Futurestate IT, a software company based out of Toronto went the swashbuckling route at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 held in Las Vegas to drive more traffic and new business to their booth. It worked. They used the power of a fun treasure hunt theme coupled with an 8 step social media strategy.
Goals Of Campaign
To promote new enhancements to their product offerings. Primary goals were:
Build a buzz around the theme and company name
Attract as many people to the booth as possible to generate leads
Be very interactive with the attendees to begin building a relationship
Get an initial conversation started for those who are highly interested in the solution
8 Touch Strategy
Microsoft Management Summit (MMS2012) was a technical conference attended primarily by “left-brain” techies. Left brainers tend to be more reserved, but not when they arrived at the Futurestate booth. See their Facebook page for almost 200 photos of attendees having a blast. Note – Futurestate jointly hosted the Treasure Hunt with Juriba, its technology partner.
#1: Create Landing Page For Conference
To get the buzz started early, a separate MMS Treasure Website (www.mmstreasure.com) was created to inform people who have registered for the conference that there will be a treasure hunt event. People were able to download treasure maps at their leisure, and many people did.
#2: LinkedIn Event
To inform people of the Treasure Hunt event, a LinkedIn event page was created to generate awareness. Posts were also made within the official MMS2012 LinkedIn event.
#3: Conference Guide Ad
In the event that people had not heard of the treasure hunt by the time they arrived at the conference, an ad was placed in the hardcopy Conference Guide, to inform and attract their attention.
#4: Vertical Banner at the Booth
To ensure that interested attendees could find the booth easily, a vertical banner was erected near the booth to direct the traffic.
#5: Lady Pirates play Pirate Blackjack
To keep the treasure hunt light and fun, attendees could play Pirate Blackjack at the booth with the resident lady pirates. This gave them a chance to spend more time at the booth, and be interested in finding out more about the company’s solution.
#6: Treasure Hunt Rules and Instructions
Postcards were printed, and included the rules for the treasure hunt. Attendees could take away the postcards, in case they forgot the instructions on how to find the treasure.
#7: Twitter
A Twitter page was created to allow the attendees to interact with the company. A picture was taken of each attendee that played Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates. Pirate gears were then added to the photo to make attendees into pirates. The modified photos were then tweeted.
#8: Facebook
A Facebook page, complete with information about the pirate ship arriving in Las Vegas with the resident feline mascot Thomas onboard, was also created to generate interaction. Throughout the treasure hunt, the Facebook page allowed attendees to find their modified photos and share them.
Those attendees that were able to find their photo, share or re-tweet it to their friends, got a chance to win one of three prizes: Microsoft Kinect, or one of two $100 Amazon gift cards.
The company targeted generating 200 sales leads, 100 Facebook entries, 100 Twitter entries, and an increase in company name recognition.
Measurable Results
The treasure hunt occurred in a very short time frame, just over 2.5 days, coinciding with the exhibit hall days. The responses were tremendous, and well over the set target:
Leads
523 leads were generated, with duplicates removed. Many people returned to the booth to play Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates, in order to get extra chances to get onto Facebook/Twitter. Of those who visited the booth, 40 leads were extremely interested prospects that the sales team could begin detailed conversation immediately.
Result: 260% of target
Facebook
193 photos were uploaded in the 2.5 days timeframe, of which many were shared.
Result: 193% of target
Twitter
283 tweets were sent, with 84 followers.
Result: 283% of target
“We set out to engage people, and to have them learn about us. The response was overwhelming, and people had fun while they listened to our solution story. I think it was a well balanced lead generation and relationship building exercise. It exceeded our targets, so I would consider this a huge success,” said Helen Ching, Director of Marketing for Futurestate IT.
It’s a little light on content, but this short four-minute video is an excellent example of a well-produced case study. Interesting to note that they’re acutely aware of how many employees have active Twitter accounts.
Cisco decided to use a social media campaign to promote the launch of it’s upcoming ASR 1000 Router Series. Cisco created a fun micro site to spread the word and grab public attention. Videos were cross posted to YouTube to extend reach. Cisco also created a Facebook group, an interactive 3D game and a custom widget to promote the ASR 1000 series. It featured the ASR 1000 series on it’s blog and sent a two paragraph teaser to press to fuel buzz. The product was launched online and launch videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. Cisco received a lot of sales inquiries through this campaign. Case Study
The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft (MacBU), with a goal was to provide support to the Mac blogger communities and increase their visibility within these communities, initiated “Blogger Lounge” at the recent Macworld conference in San Francisco. The Lounge supported the Mac blogger community by providing free, fast internet access and a comfortable environment for people to write about their experiences at Macworld. In addition, people got a chance to meet fellow bloggers from Microsoft. The initiative turned out to be tremendously successful in terms that it received the presence of an average of 50 bloggers per day in the Lounge, 96 posts mentioning the Microsoft Blogger Lounge were posted also nearly 26 photos were posted to Flickr. Case study
HP’s campaign to create awareness regarding the availability of contents related to DreamWorks Kung Fu Panda movie turned up to be huge success. HP in a strategic move hosted Momblogger events in four cities, which were designed to bring HP King Fu Panda content and activities to life and incite moms to share their experiences with other moms. Over 200 moms and 400-plus children attended the events, tried HP Kung Fu Panda printable crafts, played the Activision Kung Fu Panda video game on HP TVs and PCs and accessed movie content on Nick.com/hp and Yahoo! The results were amazingly positive, the campaign capitulated over 32 blog posts with an estimated readership of 800,000, and more than 200,000 comments. Case study
Yahoo launched a new community designed to exploit the world’s knowledge. To popularize its Q&A site Yahoo Answers, the company planned a marketing campaign that bought real users to the center stage of it. Users were challenged to solve some of the world’s most important issues, through a month of high profile questions from celebrities. Offline, the idea was showcased through a big event in a famous location. Since its launch, in December 2005 the site has achieved tremendous success and turned out to be the most popular site with 60 million users and 120 million answers worldwide. Case study
To give a taste of technology to older folks, Microsoft Windows, in association with Holland America Lines, conducted a Digital Workshop, an on-ship learning experience for its cruisers. It consisted of sessions like movie-making, digital photo editing, etc. The workshop was sponsored by Holland America and Windows and the training sessions were free. It recorded over 80% increase in attendance in six weeks. Case study
Recognizing the power of blogs, Yahoo! launched Yodel Anecdotal on August 2006. It carried posts by Yahoo! employees on various topics. It became a rage in the cyberworld and in 3 months was ranked 5000 from 10,000 and attracted global audience. The introduction of pictures and videos made the site more popular. It helped Yahoo! to give human name and face to its worldwide community and preview of its culture. Case study
Boulder Logic offered a Customer Reference Management to Rackspace Hosting in order to enable them to expand their reach. The software was hosted and merged with salesforce.com that they currently used for CRM. Consequently, this made the company’s approach more automatic and efficient. It standardized the data and helped them record the finished activities. The benefits were optimal use of clients, finding out customer contributions, and understanding program’s impact. Case study
Dell was languishing at the bottom due to its pathetic customer service and poor quality products. To counter that, Dell used social media. It led to Michael Dell retaking the company’s reins, enhanced quality and improved customer relations. Only about 22% blog posts are negative, 7000 new ideas were generated and the site had 200,000 hits a month. Direct2Dell gets over 5 million hits a month and is top-most company blog. Case study
Futurestate IT, a software company based out of Toronto went the swashbuckling route at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 held in Las Vegas to drive more traffic and new business to their booth. It worked. They used the power of a fun treasure hunt theme coupled with an 8 step social media strategy.
