Background
After learning the fundamentals of marketing strategy and using some of the most popular tools in the industry, my team and I developed a multi-channel marketing plan, landing page, and campaigns to promote a data-driven loyalty program, for a movie theater called Nitehawk.
The guiding question for the project was: “how can we encourage customers to frequently purchase from and advocate for our business?”
Objectives
The objectives for the project were as follows:
- Craft a multi-channel re-engagement campaign with measurable objectives and KPIs that align with the business objectives.
- Use new and existing data to make decisions about how to reach desired audience segments.
- Create a paid search campaign that includes a keyword strategy and creative.
- Develop a display advertising campaign that includes creative.
- Create a social media campaign with channel-specific creative.
- Design an automated workflow with details about data sources, triggers, and data connections.
The Business Scenario
We were given a fictitious business scenario with the following background:
In the past, our marketing team has averaged a 20% return on ad spend (ROAS) across all channels in our funnel. However, recently, marketing costs have gone up, while the average amount each customer spends has stayed the same, dragging our ROAS down to 0.
Our company’s head of marketing has decided that the best tactic to increase customer spending is through a loyalty program. Our marketing team was tasked with creating a loyalty program and marketing plan using multi-channel digital marketing strategies.
The marketing plan focused on motivating existing customers to make regular purchases going forward, by using data about them to re-engage them.
Marketing Brief
Before executing on anything, the team created a marketing brief, to showcase our brand elements, persona, and loyalty program so that it aligns with the campaign strategy. Once we finished the marketing brief, we used the information to create a marketing plan focused on re-engaging customers through our customized loyalty program.
The Data
The existing data showed that the average order value per customer was $50.00. In order to produce a positive ROAS, we would have to get the average customer spending at least $60 every time they came into the movie theater. After agreeing on an average order value of $60, we created two data visualizations to support the program, which would increase the ROAS from 100% to 120%.
Loyalty Program
The loyalty program we developed was made up of 3 tiers. Starting at $10 monthly to $50 monthly. The idea of the program was to reward repeat customers with exclusive perks and benefits, that would be worth the monthly payments.
Program-Level Objectives
Program Objective 1 – Increase ROAS by 20% in the next 30 days
Program Objective 2 – Increase AOV by 20% in the next 30 days.
Digital Marketing Strategy
We developed a multi-channel digital marketing strategy, by creating channel-specific campaigns for paid search, display advertising, and social media to attract new and existing customers to your loyalty program.
Objectives and KPIs for each channel
Facebook Awareness – Reach, Impressions, Clicks
Paid Search Consideration – Clicks, CTR, CPC, New Users
Display Consideration – Clicks, CTR, CPC
Landing Page Conversion – Avg. Order Value, Page Views
Twitter Advocacy – Followers, Engagement, Reach
Digital Channel Mix
Paid Search – Paid search was chosen for the consideration stage of the marketing funnel because it can be utilized to target our customer persona when they’re looking for more information about movies, or they’re even ready to purchase a ticket. We wanted to use paid search to drive our customer persona from the consider phase to the conversion phase, by highlighting the benefits of our loyalty program.
Display(1) – The display campaign targets the upper funnel(awareness & interest)by offering our audience quick and dynamic information regarding the loyalty program. Using the “Learn More” CTA button, we want to drive higher CTR and bring them to our landing page.
Twitter – We chose Twitter for all stages of the funnel(except conversion) because Twitter is a great place to reach new users who have interest in movies and the exclusive perks we offer in our loyalty program. Twitter is very authentic, and great for the advocacy stage as well because users leave genuine reviews and testimonials, which we would encourage our subscribers to do for us.
Facebook – We chose Facebook because we have a strong following on Facebook. This is a great platform to target previous customers and to bring awareness, consideration, and interest to our new loyalty program. Facebook also is the best social media platform for lookalike audiences which would help us find users who aren’t customers but would be interested in our loyalty program as well. Additionally facebook was chosen for advocacy as well, because it allows users to leave reviews, and follow our page.
Display(Retargeting) – Retargeting through display will target individuals who have expressed interest in previous advertisements and have but left the landing page without taking any further action. Through display retargeting, Nitehawk can show relevant ads to these potential customers as they browse the internet.
Landing Page – Our landing page is optimized for conversion, by allowing users from all channels to see a broad picture of the perks and benefits that come with signing up for our loyalty program.
KPI’s
As well, we established KPIs to track the performance and progress of our marketing objectives.
Avg. Order Value – The average amount a customer spends with us monthly.
Google Analytics: Conversions > E-commerce > Overview > Avg. Order Value
ROAS – to represent the campaign’s efficiency = Revenue / Ad Spend *100
Revenue – Google Analytics: Dashboard > Acquisition > All Traffic > Source / Medium > Revenue
Landing Page
The first page on the left would be the movie theater’s home page, with an above the fold ad alluring our potential customers to the ad, and clicking to learn more. The second page on the right would be the landing page, for the perks and the deals that you would see for the NiteFlock loyalty program.
Retargeting Plan
This retargeting campaign would allow Nitehawk to engage with potential and existing customers at various stages of their journey, from initial interest to past interactions. By utilizing email and display retargeting, Nitehawk can reinforce its value proposition, rekindle interest, and provide incentives that nurture stronger relationships with customers.
Retargeting ads would be triggered in several different ways. One trigger would be if someone abandons a form from one of our ads, a reminder would be sent through email to keep Nitehawk top of mind.
A second trigger would come from someone going to the landing page, but not taking any action. A retargeting display ad will then appear in front of the customer, reminding them of the program.
Search Campaign
The persona we focused on was “Movie Enthusiast Sean.”
Sean is 32 years old with an income of 65K per year, and a bachelor’s degree in economics. He is an accounting analyst that is married with no kids, and is probably looking to take his wife out to the movies, or even go with some friends.
He loves Indie movies, and is motivated by the idea of getting exclusive access. He’s also not afraid to spend more for a tailored experience, and trusts small businesses more than larger brands. We based our ad groups on two possible intentions John may have when searching for movies. Either he could be looking for a place with Dine-in services, or he may just want to buy a movie ticket.
The paid search campaign will impact John in the consideration phase, since he’s already looking to book a movie night – our job was to make the process for him as seamless as possible. Our main objective at this stage for paid search was to get John to our website. So we optimized for clicks to the website.
We planned our keyword research based on search terms, that our target persona would likely be searching for at the consideration stage of the funnel. We also brainstormed keywords that were relevant to the Nitehawk website and Nitehawk’s services.
Dine-In Service
| Keyword(by relevance) | Avg. monthly searches | Competition | Top of page bid (low range) | Top of page bid (high range) |
| dine in movie theater near me | 100 – 1K | Low | $0.34 | $0.94 |
| independent movie theater | 100 – 1K | Low | $0.69 | $5.00 |
| brooklyn movie theater | 1K – 10K | Low | $0.26 | $1.77 |
| nitehawk cinema | 10K – 100K | Low | n/a | n/a |
| movies brooklyn | 10K – 100K | Low | n/a | n/a |
Movie Theater
| Keyword(by relevance) | Avg. monthly searches | Competition | Top of page bid (low range) | Top of page bid (high range) |
| Movie showtimes | 1K-10K | Low | $0.13 | $2.67 |
| Movie tickets | 1K-10K | Low | $0.20 | $2.35 |
| Movies out now | 10K-100K | Low | $0.32 | $3.52 |
| Movies in theater | 100K-1M | Low | $0.28 | $2.55 |
| New movies | 10K – 100K | Low | $1.43 | $4.00 |
Keywords make sense for the business because they are low competition, have a high search volume, and are relevant to the business.
Campaign Structure
Ad Examples
There are two ads we structured for the campaigns. The first corresponds to Sean searching for a dine-in theater, and the other is an ad targeted at Sean looking for tickets, with an intention of getting him to subscribe to the membership for benefits.
Search Campaign Buildout
Display Advertising Campaign
The display campaign targets the upper funnel by offering our audience quick and dynamic information regarding the loyalty program. The visual aspect of the display ad would make it easy for customers to engage with the ad, and click on it to go to our landing page.
We wanted our to drive higher CTR and bring Sean to our landing page, to learn more about the program before deciding which tier he would want to sign up for. The audience segment would mainly target movie and food lovers, just like Sean.
Social Media Campaign
For the social media campaign we decided on using facebook and twitter.
For facebook our objective was to reach 300,000 people in the next 30 days, and we would be tracking through Clicks, CTR, and engagement on facebook’s ad manager.
Facebook was chosen because we already had a strong following. Facebook also has a lookalike audience feature which would allow us to target new audiences who look just like our followers, as well as encourage current followers to join the rewards program.
For twitter our objective was to increase followers by 100% in the next 30 days, and we would be measuring this through impressions and reach.
Twitter had a strong following as well, and would allow us to reach users based off of their interests. We would also be able to utilize the genuine reviews and testimonial features, to build trust, and encourage customer feedback.
Retargeting Behavior Journey
This showcases what a retargeting behavior journey would look like. For example, first someone would click on the Facebook ad, view content on the page, or fill out a contact form. And if they didn’t complete the desired action we would retarget them with either a display ad, or an email reminding them about the program.
| Behavior | Tracking | Source |
| Click on Facebook ad | Link click | Facebook or website |
| Viewed content on webpage | Page view | Tracking code |
| Filled out contact form | Form completion | Website with tracking code |
| Selected payment options | Payment option selection | Ecommerce site |
| Abandoned cart | Left online cart | Ecommerce site |
| Opened an email | Email click | mailchimp |
| Clicked an email link | Link click | Tracking code |
Automated Workflow Touchpoints
The automated workflow plan, was set up to implement the retargeting customer journey. For example a user might be looking at a facebook ad, and click on it but not convert on the landing page. They would then be put into the landing page bounce retargeting group, and be retarget with another display ad.
Similarly, if someone submitted their email but didn’t finish signing up, we would retarget them with a newsletter. And hopefully with the retargeting workflow they would eventually join the NiteFlock Program.
Concluding Thoughts
With a mix of gamified rewards system and exclusive perks, the Niteflock program will undoubtedly attract a horde of subscribers, which would lead to a 20% increase in the average order value of a customer, for Nitehawk Cinema.
Final Presentation
All of this information was collected in a 15-minute slide presentation that we delivered on the final day of the course—just as if we were presenting to a company’s C-suite leaders.