In response to the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, StitchDX customer Stratiscope’s CEO John Bwarie sought a way to help small business bounce back as restrictions eased. From May 24 – 31, Secret City L.A. and Stratiscope organized the first-ever Los Angeles Sandwich Week.
Stratiscope engaged StitchDX to strategize and execute digital event marketing to achieve four core goals:
- Requesting “Favorite Sandwich” nominations that would populate the Official Guide to Los Angeles Sandwich Week
- Generate event awareness in and around L.A. County
- Drive downloads of the Official Guide
- Help drive community participation throughout the week
Requesting L.A. Sandwich Week Nominations
The first objective of Sandwich Week was to bring in sandwich nominations for the guide. We started with the L.A. Sandwich Week webpage, which served three critical functions – drive sandwich nominations, create event awareness, and promote official Sandwich Guide downloads.
From late March to April 22nd, our main focus was on increasing sandwich nominations. We embedded a HubSpot form at the top of the page and deployed email and social media to solicit nominations. We focused social media efforts on the Facebook and Twitter accounts for both Stratiscope and Secret City L.A.
Generate Awareness of LASW
Generate Awareness of LASWAfter we closed Favorite Sandwich nominations, our priority shifted to raising awareness of the event. We continued to drive people to the LASW web page with a new goal in mind. We embedded a HubSpot form on that page and created a list of individuals who wanted to stay up to date on Sandwich Week. These people also gained early access to the official Sandwich Week Guide.
The 10 days prior to Sandwich Week, we started to utilize social channels to engage with followers. The number of posts per day increased to 4-5. We changed the social tactic slightly, asking questions about sandwiches or restaurants in L.A., while still sending people to the main LASW page.
We also provided LASW-branded social templates and copy for the shops whose sandwiches were nominated., extending event awareness reach to the businesses’ followers.
Driving Guide downloads throughout Sandwich Week
On May 21st, we published the Official L.A. Sandwich Week guide, showcasing over 100 sandwiches, with links to each shop. We then updated the L.A. Sandwich Week webpage with the HubSpot form for downloading the guide.
Increasing engagement via social media channels.
In March, we used social media channels on both Stratiscope and Secret City accounts to generate awareness in the community about Sandwich Week and create a list of interested contacts for the guide.
In the weeks leading up the Sandwich Week, we transitioned into a more aggressive and creative social media strategy. We created compelling graphics that encouraged users to engage with the social accounts, comment their favorite sandwiches and eventually download the guide.
Additionally, a Facebook ad campaign run 05/21 to 05/23 generated the following results:
- Ad Reach: 13,120 users
- Engagement: 908 users
- Link Clicks: 812
- Guide Downloads: 439 downloads
We saw 1,663 guide downloads from May 21st – 31st, with 1,550 submissions from new contacts. The downloads came from a blend of organic and paid social efforts, along with targeted email marketing.
Results
Over the course of the L.A. Sandwich week campaign, Stratiscope:
- Gained over 1500 new contacts
- Built a substantial list of contacts interested in Secret City tours
- Raised $25,000 in funding for Project Angel Food
But wait, there’s more…
Secret City followed up with an email survey to its newly expanded contact list, asking users to share their preferred destination for the first post-pandemic Secret City Tour. The email had a 51.54% conversion rate, which helped with creating a list of very engaged contacts to target with Secret City Tours information and updates.
The official guide now serves as evergreen content for Stratiscope and Secret City, receiving additional downloads after Sandwich Week with no promotion.