inbound channels (website traffic, email, PR, social) and paid channels (paid social, SEM, programmatic, native, video). The model leads to benchmarks and goals. The benchmarks and goals lead to testing and optimization in a never-ending cycle of improvement toward hitting and beating your goals.
case study
CAR WASH
The International Carwash Association approached mdg to assist with the continuing success of The Car Wash Show. The three major objectives for The Car Wash Show 2019 were: (1) Deliver more qualified attendees, (2) Enhance a great show experience, and (3) Encourage earlier registrations while decreasing no-shows. mdg reviewed past registrations, the attendee database and possible segmentation. Leveraging all of these insights, the show team built a digital performance model that quantified target performance indicators.
Situation: The International Carwash Association approached mdg to assist with the continuing success of The Car Wash Show. The three major objectives for The Car Wash Show 2019 were: (1) Deliver more qualified attendees, (2) Enhance a great show experience, and (3) Encourage earlier registrations while decreasing no-shows
Approach: mdg reviewed past registrations, the attendee database and possible segmentation. Leveraging all of these insights, the show team built a digital performance model that quantified target performance indicators. The modeling process aggregated data to generate specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure over the life of the campaign. The KPIs that were tracked during the campaign were: registration page conversion rates, registration page traffic needed to maintain attendance goals, and click rates for emails, display ads and websites.
The client also expressed a desire to move away from car-centric imagery and to have a look and feel for the show that was “completely different” than anything they’d done in the past. mdg took a slightly more “consumer-ish” approach to concept creation, focusing on emotions and people touched by the car wash industry rather than the show itself.
Solution: To make the most of the digital format, mdg developed a creative concept that changed the perception of the car wash profession. The “Journey” concept features human centered creative, instead of the car-centered approaches that are common to the industry. Having a clean car gives a customer a sense of pride, adventure and accomplishment—and the people who own, manage and operate car wash businesses feel that same pride in their daily work. The imagery of the concept harnesses that impact and emotion and ties it to the show experience, with the event in Nashville as a “destination” at the end of the journey.
During the campaign, the team embraced the agile development philosophy to event marketing, mainly leveraging weekly scrums. These quick stand-up meetings brought together a cross functional team, lasted no longer than 15 minutes and served as a checkpoint for project status and major roadblocks as well as a regular chance to monitor performance against the digital model.
Results: Attendance was up nearly 10%, and the registration curve moved earlier by at least 10 days, with a much lower spike in bookings during the last week and fewer no-shows than in past years. Attendees came back with a Net Promoter Score of 63, up from 35 in 2018.
Several show metrics point to an engaged audience that responded well to our enhanced approach. Campaign emails boasted an overall open rate of 44% and an average click rate of 14%. In our digital campaign, several KPIs were notably better than the industry average, specifically a whopping 16.1% click-through rate on SEM and a reduced cost-per-click of $2.52 on display.
For attendees, The Car Wash Show 2019 experience was a feel-good one: a successful show in a great city, with beautiful visuals that inspired pride and excitement about their profession.
