Having clear goals is the most beneficial piece to any advertising campaign. Knowing where you want to go helps plan for how to get there more accurately and allows you to take greater advantage of different media, and prepare for adjustments on the fly.
Understanding the Customer’s Challenges
When we began conversations with Canadian Western Agribition (CWA) during the summer of 2022, they had two main goals:
- Increase reach and engagement across different platforms to identify how different users are being brought to CWA’s website and appeal to different age brackets, including a younger crowd.
- Sell out all the Maple Leaf Rodeo shows.
That’s where Directwest came in. The process began with an initial meeting between CWA and a member of our Sales team to discuss main objectives and available budget. Upon bringing the information back to our team, Search Marketing Specialist Nelson Hackewich and Digital Billboard Specialist Drew Renwick got to work on a proposal. Nelson and Drew attended the next in-person meeting with CWA and presented their proposed plan.
“One of the fun things about marketing is we get to take an event like Agribition, that we all have attended in school or gone to the rodeo, that is this major brand in the province and we get to peel back a bit of the curtain and see some of the inner workings of what it takes to put on a show like that, then we get to play a part in success.” – Nelson Hackewich
The Plan
Developing a holistic marketing plan starts with asking basic but fundamental questions; what is the goal, who is the audience, what are the gaps? Once defined with CWA we were able to dig deeper; what assets did they have or need, how far do past statistics tell them their audience is willing to travel to attend? Collecting all this information is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle allowing us to create a good media mix to achieve their goals.
With a few minor adjustments to accommodate the finer details, we agreed to move forward with our proposed plan. The in-house team at Canadian Western Agribition had a strong strategy for reaching their existing audience base, so to accomplish their goals, we ran a one-month marketing campaign with two main focuses: general promotion of the show and specific emphasis on promoting the Maple Leaf Rodeo and the Party on The Dirt cabaret to a younger demographic.
From our product suite we leveraged digital billboards, YouTube, our digital audio network, TikTok and SnapChat.
The Results
Over the course of the six-day event and the entire month-long campaign, we saw a 21% and 30% increase in sessions and unique visitors to CWA’s website respectively. Both Friday and Saturday’s rodeo were sold out shows and the Party on The Dirt cabaret was sold out Saturday night and 90% sold on Friday night.
- Digital Billboards – creative on our digital billboards ran in Yorkton and Weyburn promoting the entire Agribition event as well as the Rodeo. Across all boards, we more than doubled our guaranteed minimum for a total of 174,081 plays.
- YouTube – the goal of YouTube was general awareness and with the emergence of Smart TV’s and streaming devices. We promoted both the show and rodeo on YouTube and 92% of views happened on a TV screen. Over the course of one month this campaign delivered 158,000 impressions with 37% of those completing 100% of both videos.
- Digital Audio Network – our Digital Audio Network included placements on Spotify as well as other streaming services targeted towards people in Regina and area. The plan was to have a general awareness ad followed by a different ad every day of show week highlighting different things happening that day of the show. In total the Digital Audio Network delivered 41,975 impressions (plays).
- TikTok – TikTok’s focus was the promotion of the Rodeo to a younger demographic with 76% of clicks coming from the 13-24 age group. Creative ads were developed to promote the rodeo and the two-night party on the dirt. TikTok served a total of 225,967 impressions and generated 1,377 clicks to the Rodeo Ticketmaster page.
- SnapChat – similar to TikTok, Snapchat’s goal was to promote the Rodeo, the demographic skewing slightly older with 55% of the audience falling in the 18-34 age group. SnapChat delivered 43,927 impressions and 700 clicks for a 1.59% click through rate.
“I was very impressed meeting with Nelson, he went over the numbers just before CWA started and just after the event. [It was] very insightful to see the growth not only from this year but from years past and how the numbers peaked. I really feel this partnership has been beneficial for us. The numbers from TikTok and Snapchat were very large. These entertainment events are not just targeted for an older crowd, leveraging TikTok and SnapChat allowed us to reach younger audiences and get them out to the show.” – Andrew Craig, Marketing and Communications Manager for Canadian Western Agribition
Well-Formed Plans Yield Great Results
From start to finish, the plan delivered.
The entire show was deemed a success with CWA’s 2022 CEO Shaun Kindopp summarizing the event in his own words, “The entire week was remarkable for us; not only did we see record admission sales, but we hit record-breaking entertainment with three sellout rodeo performances and a sell-out for Saturday’s Party on the Dirt. We could not be more thrilled, and I am so proud of our team and crew for all they have achieved.”
