Situation
A mobile bidding technology wanted a three-month hyperfocused media relations and social media campaign that increased its national awareness in three cities as measured by web traffic, sales leads, and new customers. Ballast Group was charged with building various stakeholder relationships to enhance the nonprofit, foundation, university and corporate following and engagement with the company.
Solution
Traditional and social media PR was dedicated to building a foundation of Gesture’s ‘story’ and achieving early lead generation and awareness results including: garnering national attention, building custom traditional and social media lists, content calendars, and a foundation for the company’s press releases.
Results:
This framework and a six-step methodology secured several successful stories and results including:
- Sun-Times SPLASH “Technology IT” List
- Crain’s Chicago Business nonprofit technology story
- Crain’s Chicago Business Jim the focus of the “Innovators” column
- NBC5 ‘Weekend Web’ segment with Charlie Wojciechowski
- Denver Post technology feature that led to new customers including Red Rocks Elementary, Silver Creek High School Tennis Club and Make-A-Wish
- Daily Herald (IL) article covered Gesture’s growing team
- Social network growth of 5x
- Grabbed the attention of celeb personalities including:
- Former pro-football player Jim McMahon
- Socialite Candace Jordan (multiple times)
- Full House actor Candace Cameron Bure
- Chef Eric LeVine of the Food Network’s CHOPPED for the Jimmy V Foundation
Benefits:
Ballast Group’s approach continued portraying Gesture as the leader in mobile technology related to the future of fundraising by growing the number of third party sources for implied endorsements, including the ‘objective’ nature of news reporters.
