Case Study: Paid Media Campaign Increased Website Traffic by 500%

Challenge

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Sam Houston Area Council wanted to increase the number of new Scout signups during their fall recruitment period (August – October).

The COVID-19 Pandemic severely impacted the total membership of the Council. Another year of slow growth would hinder the Council’s ability to grow and provide high-level services to its members. So, it was critical for the campaign to greatly increase new Scout signups.

One of the challenges though was their budget had to stay the same as last year. They weren’t confident their old marketing agency could deliver those results, which is why they hired EWR Digital.

Objective

There were two primary objectives for the campaign:

• Increase awareness of the Scouting program
• Increase signups of new Scouts (compared to the previous year)

Strategy & Tactics

To increase awareness of the Scouting program we focused on expanding the current reach of the Council. This meant branching out to new social networks and collaborating with influencers.

In the end we identified the following social networks we would run ads on:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• NextDoor
• Snapchat
• TikTok
• Youtube

We also run Google Display ads in addition to the social network ads.
All ads were aimed at mothers who had elementary-aged children within the geographical area of the Council (which is most of the greater Houston area).
Each ad was tailored to the strengths and audiences of the social platform it was running on. In addition, we run multiple images and ad copy in order to determine the most effective ads.

We also collaborated with local influencers who run ‘mommy’ sites/accounts (which are lifestyle sites/accounts geared towards women). Those collaborators published content on their websites and social accounts to promote the BSA program.

Finally, we utilized email newsletters to reach audiences not commonly on social media. We sent emails to the Council’s internal email list, the email lists of local ‘mommy’ influencers, and a cold list.

These ads and emails all drove prospective parents to the registration page on the Council’s website (which is how we generated signups of new Scouts).

Message Alignment

Message alignment for the campaign was to use POV experiences from actual scouts telling a story of scouts being all inclusive, life changing, and full of fun adventures.

We wanted to emphasize getting kids and families outdoors together. So, all imagery referenced outdoor fun and often included Scouts of all ages.
In the end we knew the parents, not the Scouts, would be the ones making the decision to sign up their child. So, even though the imagery used POV experiences from the scouts the copy was aimed at the parents.

To ensure we were using the messaging that was resonating best we did A/B testing with three different groups:

• Promoting all boy Packs & Troops
• Promoting all girl Packs & Troops
• Promoting coed Packs & Troops

Results

In the end the campaign generated an additional 1,100 signups compared to the previous year, which represented a 30%+ increase.

Additionally, there were improvements across the board for all key performance indicators (year over year):

• +4,508,099 impressions compared to the previous year (308% increase)
• +9,116 clicks compared to the previous year (46% increase)
• +68,855 website visits compared to the previous year (536% increase)

All of this was accomplished with no increase in ad spend.