CIMA Not for Profit PR and Social Media Campaign
The Situation
• Founded in 1997 CIMA is a dedicated group of digital and interactive marketing professionals working to provide the Chicago interactive marketing community with opportunities to network, learn, and share expertise.
• CIMA was looking to grow its membership base and build awareness of the organization and it’s offerings in the Chicago marketing and digital world.
• Limited budget for marketing.
• All board members are volunteer so no full time staff to lead the marketing function.
Goals were to:
• Continue to build the credibility of CIMA as a thought leader in the digital world and to drive greater interest, involvement and membership in CIMA.
• Expand the penetration and membership support of the Chicago marketing community.
• Promote and increase awareness of the educational and philanthropic (Community Give Back) programs that CIMA offers and leads.
• Continue to support CIMA current calendar of activities and events in the Chicago market.
The Creative Business Idea and Solution
• Create the CIMA story.
• Focus on positioning CIMA Board members as thought leaders in the industry with bylines, Q&A articles and feature stories that include interactive marketing tips, advise and success stories. Also leverage personal brands of board members.
• Become more strategic from a social networking standpoint and concentrate on building and growing our follower base to make a larger impact.
• Conduct more giveaway’s, promotions and Facebook advertising.
• Enhance the CIMA Web site with more interactive and educational material that is updated on an ongoing basis such as videos on the homepage, video message from the President and a revolving blog.
• Raise brand awareness and stature on a national basis – expand beyond Chicago to penetrate key marketing cities/regions.
• Created Chicago Digital Start up Initiative Each year CIMA awards grant money and in-kind services to two start-up organizations in the greater Chicagoland area.
Initiative Logo
The Results
• 'Total Likes' increased by 81% since AGW took over the Facebook pages in short window of time
• Our posts views and comments increased by over 200% when taking over the Facebook page. The spike in engagement seemed to align with the timing of our events, further proving that event promotions should be a focus of our social media strategy as an effective, grassroots way to spread the word.
• PR Coverage for varied events and articles appeared in amongst others:
- Crain’s Chicago Business
- BtoB
- Advertising Age
- Wisecast TV.com
- Big Shoes Network.com
- Today’s Chicago Woman
- Examiner.com
- Chicagoist.com
- Media Post.com
- BuiltinChicago.com
- Technology Galore Blog
- Chicago Search Partners Blog
- Benzinga.com
- Technori.com
- NBC Chicago.com
• AGW set up CIMA SM master marketing calendar and timeline to be turnkey and drive results and to be managed more efficiently by team members on ongoing basis.