Introduce your brand
Take a minute to write an introduction that is short, sweet, and to the point. If you sell something, use this space to describe it in detail and tell us why we should make a purchase. Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.
Open House/Grand Opening Event // Marketing & Analysis
Launching a new business through promotion, design, and analytics
Role: Marketing Director
Tools: Adobe Creative Suite, Dreamweaver, Google Analytics, Squarespace, SharpSpring CRM, USPS’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), SurveyMonkey
Overview: I led a team of designers, marketers, and data analysis professionals to develop a new business brand, design the initial customer touchpoints, and generate content to drive consumer curiosity and increase on-site foot traffic. Post-event, I wanted to be able to track visitors and impressions from online and offline marketing materials to:
Identify and refine our buyer personas,
Create content that would drive future in-person and online visits, and
Quantify our return on marketing investment (ROMI).
When we launched BMREC in the summer of 2016, there were still hard feelings from the barn's financial collapse several years prior. The community remembered a declining horse facility and disrepair, where horse care and riding students were a lower priority than cost-cutting efforts and financial problems. However, the new ownership team and I saw good bones in the facility and endless potential for correcting past mistakes and providing a valuable service to the horse riders and families in the community.
Designing and Planning Promotional Materials
My first step involved designing a new brand identity, building a website around the new brand, and creating digital connections between:
The website,
Press releases to local governments and statewide media organizations,
Printed mailers to residents in our geographic market,
Flyers posted in public locations,
Emails to an initial contact list comprised of homeowners associations, Chambers of Commerce representatives, equestrian organizations, and our training team's client lists.
Generate Curiosity.
Drive Traffic.
Anlyze What Worked.
Post-Event Tracking, Analytics, and Buyer Persona Design
Pre-event, we wanted to build tracking systems to identify areas where the event achieved its goals and, if applicable, where it failed to achieve them. Additionally, consumer data from both events should provide us with a clearer picture of our target audiences for the equestrian center's services, including boarding and horseback riding lessons. Below are a few snapshots of the information and my conclusions.
Buyer Personas: Contrary to our initial assumptions, our target customers for both riding lessons and horse boarding were predominantly women between the ages of 35 and 44. In hindsight, BMREC’s target customer remained in this demographic after six years of operations.
Engagement and Email Lists: Combined with our initial list of 750 contacts, the open house and grand opening event helped increase our email list 4x and continued steady growth YOY ever since.
Return on Investment: The event generated an ROI of 7.21, a great start to our marketing efforts.
Please note: tracked genders were a combination of self-reporting, Google Analytics data, and Facebook data. Unfortunately, no efforts were made for individuals identifying as trans or non-binary.
