Meet the Owners: Downtown Video Marketing Campaign

EDAC 2022 AWARDS ABSTRACT

CATEGORY: Promotional Videos

More videos found on Town of BWG YouTube Channel

TITLE: The Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury Economic Development Resiliency & Recovery Strategy (2020-2021) – Meet the Owners: Downtown Video Marketing Campaign

AUTHORS: Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury

CONSULTANT: Amplify Marketing & Communications Canada

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE:

The Bradford West Gwillimbury (BWG) Office of Economic Development created a robust Resiliency & Recovery Strategy to assist local businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy included the development of a marketing campaign to build awareness about downtown businesses and to support them by attracting residents and visitors.

The marketing strategy had two components:

1. Creating a direct communications channel that connected downtown businesses with the BWG economic development office through a newly created Enewsletter
2. Empowering downtown business owners to promote their products and services to the community through a series of videos distributed via social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn)

PROCESS/CHALLENGES:

The Office of Economic Development created 10, one-minute videos under the campaign name “Meet the Owners”, which were promoted across BWG’s Economic Development social media platforms, the BWG Economic Development website and BWG Municipal Facebook page. Each business was also encouraged to extend the reach of their story by posting the video to their social media channels.

Creating a video series during multiple COVID-19 shutdowns and significant gathering restrictions proved challenging. Many businesses pivoted to online sales, scaled back their hours, had limited staff resources and were forced to focus all their efforts on keeping their business open. These were deciding factors in developing a video series that focused more on owners, as opposed to their operations, highlighting their backgrounds, reasons for starting their business and why they chose BWG.

While BWG was fortunate to not have many business closures, a number of them changed ownership and modified their offerings (e.g. one video had to be cancelled days before release when the owner suddenly sold and the new business was rebranded with different offerings).

 OUTCOME/EFFECTIVENESS:

Participating businesses saw an immediate uptick in visitors and sales. For many, these videos were their first digital marketing tool, providing a foundation for them to build a digital presence.

Between the campaign launch in September 2021 and the “holiday rush” in December 2021, The Office of Economic Development increased total impressions by 134% and increased total social media engagement by 185%.

The entire campaign organically generated over 18,000 impressions and over 2,400 engagements across five social networks. Facebook was the most popular platform, accounting for over 60% of all impressions and 80% of all engagements.

The following table documents the impressions and engagements with no paid boosting or advertising. All data was a result of organic sharing and engagement.