Boelte-Hall Harvests Leads at AMS 2012 - PODi Case Study

Vertical Market: Printing Services
Business Application: Direct Marketing/Lead and Traffic Generation

Business Objectives
Boelte-Hall exhibits annually at the Ag Media Summit (AMS) and uses cross-media marketing to promote itself and partner companies to attendees. The 2012 summit was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, August 5th–7th. The objectives for the campaign were:

• Increase traffic to Boelte-Hall’s booth and to the booths of their three partner companies.
• Illustrate the power of cross-media marketing to attendees.
• Generate business leads.
  

Results
Boelte-Hall partnered with three other companies exhibiting at the 2012 Ag Media Summit—Cattleman's Beef Board, National Pork Board and the Board of Trade of Kansas City, Missouri. The campaign was designed to drive traffic to all four booths.

• 57.6 percent visit rate—Of the 458 people on the original mailing list, 264 went to their personalized landing page via a QR Code or Personalized URL.
• 54.8 percent response rate—251 individuals completed the online survey.
• Of those who completed the survey: 87 responded after initial postcard mailing; 103 responded after follow-up e-mail; 61 responded after second follow-up e-mail.

• As part of the campaign Boelte-Hall offers AMS attendees a ride from the airport to the conference. 57.8 percent of the targeted attendees accepted the offer: 215 registered for a ride online; five registered via call to Boelte-Hall representative; 45 more connected with the Boelte-Hall driver at the airport.

• 155 individuals (33.8 percent of mailing) stopped at one or more booths, chatted with representatives and entered the contest: A total of 266 entries were received from these 155 (many entered at more than one booth).

• Of the 155 who entered the contest: 80 entered using their online entry form; 61 used entry forms available at show; 15 used a combination of online and at-show entries.

• Boelte-Hall had lots of activity in their booth with representatives answering many questions about the campaign, and partners reported a high rate of traffic and conversation at their booths.

Campaign Architecture
Boelte-Hall sent personalized postcards to 458 registered attendees, offering them a ride to the hotel from the airport, as well as a chance to win a prize. Respondents visited a personalized landing page via a QR Code or a Personalized URL. At the personalized site visitors completed an online survey which asked six questions (two from each partner) and whether they wanted a ride from the airport.

Eleven days after the postcard was mailed an e-mail was sent to anyone who had not yet visited their Personalized URL. A second reminder e-mail was sent ten days later.

Participants’ survey answers were compiled on entry cards, and those cards were available at each partner booth at the show. The questions were also available on entry cards at the partner booths for attendees who hadn't visited their Personalized URL.

Participants visited each of the four booths and chatted with representatives about their answers to the survey questions, and then their card was dropped in an entry box. The more booths participants visited, the better their chance of winning. After the show all entries were combined and the winning name was drawn.

Target Audience
The Ag Media Summit is the largest meeting in the United States for the industry’s top writers, editors, photographers, publishers and agricultural communicator specialists.

Offer
The chance to win an iPad 2 was offered to entice recipients to visit their Personalized URL and the exhibit booths of Boelte-Hall and its partners.

The postcards, e-mail confirmations and e-mail reminders all urged attendees to visit the Boelte-Hall booth, as well as the partner booths. Another incentive to visit the Boelte-Hall booth was to pick up the picture taken of attendees with “Boelte Bull,” a mascot of sorts, at the previous evening's welcome party. The picture was printed on a customized perforated “seed card” which contained wildflower seeds. The top half of the card featured the picture from the night before, with the bottom half containing instructions for detaching and planting. A generic version of the customized seed card was available for those who hadn't had their picture taken with Boelte Bull. Representatives in the booth gave out seed paper business cards as well.

Creative
The postcard and personalized microsite prominently featured Boelte Bull, a recognizable character that Boelte-Hall has used in its Ag Media Summit marketing for several years. This provided a continuity of design in the communication touchpoints.

Key elements to the success of the postcard design were:

• Prominently displayed Personalized URL on front and back of postcard.
• QR Code with scanning instructions featured on front of postcard.
• iPad2 offer presented on front and back of postcard in headline copy.
• Deadline listed twice in noticeable color blocks on back of card.

On site marketing continued the use of Boelte Bull and revolved around the theme “Plant a seed in your customer's mind.” The contest entry boxes used at partner booths were smaller versions of the seven-foot tall barn featured in Boelte-Hall's booth, where another contest was held to see who could get the most points throwing “cow patties” at the barn. Prizes given to high scorers were a wireless dairy cow-themed mouse, a cow-themed apron with the AMS 2012 designation embroidered on its pocket, and an assortment of Old World Spice (a Kansas City company) barbecue products.

In addition to producing the barn, Boelte-Hall made the booth into a small farm, including a two-sided printed fence surrounding the booth, a hay bale strong enough to sit on, a windmill, a pond floor graphic and, helping to continue the “plant a seed” theme, a farm scene back wall.

Reasons for Success
Boelte-Hall saw a significant increase in response rate compared to their 2011 campaign—54.8 percent in 2012 vs. 33.5 percent in 2011. Char Ward, marketing coordinator for Boelte-Hall, shares these insights:

• In 2011 some Ag Media Summit attendees had trouble with cell phone reception in the conference hotel and could not scan QR Codes on display signs. In 2012 Boelte-Hall checked out the Albuquerque event venue in advance and finding that reception was even worse there they did not make QR Codes as big a part of the experience on site.
• In 2011 Boelte-Hall sent postcards that were to be used for entry blanks. Recipients were to bring them to the show and fill out the answers. Lots of people forgot to bring them, and although Boelte-Hall had generic ones that could be filled out, it affected their response tracking ability and required manual data input. In 2012, attendees visited a personalized landing page to enter, and then at the show they visited each booth and their entry was pulled from a stack and put in the entry box. This worked much better because attendees didn't have to try to remember to bring the card.
• Boelte-Hall improved the online form for airport ride sign-ups to avoid confusion with regards to the date and time of arrival.

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