BRKTHROUGH

As the Marketing Specialist at a small startup, I facilitated strategy, creative and media buying projects.

Brand Awareness

Our first and greatest challenge as a new company was getting ourselves in front of our target. In one year we successfully increased our Google search rate to over 1200 searches per month, as well as our social media presence to over 10k combined followers.

PR Strategy

Putting a glimpse of our fun atmosphere on the local news kick started our brand awareness and helped establish brand credibility. Over 30% of customer survey respondents reported finding out about BRKTHROUGH from news pieces in KCTV 5, FOX 4 or KSHB 41.

Segmenting and Targeted Ads

Our initial strategy did not include messaging to families. The most important segment and biggest difference in messaging strategy we found in our audience was those with and without kids. Pivoting our messaging to cater to this new segment resulted in a 3x revenue boost on days when local schools were not in session, as well as higher family attendance during typically slow hours on weekdays.

Developing a Media Strategy

Our research concluded that our childless segment could be best reached through local influencers and small email publications. Our segment with children were best reached through youth athletics leagues. Both showed high engagement on Facebook and Google ads. With a budget of $2,500 per month, this strategy netted us 400,000 total combined monthly impressions and an overall 5:1 ROI.

Analyzing Potential Media Buys

When researching and reviewing our media buys, we put the highest emphasis placed on alignment of viewership with our audience. The second most important aspect was cost / impression. We decided that a higher spend was justified in the startup stage of our business to get our name in front of our target.

"Post Mortem" Assessment

As a small business with limited resources, it was key to be sure we were seeing the results from every dollar spent. We found great value in immediately debriefing and assessing all aspects of our media buys once they had run their course. This process helped us quickly shed ad spots that weren't working and pursue those that were.

Maintaining Visual Consistency

As curators of our new brand, keeping a consistent look and feel across all messaging channels was just as important as making it beautiful. We preserved specific brand guides like shape, color, font and vocab to keep cohesion across all messaging and branding.

A/B Testing

Running two versions of our digital ads at a time helped us research what caught the attention of our audience. After one week of data, we would switch entirely to the better performing design and debriefed what it was that made the difference for our next round of creative.

Content Creation

After all of our strategy and media planning was complete, we were our own creative studio as well. Using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom and Premiere Pro in combination with Canon and Sony mirrorless systems we made all content in house.