Greater Somerset County YMCA New Year’s Day Promo

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New Year’s Day 2023 marked the moment when Greater Somerset County YMCA chose to draw the proverbial line in the sand, focusing its collective energy on innovation and a significant elevation of the member experience—no longer simply a COVID recovery mindset aimed at returning to a 2019 baseline. With a pending launch of cult favorite LES MILLS™ BODYPUMP™ fitness programming across all of the association’s full-service facilities scheduled for New Year’s Day as well as camp activities, swim testing, tours, and family swim hours—there was truly a reason for community members of all ages to stop by and try the Y.

APPROACH & OUTCOME

Collaboration with leadership at all five YMCA facilities—four full-service facilities, one aquatics center—established understanding of their unique offerings and schedules while ensuring coordination of key revenue-driving launches, openings, and events across the entire association.

A strategic mix of owned and paid online and offline channels as well as earned media was utilized to leverage the unique value proposition and benefits of Y programs and services to drive awareness, interest, and new member acquisition for Greater Somerset County YMCA across socioeconomically diverse communities. Messaging focus leaned heavily into fitness imagery and messaging for all ages and abilities—featuring local YMCA members and program participants for added connection. Messaging and calls to action were also augmented to deploy a concurrent recapture campaign—targeting past/lapsed members with new, improved, and expanded offerings to prompt them to rejoin the YMCA. A seamless branded omnichannel campaign comprised of a cadence of tactics was crafted and deployed, including direct mail, organic email marketing, paid third-party e-blasts, social media organic content marketing, geofenced social media advertising, web design (website content and measured use of popups and alert bars), SMS marketing, earned media placement, local print advertising, in-branch signage, short-form video content, and digital displays. The association-wide daily sales totals for New Year’s Day exceeded all membership sales targets established by branch leadership. Furthermore, they surpassed several years’ worth of New Year’s Day membership sales performance—a key sales indicator of organizational health. Results were broadly encouraging as they signaled that Greater Somerset County YMCA was finally on the cusp of emerging from pandemic-era financial distress.

The 2023 New Year’s Day Membership & Program Registration Integrated Marketing Communications Promotional Campaign was executed as part of the broader association-wide integrated marketing communications plan, including campaigns comprised of digital marketing, print advertising, email promotion, organic and paid social media marketing, newsletter content, out-of-home (OOH) and outdoor display ads, targeted direct mail, text messaging, location signage, as well as owned and earned media placements. Successful implementation of the plan helped drive digital marketing performance, including 375% greater impressions, 500% more clicks, and an overall lift in ad click-through rates (CTR) from 0.83% to 3.21%. Efforts also supported an overall 73% increase in Facebook followers and 464% more Instagram followers. Overall, these efforts contributed to a 10.48% increase in Greater Somerset County YMCA’s annual membership and programming revenue to $23.6 million.

This New Year’s Day membership event promotion campaign is an example of the player-coach role I pivoted into while at Greater Somerset County YMCA as the organization recovered from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including significantly reduced staffing levels in areas like marketing, finance, and HR.

MY ROLE

Content Creation, Copywriting, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, Interdepartmental Liaison, Media Buying, Project Lead, Social Media Marketing, Vendor Management, Videography & Web Design

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & TOOLS

• Strategy: Audience Segmentation | Brand Differentiation | Brand Messaging | Brand Stewardship | Brand Storytelling | Campaign Management | Content Calendars | Content Marketing | Cross-Functional Collaboration | Customer Experience (CX) Strategy | Customer-Centric Mindset | Data-Driven Decision Making | Integrated Marketing Communications | Multi-channel Marketing | Nonprofit Marketing | Organic Social Media | Stakeholder Management | Strategic Marketing & Planning | Word-of-Mouth Influence
• Creative & Production: Budget Management | Content Creation | Copywriting | Creative Development | Digital Marketing | Direct Mail | Email Marketing | Event Promotion | Graphic Design | Layout & Composition | Media Buying | Print Production | Social Media Marketing | Video Content Production | Web Design
• Tools: Accrisoft Freedom Website CMS | Adobe Acrobat Pro | Adobe InDesign | Adobe Photoshop | Daxko Engage Email/Marketing Automation | Daxko Operations CRM/Member Information System | Facebook | Facebook Events | Facebook Reels | Geotargeted & Geofenced Mobile Ads | Google | Instagram | Instagram Reels | Loomly Social Media Management | MarTech Stack Proficiency | Meta Ads Manager (Facebook & Instagram) | Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Word | SimpleTexting SMS/Text Messaging | TikTok | X/Twitter