Dirty Dozen Races is a challenger brand in the booming but highly competitive obstacle race category.
Co-founder Doug Spence contracted me while I was running the marketing agency BuzzedUp with a brief to power up online marketing for ten weeks in advance of a new season of races. The challenge was to put in place a solid comms strategy across email, blog, Twitter and Facebook to create excitement about the upcoming race season, build loyalty amongst a niche sport community; and sell tickets to new participants.
The work involved running a very a fast research programme, devising a content plan, creating new content to map across the needs and wants of Dirty Dozen's myriad customers. I also built, distributed and reported on paid advertising. I used a smart set of online tools to devise and deliver several online competitions. Finally I researched, found, and contracted with several new brand partners for co-promotions and competitions.
Newsletter
- Newsletter template. Dirty Dozen had been using an inflexible method for producing newsletters that incurred extra cost each time new email comms were needed. Our solution was an editable newsletter template including designed content areas mapped against topics from the content schedule.
- Content. I produced a range of features including race interviews, product reviews and category news. Newsletters were frequent, short and punchy, linking to longer items hosted on the Dirty Dozen site.
- Results. In ten weeks I delivered five MailChimp campaigns and grew the list of subscribers by over 800.
“Mick over-delivered on managing our online presence. We have no hesitation in recommending him to others.” Hugo Elliot, co-founder at Dirty Dozen Races
Brand partnerships
- Using Twitter as a business development tool, I researched, identified and brought on board suitable sport, food and health brands that reflected well on the Dirty Dozen Races principle of healthy competition.
- I delivered two strong brand partnerships in Alago Heated Gloves and Mountain Bear running shoes (while lining up several others). Each put forward valuable prizes that I used in Facebook competitions (see below).
- Results. I delivered highly targeted exposure for our brand partners with a very relevant audience. Dirty Dozen Races gained valuable customer discounts and free product for promotions. A win-win all round.
Facebook
- I implemented a full suite of services including advertising, contests and day-to-day Facebook management.
- Advertising. I created several themed campaigns aimed at distinct demographics and interest groups. Each campaign featured up to six alternative creative treatments allowing me to quickly see which worked best and focus attention there. Campaign objectives included sales drive, awareness, app engagement and newsletter sign up.
Advanced re-targeting
I used Facebook’s facility to re-target advertising based email newsletter data. Ads can be served to people ‘similar to’ or ‘friends with’ those in the data set. It’s an under-used method of very tight targeting, affordable and often very successful, as was this case.
- Facebook Custom Apps (YouTube video cascade featuring training tips; two brand partner sweepstake competitions; a product discount coupon redeemable at checkout; and a ‘Book Now’ page). (My relationships with a network of publishers meant I was able to publish competitions across a number of Facebook pages, increasing their reach and level of engagement.)
- Daily Facebook monitoring, posting and customer service meant a very active presence on the platform. I created striking visuals incorporating Dirty Dozen’s own typeface.
- Results. During our tenure I increased the number of Facebook fans from 5,763 to 11,495, together with much improved average engagement and reach.
Twitter
- I inherited a largely dormant Twitter account with no real focus. Twitter updates formed part of the daily workflow as I made friends with influential people, brands and organisations.
- I pared down the number Dirty Dozen followed from the Twitter-imposed ceiling of 2k to 1,339. This new ratio of followers-to-following allows the brand to continue to grow the community.
- Results. A great deal of focused Twitter activity delivered a highly relevant following of 1,472 (up 53%).
Reporting
Regular regular reports included all the key metrics for Facebook (social and advertising), Twitter and Newsletter.
