Care and Support West Event Marketing
Care and Support West are a leading representative body for companies, charities, organisations and individuals involved in the social care, support and health sectors in the West of England.
A a non-profit organisation, much of the marketing was carried out by board members, so they looked to an outside agency for support. Cherry Marketing were employed to act as their marketing department, with specific focus on two events that were coming up, and to consider their overall strategy with regards to acquisition of both new members and commercial partnerships.
The first event came along quickly - a members conference held in a venue for over 200, with only 30 tickets sold. Our strategy was a tiered approach, employed through CRM, social, and phone calling.
The CRM plan saw emails going out to members and prospects, encouraging them to register/buy tickets and showcasing the contents of the day. This was coupled with a social media campaign, and as a result we grew their social audience over 300%. As members could come along for free, towards the final few weeks volunteers called set lists of members who had not yet registered. Running parallel with this strategy, we worked on calling commercial partners and potential partners to exhibit at the event. The end result was a huge success with many citing it as their most successful conference - we smashed the ticket target and the event was full.
The following event was an award ceremony. We had a number of objectives, to sell tickets, to gain sponsors, to organise the winners, nominees and attendees and working with the CEO, to organise the evening. The plan for attendees included a mix of CRM, social, telemarketing and direct mail, the plan for sponsors relied more on networking and spotting opportunities of pairing awards with potential category sponsors. The team also organise the table plan, meal options, even down to making name cards!
The evening was a huge success, a complete sell-out of tickets and we also reached the budget target.
The strategy is now in place to help grow their audience of members, and to link with new commercial partners to build a prospect list for future events. CRM and social media is now regular through newsletters and regular tweets/FB statuses regarding the latest news and general meetings that take place through the year.
