Case Studies Archives - Mindstream Media Group

[Case Study]: Omni-Channel Digital Campaign Drives 19% Increase in Sales

Posted on August 31, 2021September 9, 2021 by Mindstream Media Group

Bonchon Chicken, a South Korean-based international fried chicken restaurant franchise, struggled with a lack of brand awareness but enjoyed an almost cult following among food enthusiasts with their crispy fried chicken wings and unique flavors. They needed a media partner that could help them not only gain awareness and new customers but drive online orders while indoor dining was restricted due the pandemic. It was also critical that the strategy be scalable to accommodate the anticipated growth in the number of franchise locations. After being introduced by their creative agency and long-time Mindstream partner, we began collaborating with the Bonchon marketing team to create a recipe for success by leveraging a digital-first media plan with mouth-watering creative.

Challenge

Lift awareness for 90+ locations and capture demand for delivery and online order options during the pandemic shutdown.

Design a streamlined grand opening media strategy to scale with the growth of franchise locations quickly and efficiently.

Solution

We took a holistic, full-funnel approach with a variety of tactics to reach consumers at every stage of the customer journey. Multi-channel digital marketing campaigns including paid search, paid social and programmatic display were deployed around each of Bonchon’s 90+ locations driving customers to order online for delivery or pick-up at their local restaurant. Lifting awareness and capturing demand for these options during key (pandemic shutdown) times played a pivotal role in generating a positive outcome.

Our account setup and structure created efficiencies that allowed the ad budget to be utilized to reach a more relevant and targeted audience. We implemented first-party data to exclude current customers from prospecting and search campaigns. For a more relevant ad experience, messaging was also segmented to serve different creative to previous and new website visitors. Tracking on the online order site allowed campaigns to be optimized to the conversion point furthest down the funnel while Google Local campaigns were optimized to helped increase foot traffic and sales as well. Our responsiveness to creative changes, starts/stops, Grand Openings and LTO promotions also contributed to the success of the campaign.

Focused on the customer journey, we activated a multi-channel campaign and optimized towards KPIs that aligned with each tactic’s position along the path to purchase.

Results

Mindstream helped introduce Bonchon to new audiences who were hungry for something different; Bonchon did the rest. Year-over-year performance shows significant growth in sales as well as gains in efficiency.

Sales: 19% increase
Online Order CPA: 18% improvement
Paid Social CPA: 32% improvement
Paid Search Conversion Rate: 59% increase

Vice President of Marketing at Bonchon, Christina Coy loves our work. “I just wanted to thank you for all the time and effort you’ve put forth for Bonchon. We’re loving these numbers and appreciate all the support you’ve provided whenever we had issues with LinkedIn or with the online ordering site.

You’re an amazing team and I’m thrilled we brought you on board to be a part of the Bonchon team!

Thanks again for being such great partners.”

[Case Study]: Media Restructure Delivers 55% Lead Efficiency in Pandemic Year

Posted on February 11, 2021February 18, 2021 by Mindstream Media Group

The Graduate Management Admission Council^TM (GMAC) is a global, mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools. They own and administer the Graduate Management Admission Test^TM (GMAT^TM), the most widely used exam for graduate business school admissions. Mindstream Media Group has had the pleasure of partnering with GMAC for several years to hone strategic media initiatives that grow their business, even in spite of the difficulties created by the coronavirus pandemic.

Challenge

GMAC found themselves facing simultaneous challenges. The issue of potential MBA candidates opting out of business school to go straight to the workforce, combined with the increase in schools dismissing the need for the exam when recruiting new students, were already a trend impacting the business over the last several years; moreover, the 2020 pandemic caused all global test centers to shut down for months at different times as the virus progressed in each country. This resulted in a large decrease of their primary revenue source (in-person testing), considering at that point all tests were conducted in person.

These challenges needed to be overcome with less resources compared to previous years, due to the impact of the pandemic.

Solution

In order to solve these complex challenges, we gathered data and insights from previous years of campaigns and built a robust, yet lean, paid media funnel where the target audience (potential MBA candidates) could be nurtured through their journey from initial awareness and engagement, to the purchase of test preparation products, all the way through to the exam registration.

Based on the historical data, we completely restructured GMAC’s campaigns across all platforms involved, resulting in a channel mix allocation which included paid search, paid social and programmatic display. Creative focused on each step in the customer journey to resonate with users whether they had not yet considered graduate management education, were merely considering it or were ready to purchase study materials or register for the GMAT exam. Specific and measurable KPIs were identified within each stage to gauge campaign success.

The carefully planned funnel, along with remarkably close monitoring of data through our analytics technology and intel, allowed for agile adjustments on all types of allocations from channels, to creatives, to global regions, with the objective of maximizing the efficiency of every marketing dollar.

Results

At the end of the most challenging year in recent times, the overhauled marketing strategy and implementation of the paid media funnel yielded extraordinary results. In 2020, there was up to a 55 percent improvement (decrease) in Cost per Lead and a 70 percent improvement (decrease) in Cost per Registration compared to the previous year (2019). We anticipate continued improvement throughout 2021 as well as funnel stage allocations are adjusted to fine-tune the structure.

55% YoY Decrease in Cost per Lead

70% YoY Decrease in Cost per Registration

Julie Slovin, GMAC Senior Director of Strategic Marketing notes, “The funnel performed so well that the performance gains that we saw this year I think were so significant that they sort of outweighed the market losses that resulted from the pandemic, from an advertising and marketing effectiveness and efficiency standpoint.” Click here for the full interview.

[Case Study]: Redefining CPG Media Mix for Immediate Growth

Posted on August 28, 2020September 10, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Mindstream Media Group has successfully partnered with CPG brands to develop local market media plans designed to measure the impact of strategic paid media elements on overall brand awareness and sales lift. This experience and unique perspective were leveraged to create a media mix strategy for a national kitchen and laundry appliance cleaning product brand.

Overview

The client’s previous approach to media was broad in structure and did not lend itself to observable test and learn scenarios, which is key to identifying and proving media mix effectiveness. We revised the setup of targeted media and implemented a carefully outlined, multi-market exposed versus control media channel delivery strategy. The result showed a large lift in year-over-year sales and armed us with insights for driving even greater returns with future campaigns.

Challenge

Increase brand awareness of and sales for a CPG brand amidst a stacked roster of brands in the cleaning product category.

Objectives

Modify the existing mass reaching, national approach of media delivery into a pinpointed selection of markets in order to measure and verify:

sales of core products
media channel value and opportunity for progressed application

Approach

Mindstream Media Group’s initial collaboration with our client involved mapping out historical sales data to visualize product sales by DMA. Once complete, we added retailer store count and population density per DMA to gain a better understanding of the opportunity landscape of each market. Test and control markets were then defined based on this data.

The test included 12 DMAs that were segmented into three groups (Control, Market A, Market B). Segments were grouped together based on Q4 2018 sales volume and DMA population density relative to the number of retailers within those DMAs. Within each group, there were also high, mid and low investment DMAs.

Market A and B segments were exposed to a consistent base media channel mix focused on new customer prospecting and re-engaging users at various touchpoints along the path to purchase. DMAs in Market B were assigned a variable media outlet/channel partner and had specialized delivery against them with an opportunity to engage users via this additional touchpoint. The contribution and return of this channel partner were assessed by online ROI reports and the effect on retailer sales within supported markets.

Control markets were supported only by national paid search efforts. All other media delivery was withheld to establish baseline market references for general year-over-year sales trends and the impact of media support versus none.

The goal of the test was to assess how media impacts sales growth of brand products and whether a certain media mix had a greater impact over others. Sales of three of the brand’s appliance cleaning products (for washing machines, dishwashers and disposals) were tracked relative to the following media channels:

Display
YouTube
Paid Social
Paid Search
Dynamic Digital Retail Partnerships

Hear more about how we proved the true efficacy of media and leveraged shopper marketing to boost sales.

Results

Both test groups showed a significant lift in both quarterly and year-over-year sales (2019 Q3 vs Q4 and 2018 Q4 vs 2019 Q4). Our first quarter of media partnership revealed an 89 percent lift in sales in A Markets and a 200 percent lift in sales in B Markets quarter-over-quarter.

A Markets – Q3 2019, 9% lift YoY / Q4 2019, 17% lift YoY / 2019 QoQ, 89% lift

B Markets – Q3 2019, 6% lift YoY / Q4 2019, 18% lift YoY / 2019 QoQ, 200% lift

A media-driven lift was visible in all three of the brand’s core appliance cleaners supported in the test:

Product 1 = Washing machine cleaner (65 percent budget allocated to support)
Product 2 = Dishwasher cleaner (20 percent budget allocated to support)
Product 3 = Disposal cleaner (15 percent budget allocated to support)

*LY = Last year *TY = This year

[Case Study]: Proactive Campaign Management Prompts Restructure – Results In 426% Lift In Conversions

Posted on December 20, 2019January 28, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Mindstream Media Group has successfully supported a long-term Fortune 500 financial services client with digital media solutions including Paid Search, Display and Video. To connect the brand with engaged prospects where they spend most of their time, social media was added to the mix. As the pilot program progressed, campaign tactics were continually tested, and findings were leveraged to curate more efficient strategies.

Overview

The client provides financial services solutions to investors via thousands of financial advisors in offices across regional markets. Paid Social support was first launched through regional Facebook campaigns with ads customized for each participating financial advisor providing personalized exposure and contact information. Since multiple financial advisors service the same zip codes, delivery overlap and saturation within the regional ad accounts developed within three months. Our Paid Media Strategists reviewed the overall landscape including campaign performance metrics to-date and general regional market data to map out a restructure strategy allowing for more optimal delivery.

Re-tooling the campaign to leverage regional clusters enabled us to scale a hyper-local focus according to market size and calculate the most effective way to utilize the budget while reaching the right audiences. Since personalized messaging was maintained with ads specific to each financial advisor, this improvement in efficiency led to a lift in leads at the hyper-local level.

Increased conversions across all markets indicated the restructured cluster campaigns produced a universally positive return across varying DMAs and market types.

Challenge

Individually promote financial advisors participating in the digital program in a manner that enables ad reach and media management at optimal market scale.

Objectives

Strategy for the social media campaign was geared towards boosting new client acquisition by generating qualified leads for individual financial advisors. Presenting potential investors with local financial advisors ready to service their needs also helped to personalize the brand.

Scaling delivery at an efficient cost to provide support for and exposure of individual financial advisors within the potential investor’s local area was critical.

Approach

Mindstream Media Group’s clustering methodology takes city populations within each regional DMA, the number of financial advisors servicing each city and the percent budget allocation that should be assigned accordingly into account. The result groups financial advisors into city cluster ad sets instead of individual overlapping location radius ad sets.

Assigned on a tiered but fluid system, the city cluster budget is directed towards ad sets that show the highest inventory availability during any given hour. This positions each financial advisor ad unit in a competitive manner within the Facebook exchange, allowing for effective coverage of their geographic service area while targeting their ideal audience segments.

Our city cluster solution has resulted in a significant increase in overall conversions (online client lead form submissions). Unique user frequency has also decreased, which enables greater exposure to reach new users across each regional market.

Results

Thirty days after implementing the regional restructured city clusters, conversion volume increased 426 percent, click through rate has doubled from previous monthly averages and frequency has dropped 1.5 times.

The new configuration allows us to spend monthly market budgets in full, enabling us to deliver 50 percent more impressions in respective markets. Although there was a moderate uptick in the CPM rate, the increased inventory cost shows promise of reaching a more qualified audience. Mindstream will continue to build on this success and optimize towards a cost per lead on par with other efficient lower-funnel channels.

Based on this positive trend, these data points will be used to establish preliminary benchmarks to measure the success of future social campaign performance against.

[Case Study]: GoWireless Partners with Mindstream, Boosts In-store Sales with Facebook Offers

Posted on November 13, 2019January 28, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Mindstream Media Group used Facebook Offer Ads to drive in-store sales over the holiday season for one of the top national wireless retailers, resulting in a 65 percent lower cost per in-store sale compared to link ads.

OVERVIEW

With more than 700 stores across the U.S., our client, GoWireless, is a Verizon Wireless authorized retailer, selling smartphones and other mobile devices, like tablet computers and wireless headphones, as well as pay-as-you-go and monthly service plans from the leading wireless network.

For its holiday campaign, GoWireless partnered with our team of experts to develop two campaigns: one that encouraged people to download a coupon from a branded landing page, and another to encourage people to purchase a new phone or wireless service plan using offer ads.

WHY ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK IS SO IMPORTANT

OBJECTIVES

Generate new leads at an improved CPA
Multiply in-store wireless sales
Increase sales for leading national network provider devices and service plans
Encourage people to claim a Facebook offer from the retailer over the holiday season

APPROACH

We worked diligently to create a connected experience across platforms and social networks. In addition to recommending platforms that had a strong brand presence, we also identified which platforms the audience cared about and was already active on to inform our strategies. Refined audience awareness and dynamic audience engagement were used to tap into existing conversations and shape new ones.

Facebook offer ads reach audiences through multiple touchpoints and create a more seamless mobile experience for the user, allowing them to claim promotions with the click of a button to:

Bookmark the offer on Facebook
Receive an email copy of the offer
Get notified when they’re near a GoWireless store or when the offer is about to expire

Analyzing and delivering against measurable KPIs allowed us to leverage audience insights to increase campaign efficiency and performance. Best-in-class specifications and methods to boost the potential for awareness and retention were also implemented to deliver ads in the most advantageous format possible.

RESULTS

The dynamic retargeting capabilities of the social platform allowed us to capitalize on audiences who were already engaged and willing to take action. Focusing on the real metrics that make a difference, we expanded our client’s audience to include like-minded users while certifying viewability of ads across all devices. This resulted in ads that connected with consumers in a meaningful way and made a real impact for the client.

The advanced targeting capabilities and engagement features of Facebook Offer Ads proved to be a great way to drive in-store traffic during the holiday season and promote mobile deals.

“We saw tremendous improvements this holiday quarter, especially for our Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s initiatives. The quality of traffic from holiday in-store sales proved to be much higher than any other digital media partner’s performance that we’ve worked with before, and as a result, we saw our holiday Q4 efforts producing significant ROI.”

The campaign was a huge success – more than 45,000 offers were claimed during the two-month campaign and our client reduced their cost per in-store sale by 65 percent compared to link ads.

45000 offers claimed; 10x more offer claims

Want to learn more about how paid social media advertising can help boost sales for your business? Contact us today.

[Case Study]: Mindstream Media Group Drives 14% Lift in Organic Traffic for The UPS Store

Posted on May 23, 2019January 21, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

No matter how groundbreaking and spectacular a website is when it’s first launched, it’s inevitable that the site’s design, SEO and copy will eventually become outdated. When this happens, it usually means the roller coaster thrill ride of a redesign is in your future.

If you’ve been through a massive site redesign, you understand the highs of seeing your beautiful new design come to fruition, as well as the lows of watching your website traffic stumble as search engines re-index your site.

The UPS Store site redesign

This is the situation that The UPS Store franchise development team recently found themselves in. After launching a redesign of its website in 2017, the brand saw the site’s ranking in relevant Google search results fluctuate. Thanks to their well-established brand, the site didn’t experience substantial traffic losses, but organic search visits did drop from the previous year.

For high-volume websites, even a small decline in visits could represent a drop in thousands of leads. To reverse the trend and make sure prospective franchise owners could still find the site, we implemented a combination of SEO and Content Marketing efforts to:

Increase earned and owned media sessions by 5 percent in 2018.
Increase the site’s ranking in relevant search results to make it easier for prospective franchise owners to find the information they need.
Produce engaging content to explain the value of franchising in general, as well as the value of franchising with The UPS Store.

How we amplified their SEO and Content Marketing strategy

Our holistic SEO strategy

Ranking well on Google demands an SEO strategy that optimizes all aspects of the website. For The UPS Store, we implemented a holistic SEO strategy focused on three main components.

Technical SEO
On-page SEO
Off-site SEO

Throughout 2018, we completed several major projects to improve these elements, including:

Link acquisition

Since Mindstream Media Group started a backlink campaign for The UPS Store, the link profile has steadily improved thanks to guest posting, manual outreach and other white-hat link building efforts.

On-page technical improvements

We updated the site’s internal linking structure, improved site speed, implemented title tags and meta descriptions backed by keyword research, added Schema Markup, updated much of the content and improved keyword rankings for several relevant high search volume keywords.

Accounting for algorithm updates

Google continuously updates its search algorithm to deliver the most relevant results. We monitored all the major updates for opportunities to optimize the site based on the latest SEO best practices. Here’s a look at some of the most significant Google updates in 2018.

Our Content Marketing strategy

Mindstream Media Group’s Content Marketing efforts included three main initiatives:

Updating and expanding webpage copy to help visitors find the information they need to become franchise owners and improve the site’s ranking in search results.
Creating blog posts to help prospects learn more about becoming a The UPS Store franchise owner.
Publishing blog posts on the website and Outbrain’s content network to reach a wider audience of potential franchise owners.

Our Content Marketing efforts went hand-in-hand with our SEO work. We used the keyword strategy and technical SEO tactics outlined in our SEO program to guide both webpage and blog content. This approach allowed us to create content that:

Was easy for search engine bots to read and index which helped improve the site’s rankings in search results.
Was informative and entertaining for prospects to read, which helped nurture leads and encourage them to become franchise owners.

The fruits of our labor

As we continued to implement our SEO and Content Marketing efforts throughout 2018, traffic to the website started to pick up.

Not only did the site’s traffic rebound from the redesign, but there were even more visitors than before.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, traffic to the site’s blog took off. We saw improvements in page views, time on site, entrances and bounce rate.

Thanks to our combined SEO and Content Marketing efforts, we exceeded our 2018 goal for SEO sessions by 8 percent.

Need help driving more traffic and leads to your website? Contact Mindstream Media Group to find out how our SEO and Content Marketing solutions can amplify your brand’s website.