Viral
Marketing Success Story:
Houston of Natural Science (HMNS)
The
Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS)
was one chosen to showcase the world-famous
Exhibition for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
HMNS quickly realized that while the exhibit
was expected to generate a great deal of
interest, it didn't have a lot of appeal for
their core audience. The success of the
exhibition, therefore, would rest in how it
was marketed.
The
Houston Museum of Natural Science quickly
called in Spur Digital to
help reach the targeted demographic audience
and generate interest in the Exhibit. HMNS
was, also, hoping to acquire new patrons and
members to further their future revenue.
Spur
digital worked with HMNS to identify the
target market for the campaign and developed
an integrated online media plan to reach
those audiences. The campaign featured an
online contest that was marketed through
targeted online media outlets including
relevant Web sites, Search Engines and third
party E-mail lists. Viral marketing was an
important component of the campaign, so Spur
developed an innovative strategy to get
people to refer their friends.
Spur
identified the target audience as males 18 to
34 years old who were fans of action and
fantasy films, frequent video game players
and movie renters, tech-savvy who generally
didn't hang out at museums. Based on this
information, Spur chose search engine
advertisements that would accompany specific
search words, dedicated e-mail
advertisements, sponsored e-mail
advertisements, banner ads on web sites
targeted toward the desired audience, and
e-mails to the HMNS list.
Did
it work? You bet! The results were
excellent. The impact of the viral marketing
effort was astounding - over 23%
of registrants came originated from the
Tell-A-Friend feature. The direct marketing
efforts yielded impressive results as well.
In total, the 12 week,
locally-targeted online campaign yielded more
than 2 million targeted impressions,
40,000 unique visits, almost
12,000 and 6,000 invitations
sent by friends at a cost per action of less
than $3.00. These
contributed to the record attendance of
almost 100,000 over 3 months.
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