Schaefer Advertising Co.

Web & Interactive

Podimetrics had a strong story to tell
— and a new brand to build

Podimetrics Brand Logos

Situation

Diabetes is one of the top health issues in the United States. In fact, costs for diabetes care are more than 400% higher than cancer. One of the leading drivers of that cost is amputation resulting from Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFUs), which results in a limb being amputated every four minutes due to diabetes.

To combat this, Podimetrics developed a web-enabled, remote temperature monitoring system designed to identify the risk of DFUs before symptoms are visibly present — and drive significant cost savings by avoiding costly amputations.

Schaefer took the reins on translating this innovative system into a compelling narrative that would reach key audiences and encourage payor adoption.

Goals: 

  • Support the market launch of a new, breakthrough product
  • Differentiate Podimetrics from competing solutions
  • Explain the system and its benefits to payors and HCPs
  • Support rollout to a low-tech patient base with clear, user-friendly materials
Podimetrics Materials

Strategy

Our team was tasked with creating a new brand and executing multi-channel communications to differentiate Podimetrics and drive sales conversations.

To reach the various audiences, we decided that two specific objectives must be achieved: First, the brand story must be humanized and brought to life in a manner that would resonate with payors, physicians and patients. Second, communications and user pathways should be simplified, to ensure that the relevant messages were reaching each audience and business objectives were being reached.

Podimetrics Website Mockup

Solution

Viewing Podimetrics’ system as something akin to a “canary in the coalmine,” Schaefer used this metaphor to create a consistent brand story that clearly conveyed the benefits of early detection — including the estimate that more than 70% of diabetic foot amputations could be prevented through early detection.

From there, Schaefer conducted a User Experience audit to find opportunities to improve communication throughout the customer journey. We then launched a full suite of materials to support the sales team, including an updated website, product videos, stationary package, and other sales support materials.

For end users, Schaefer also created product packaging that was as user-friendly as the device itself. Knowing the patient profile was less tech-savvy, we scrutinized every aspect of packaging and product setup to ensure everything remained simple, intuitive and frictionless.

Podimetrics Device

Results

Schaefer effectively positioned Podimetrics as a new, holistic system that uncovers and prevents extremity complications from diabetes. This differentiation is allowing Podimetrics to compete for significant national payor contracts, as well as establish notable partnerships with strategic allies such as the American Diabetes Association.

Summary

For diabetic foot wounds, early detection is essential for avoiding amputation and reducing costs. The “canary in a coalmine” solution helped humanize and simplify a complex technology and gave both internal and external audiences a better understanding of its purpose and its benefit. Today, a growing number of payors, physicians and patients are becoming aware of the potential benefit of the Podimetrics system.

Situation: City branding is important

Famous for its trailblazing history, Fort Worth still embraces its reputation as a “City of Opportunity.” Quickly becoming an epicenter of growth and innovation, Fort Worth offers an inviting community, talented workforce, and incredibly low cost of living, attracting people and corporations from all over the world looking to move or expand into one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities.  

Fort Worth Economic Development Campaign Branding

The goal of every city on the rise is to attract new business and talent while strengthening the industries already established. To accomplish that, the City of Fort Worth Economic Development team selected Schaefer as the agency of record for a three-year partnership to create the city’s first-ever economic development and business attraction initiative. The partnership is part of the city’s five-year strategic plan and plays a key role in positioning Fort Worth as a place of purpose where businesses and people can leverage the city’s incredible potential to create the future they want to see. 

Goals: 

  • Establish a story that connects Fort Worth’s heritage with its future
  • Develop a multi-phase, multi-year campaign to drive awareness and attract new business
  • Highlight Fort Worth’s economic incentives and competitive edge in  business, culture and community
  • Reach key business decision-makers to advance economic development
  • Elevate Fort Worth on a national and international stage
  • Foster collaborative conversations between key stakeholders in the public and private sector

We started with a question: what makes Fort Worth and its people so unique? The answer was simple. A pioneering spirit that dated back to the 1800s and still stood strong today. As the first-ever economic development campaign for the city, Schaefer was in a unique position to lead strategy from inception. 

Where Innovation Begins

We recognized the importance of storytelling in establishing the city’s position in the eyes of our target audiences. A good story would amplify the message, build credibility, create a strong sense of community and offer nuggets of authenticity and purpose that truly make Fort Worth stand out. 

Known as the point where the west begins, Fort Worth has always promised possibility, innovation and prosperity. Unlike some of the larger, competitive cities, opportunity isn’t a new promise, it’s woven into the very fabric of Fort Worth. To communicate that, we built messaging around the idea that no matter what you’re looking for — relocation, expansion, opportunity  – it can successfully begin in Fort Worth. 

Building equity through identity

In order to build equity, Fort Worth Economic Development first needed an identity. We leveraged their voice, tone and values to create an independent identity that was flexible enough to work alongside the city’s existing branding, and strong enough to communicate the impact of their initiatives.

City of Fort Worth Inner/Outer Market

Schaefer then crafted a multi-faceted campaign that unified strategy, creative and media to promote Fort Worth’s business advantages among corporate decision-makers, site selection consultants and local business owners. The campaign further cemented Fort Worth as a city of growth and opportunity, while highlighting its competitive edge as a leader in innovation who works hard to meet the needs of the businesses who chose Fort Worth. 

City of Fort Worth Digital Banners
City of Fort Worth Interactive and Print

Solution: Fueling growth and connections online

Revamping the website to reflect the new brand campaign was vital to communicate key messaging. As the central platform that business leaders, stakeholders and prospective residents visit to find relevant information about the city, the website confirmed Fort Worth’s proven economic landscape with tangible proof points our audience would find attractive. 

With this in mind, we included demographics, workforce statistics and other data points that leverage Fort Worth’s resources against competitor cities. A strategic mix of traditional and digital media, including paid search targeted prospects helped drive traffic back to the website. Knowing our target audience sets and strategically placing ads in places they frequented (in person and online) expanded Fort Worth’s presence on the list of key business destinations in the US. 

After 8 months in market, our team identified a list of top engaged companies. The insights we gathered included a list of prospects from target industry sectors with the potential to increase the size of the labor force and generate millions in economic output for the city of Fort Worth. These key insights have helped us to strengthen our marketing approach in more specifically targeting like prospects.

Results:

FW Economic Development Heat Map

During the first 8 months of the campaign, we created an anchor site that served multiple economic development organizations with one source. 

  • 88% of total site traffic driven by paid media
    • 44% derived from prospecting emails delivered to corporate decision-makers, site selection consultants and other key decision makers in select target outer markets
  • 98% increase in new site traffic from key markets and industries
    • 55K new visitors 
    • Significant engagement achieved in Los Angeles, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham markets, which were key target markets within the initiative
  • As a result of this increase in traffic to our website, Fort Worth continues to receive organic recognition as a top place in the U.S. to start a business. This is a direct result of the growth in widespread awareness for Fort Worth as a great place to live, work and do business. 
  • According to Bisnow, Fort Worth has more than $2 billion in projects under development marking a huge milestone in the economic development of the city.

By the end of Year 1, we developed strategic partnerships with key economic development influencers in the region and positively impacted corporate relocation and expansion for the city of Fort Worth, drawing business from two key industries — Aerospace and Defense, and Mobility Innovation.

How humanizing a “free screening” offer helped a client achieve 95% of their 3-year goal — in just 8 months.

Situation

Healthcare inequity is perhaps the most pressing social issue facing the medical community today. To help combat unequal access to care, and make up screening ground lost to COVID-19, Moncrief Cancer Institute partnered with Schaefer to help encourage underserved and uninsured members of the community to sign up for a free cancer screening. 

moncrief billboard

Goals

  • Craft messaging and materials that would drive cancer screenings among the target patients (3rd-grade reading level)
  • Develop tactics that would reach the audience throughout their day-to-day movements
  • Leverage the screening to build brand awareness among the underserved community

Strategy

While the offer of a free cancer screening may seem like an easy sell, the initiative faced several challenges: members of the targeted, underserved audience were often hard to reach. Many were skeptical of receiving healthcare services, for fear that they would reveal conditions that are terminal, untreatable, or expensive to treat. Many also suspected that a “free screening” might come with hidden costs or fees. And, to address health literacy, all materials needed to be flexible enough to reach our various audiences in the media channels they use every day, and in their preferred language. 

Schaefer knew we needed to develop a campaign that was driven by a straight-forward invitation for people to call in and see if they qualify for the free screening. However, knowing that many members of our demographic would be more likely to do something for their family rather than for themselves, we delivered a secondary message that leveraged this emotional connection.

Moncrief case study social spanish

Solution

The creative for the campaign tapped into a core motivation for the audience and featured screening patients who proudly showed “I Voted”-like stickers, proclaiming that they did it for their kids, their families, their spouses, or their friends. The end effect was a message that communicated that a screening isn’t just something you do for yourself; you do it for the people you love.

This solution helped accomplish two very important things: It turned a straightforward offer into an emotional appeal, which drove engagement. And it also helped the campaign speak more effectively with our key demographic – primarily patients over the age of 40, across a diverse array of tight-knit communities. 

Moncrief Cancer Institute Website Layout

Results

Ambitious goals were set for the campaign—and an avalanche of responses followed:

  • Generated 1,000+ online appointments and 4,600+ calls to schedule—or 95% of the total 3-year goal—in the first 8 months of the campaign
  • Drove more than 16,000 visits to the screening landing page
  • More than 8,800 clinical services were provided to nearly 6,000 individuals in the first year

The tremendous success led to a decision to raise Year 2 program goals and allowed the client to secure additional on-the-ground resources to reach more people in the community.

Moncrief case study social

Summary

By humanizing their appeal to an underserved audience, Moncrief Cancer Institute was able to move one step closer to alleviating healthcare inequity. In the process, they generated brand awareness and community goodwill — a very healthy outcome for both themselves and the communities they serve.

October 22, 2022

What lies beneath

An Unbranded Campaign to Educate ECPs on the Benefits of Early Surgical Intervention for Glaucoma

Surgical treatment for glaucoma has dramatically changed in recent years. For decades, eye care providers (ECPs) have known the only way to manage glaucoma is to reduce intraocular pressure (IOP). They also know that many patients struggle with compliance, adherence and the long-term side effects associated with drop therapy. Along with educating ECPs on safer, less invasive sight-preserving surgery, OMNI® needed ECPs to consider patients for surgical intervention earlier than ever before — especially as a stand-alone (outside cataract surgery) procedure. But asking them to make that leap is less effective coming from a brand than a resource. Doctors trust research and clinical studies, so the best approach is sometimes unbranded.

Omni Magazine

Goals

  • Educate ECPs on the benefits of MIGS
  • Advocate for earlier intervention for pseudophakic eyes
  • Highlight the benefit of a stand-alone procedure like the  OMNI® Surgical System

Role

  • Campaign Concept
  • Messaging
  • Illustration 
  • Event Activation

Omni Top Down Illustration
Omni Illustrations

Increasing Referrals Through Provider Education

Unbranded campaigns have many benefits. They raise awareness, provide independent education on disease states and treatment options, drive patients to providers and help providers better identify patients. 

Omni Chalk Drawing

For OMNI®, the goal was two-fold. Educate providers on the dramatic benefits of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) as a stand-alone procedure and pull demand from the optometric referral channel earlier. In lockstep with a branded campaign for the OMNI® Surgical System, the two campaigns worked together, growing market share among surgeons and shifting the point of surgical intervention to be earlier for patients with mild to moderate glaucoma patients. 

What Lurks Beneath the Surface 

Glaucoma has been dubbed the “silent thief of sight.” During the early stages of the disease, symptoms often go unnoticed. But the damage caused to eyesight as glaucoma progresses is irreversible, causing permanent vision loss and even blindness. While there is no cure, the best way to manage glaucoma is to consistently and proactively lower pressure within the eye (IOP).

To illustrate the often undetectable signs of glaucoma, we asked ECPs to consider what danger lurks beneath the ocular surface –  representing the disease with a legendary sea creature who is phantom as much as monster. The Kraken lurking beneath an unsuspecting kayaker on the surface mirrors the progression of glaucoma – just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. 

The introduction of MIGS to a critical optometric referral market as an alternative to first-line drops, combined with a branded approach extolling the benefits of the OMNI® Surgical System as a stand-alone intervention,  gives ECPs more impetus to treat their patients with a reliable surgical option that may lower IOP safely and sustainably with minimal recovery time. Better still, is the ability to proactively manage the disease and preserve as much of a patient’s sight as possible. 

Omni Chalk Drawing

Diving Deeper

By reinforcing the benefits of early intervention with vibrant visual language and messaging that encourages open dialogue, they were more likely to research, ask their peers and consider MIGS and products like the OMNI® Surgical System when treating a patient with mild to moderate glaucoma. 

To make a true impact in the industry, we developed and deployed a full omnichannel engagement strategy, leveraging paid, personal/non-personal promotion and earned channels. We brought the conversation where our audience was most likely to seek education – online, on social and among their peers at events such as the American Academy of Optometry. Leveraging each interaction as an opportunity to dive deeper into the research and generate leads.

Omni Chalk Drawing

Results

  • Engaged 50% of the optometric referral market, within 90 days (14,000 engaged users)
  • Generated significant word-of-mouth equity at key trade shows
  • Created demand for branded efforts to fulfill
  • Contributed to the overall brand strategy that moved OMNI from start-up to top-2 devices in 18 months

For too long, medicine has focused on the symptoms of an illness rather than the person experiencing them. Since 1970, the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth (HSC) has been hard at work, pursuing new and innovative ways to approach the full spectrum of health. And while HSC is one of the nation’s premier graduate medical schools and research centers, the community it serves was still in the dark about all the ground-breaking work they were doing to secure a healthier future for everyone in North Texas. 

HSC needed a campaign to not only strengthen its brand but promote whole health and build a relationship with the community they serve.

Goals

  • Raise awareness
  • Increase brand equity
  • Define what HSC is and does
UNTHSC Campaign Billboard

Owning whole health

As HSC expands its clinical focus to the community, Schaefer helped express its distinctive approach to medicine – shifting the conversation about health in our community from isolated and reactive to whole and inclusive. Complete with proactive ideas, treatments and solutions that have the potential to radically improve people’s lives and the future of medicine as a whole.

UNTHSC Campaign Billboards

As an institute of higher education, HSC fosters an environment that empowers innovative ideas and research, expanding the meaning of care from patient to lifestyle and community. So we reframed the brand around their commitment to improving total health – not just health care – and positioned HSC as a model and leader in the whole health initiative. 

HSC boldly and bravely pursues all paths to health.

UNTHSC Campaign Advertising

An approach to care that connects

HSC’s identity was long tied to its name rather than its impact. In rethinking the brand, we uncovered how their approach to medicine literally connects health to everyday experiences and provides new opportunities for innovation. So we introduced people to a bigger picture of health – one that considered jobs, nutrition, access to public transportation and other influences beyond symptoms that affect a community’s health.

UNTHSC Campaign Signage on Campus

Results

The initial campaign launch covered the city of Fort Worth, securing the HSC brand firmly in local conversation. Between June and August of 2021, we were able to establish HSC’s distinct position and instill a sense of pride and community around whole health.

  • 116,736,316 Impressions  for Traditional + Digital
  • 84,667 Clicks
  • 46,539 New Users to Website
December 3, 2021

Engaging Diverse Audiences

UNTHSC Covid Vaccine Website

Opportunity

Changing perceptions can be accomplished in many different ways. When it comes to public health, facts must play a key role in education, which can lead to change.  In 2021, a general lack of vaccine confidence was causing concern and hesitancy among specific communities. UNTHSC partnered with Tarrant County and Schaefer Advertising to assist with vaccine education, communication and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in North Texas. The primary objective was to reach and convince those who may not have heard, have access to, or are opposed to getting vaccinated. 

UNTSHC Tarrant COVID-19 Vaccine Social Posts

Goals

  • Education and awareness in the greater Tarrant County region
  • Increase vaccinations in historically underserved markets outlined by Tarrant County:
    • Rural communities
    • Lower HHI
    • Black, Hispanic and Vietnamese neighborhoods

Knowing that education is the first step, we saw an opportunity to engage with community-based organizations, faith leaders and other trusted members of these communities to design a campaign that drove awareness and, most importantly, access. The ultimate goal was to help the public feel informed and confident about getting vaccinated and empower people to make that decision for themselves and their families.  

We leveraged in-depth research and population data outlining key neighborhoods and zip codes for localized media placements and outreach events and behavioral trends to reach these audiences with empathetic and culturally relevant messaging backed by science. 

Additionally, we implemented proven best practices for copy and visual solutions for reaching these audiences, including simplified text, negative space, multilingual advertising and featuring key members from each target community to build trust.

UNTHSC COVID-19 Advertisements

Solution

  • Developed a new microsite that served as a resource for community partners, vaccine registration and community education
  • Launched a hyper-focused, omnichannel media campaign consisting of OOH, print, direct mail, paid search, social, display, radio, streaming radio and direct buys with local publications directing users to the new microsite
  • Partnered with influential members and popular media outlets to not only reach but resonate with each community
  • Curated content in three languages to build trust and targeted ads to Spanish and Vietnamese websites and high-traffic neighborhood establishments. 
Tarrant County Strong COVID-19 Vaccine Billboard

Results

  • 127,108,089 total impressions served in our market in just 3 months
  • 20,000+ vaccines administered to key zip codes designated as populated with  residents who were  unaware, unable and/or unwilling to get vaccinated
Summer Zoo Camp Paid Advertising

Every year, the Fort Worth Zoo hosts an immersive educational experience called Summer Zoo Camp. This adventurous program offers campers—from kindergarten to high school—a variety of unique summer camp options. Coming off the heels of the pandemic, families in North Texas were thrilled to give their children a chance to learn, play and make new friends in a safe, outdoor environment. And the Fort Worth Zoo was ready to provide the perfect space to experience wildlife up close.

Proud to create a fresh and original concept once again for this annual event—we infused into it, the world’s collective excitement for getting back to normal with those we love most. Leaning into a familiar and revered summer tradition, we concepted an enticing summer blockbuster theme, successfully casting a wide net on a wide-ranging audience.

Coming To a Zoo Near You

Fort Worth Zoo Camp Print Advertisment

Summer Zoo Camp is a truly one-of-a-kind program where campers of all ages can safely explore and expand their knowledge of wildlife conservation. All while discovering new friendships and finding ample opportunities to grow their imagination. We recognized the importance and the potential impact of this educational program for young explorers, so we set out to create messaging that would attract the true decision makers in the home—moms. Every year, the Zoo creates themes that drive the conceptual direction of the creative. Inspired by this year’s movie theme and the posters theaters use to promote films, we featured Summer Zoo Camp and a star-studded cast of camp experiences.

Paid Social for Summer Zoo Camp

Choosing to incorporate bright, flying flamingos in our messaging allowed us to easily showcase one of the Zoo’s favorite characters to catch people’s attention immediately. Our digital advertisements performed exceptionally well—as this medium allowed the static flamingos to animate and fly across the screens of thousands of North Texans. By the time the credits rolled, Summer Zoo Camp had nearly sold out, successfully achieving summer blockbuster status. 

Fort Worth Zoo Summer Zoo Camp Billboard

Results:

  • 2,586 registrations were made—achieving 98% of the target goal
  • More than $716k in revenue reported
  • Our flying flamingo stars made over 8.5 million media impressions while in the spotlight

Opportunity

The Fort Worth Zoo was looking for a way to refresh their Valentine’s Adoption campaign to reach a broader audience and encourage more adoptions. As a new year approached, we gathered audience data and used our longtime partnership with the Zoo to create a reenergized Valentine’s campaign that appealed to a broader audience and sold more adoption packages. 

Refreshing a Valentine’s Day Tradition

The Fort Worth Zoo Valentine’s Adoption campaign gives animal lovers a chance to show some love while contributing to the cost of care and wellbeing for the Zoo’s wildlife. In previous years, the Zoo primarily focused on penguin adoption packages, which were highly successful, but audience demographics revealed that most people purchased penguin adoption packages for children, limiting the impact of the campaign to one primary audience. Schaefer recommended including a new animal to encourage more engagement and the Zoo ran with our idea and responded by adding four new animals to the campaign—foxes, skunks, flamingoes, and porcupines — to fit more buyers’ unique personalities and relationships.

  • Fort Worth Zoo Social Graphics
  • Billboard Graphics

A Broader Appeal

Love has many definitions. By offering a larger selection of animals to adopt, we were able to personalize campaign messaging to connect with a wider audience and celebrate an even broader spectrum of love. For each animal, we chose to highlight different kinds of love that people experience.

Our romantic, love-focused options included foxes representing fox-y significant others. Our fun, anti-valentine’s day options were represented by a skunk and a porcupine because love can stink and even be a bit prickly. Finally, we included a “Galentine’s” option focused on celebrating positive friendships between women. By expanding our animal options, we were able to create a “choose your own” Valentine’s Day celebration.

We recreated a digital version of the classic Valentine’s Day cards from grade school for use on social media and leverage nostalgia as a vehicle for success. This medium offered us a space to use humor and strategically placed puns to highlight the different animal adoptions being offered as well as communicate the different types of love that Valentine’s Day celebrates. 

 Results:

  • Nearly 50% increase in animal adoptions sold YoY
  • 40% of all orders were foxes
  • Despite Covid-19 and being a virtual event, 125 dinners were sold netting more than $15k in revenue

The Situation

While the spring break season is consistently successful, Telluride Ski and Golf Resort needed ways to entice travelers to visit during off periods leading up to peak season. To do so, they developed a discounted lift ticket and partnered with Schaefer and local retail locations to get the word out. While similar campaigns had experienced previous success in markets within driving distance to the resort, Dallas Fort Worth, a flight-first market, needed a unique strategy and market push to get in front of the right audience and convince them to convert.

A Nimble, Focused Strategic Partnership

With spring break rapidly approaching, we moved quickly and efficiently to launch the campaign in market at the optimal time. Our team offered strategic direction to their in-house creative team to be most cost-effective and focus our efforts on media strategy and getting into market in a very quick time frame. Telluride offered the discounted tickets through ski shops throughout DFW, so our digital strategy focused on driving foot traffic into the retail stores to ultimately sell the lift tickets.

Creating a Digital Strategy Aimed at In-Person Conversions

Because there was no online portal for selling discounted lift tickets, our campaign focused on building awareness and driving audiences to local ski shop partners to purchase tickets. With minimal time available before launch, our team created a streamlined media strategy that pushed audiences to a landing page where they could learn more about the retailers offering discounted ski lift tickets. The strategy incorporated paid social and display ads targeted through strategic geofencing, contextual targeting and retargeting with content related to skiing, outdoors and travel. We determined that tourists are the primary market interested in and available to book last minute trips, and targeted users that had a propensity to travel and an interest in skiing and resorts. Ultimately, our team created an effective digital strategy that engaged leads and moved them to brick-and-mortar retailers to purchase their tickets.

Results:

  • Campaigns contributed to 181 total passes sold in-store and over $85,000 in total revenue for an overall ROI of 13:1.
  • Sold 181 tickets in 14 days.
  • Telluride sold 4X the number of ticket sales during our campaign compared to the previous period.
  • The Telluride “5 Day Special” landing page received over 6.9K pageviews over the course of the campaign. 
  • Almost 11% of landing sessions were “engaged sessions” (691), where users spent more time on the page or bought tickets. 

Golf is a timeless sport that brings people together to enjoy camaraderie and pristine, cultivated greens. But, what happens when you add luxury travel and experiences into a premium golf membership? You get Icon Golf – an esteemed golf and travel membership that takes players around the world. Icon needed to revamp their brand to generate more memberships, so they partnered with the Schaefer team to refocus their sales efforts with a full-scale, multichannel digital campaign and a new website. 

In 2020, Icon invested in increasing their sales from 250 memberships to 1000. So, they partnered with Schaefer to revamp their brand, generate more memberships, and focus their sales efforts with a full-scale, multichannel digital campaign and a new website to meet their very aggressive goal.

Goals

Grow Icon Golf membership database from 250 to 1,000 in 18 months.

  • Refresh the brand identity
  • Develop a content marketing strategy 
  • Build a CRM to streamline lead generation and membership management
  • Improve online user experience 
  • Prioritize sales efforts

Roles

  • Strategy 
  • Creative
  • Digital 
  • Branding
  • Positioning
  • Client Services

Partnering to Develop a Structured, Integrated Sales Process

We began our relationship with Icon Golf on the ground level as they were initiating the formal development of a structured sales team. This allowed Schaefer to partner directly with the Icon team to merge sales and marketing efforts. Icon’s previous marketing efforts were primarily functioning by word-of-mouth and leveraging connections with existing club members within their portfolio. While this approach was successful, there was an opportunity to expand their sales efforts through digital automation to reach a wider audience.

We started by evaluating each medium against our overall goals and the need to fill the funnel with awareness initiatives and convert interested prospects into members. We found that paid search and streaming audio and video proved successful for building awareness, and third party publication emails allowed us to hit a very targeted audience that was ready to convert.

A Refreshed Creative Platform

We recognized an opportunity to reinvigorate their creative platform to better communicate the unique benefits that an Icon membership provides. Icon Golf offers members full privileges with an expertly curated collection of private golf clubs as well as luxurious member experiences and fully planned quests to exotic locales. So, Icon Golf is much more than a golf membership – it’s a full-package of golf and travel – and communicating that was the central challenge of updating their creative.

When creating the updated creative platform, we focused on the luxury aesthetic and benefits of an Icon Golf membership. We wanted the design and language to reflect the elevated perks and nature of the membership, all while highlighting the relationship-focused aspect of joining Icon Golf. The camaraderie between Icon members is a key strategic imperative, so we had to make that central in the updated creative deck.

We created the concept “Legendary is Within Reach” as our primary branded language alluding to the potential for legendary moments with legendary people, on and off the course.

A New, Optimized Website

The central piece of Icon’s rebrand was optimizing their website to generate more qualified leads. Previous to our relationship,the Icon Golf website was split into two different URLs – Icon.Golf and IconGolf.com to satisfy internal marketing objectives. However, this split up their traffic and made consolidating valuable lead information more difficult. So, we combined their properties into one streamlined website. To increase the site’s performance, we implemented key SEO and content updates targeted at their primary audiences.

Our team also redeveloped the site with crucial user experience updates to improve site accessibility and usability aimed at generating form fills from qualified leads. To improve usability, we simply added header and footer navigations to improve the overall user experience. In addition, we employed site tagging to capture key user behavior metrics in order to continue to drive future data-driven site optimization opportunities. Finally, we placed CTAs throughout prominent areas of the website so that users could always and easily make direct contact with the reps at Icon Golf. The final result is a website that supports Icon’s strategic marketing goals by generating more engagement and qualified leads.

Creating a Centralized Lead Strategy

To continue to round out the lead generation strategy, we implemented a CRM strategy to accurately target lists of valuable, interested leads with compelling emails. We connected key data sources – the Icon website, MailChimp, and Salesforce as well as other lead collection points to ensure that our data automatically fed into the sales process and reduced the work the sales team needed to do to generate more memberships.

We created a variety of emails around the central message “Legendary is Within Reach” that ultimately guided leads to complete a form fill and capture valuable data for converting more leads.

To round out the digital strategy for Icon, we created a multi-channel paid media strategy that targeted valuable audiences in paid search, paid social media, display banners and email. In addition, we cultivated strategic partnerships with golf publications and outlets to secure high-value placements in front of the most highly qualified audience.

Results

In 2021, Icon Golf had their best year ever, setting a record month for membership sales in December.

  • Reached 85% of their new membership goal in under 9 months
  • Last Click Attribution:
    • 31 new memberships driven directly by campaign paid media
    • $450k in revenue
  • Total annual revenue surpassed 1.7 Million, resulting in a strong ROAS of 7:1
  • Lead Gen Growth in 2021
    • 569% increase in form fills 
  • Web Traffic Growth in 2021
    • 453.4% increase in pageviews
    • 480.9% increase in sessions 
    • 485.1% increase in new users visiting the website

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