The competition among major country music events to attract fans is fierce. Among the top events is Dauphin’s Countryfest, an iconic gathering held every June for the past 29 years, making it the longest-running country music festival in Canada.

Countryfest is a non-profit that proudly gives back to its community by generating $10 million in economic impact from more than 14,000 attendees each year. In 2018, the event’s biggest need was to rise above its toughest competitors by maximizing fan impressions, engagement, and ticket sales.

CHALLENGE: Typically, a marketing campaign of this scope and scale requires a full year to plan and implement. However, Bauer Entertainment Marketing had only 90 days to get the job done. There wasn’t a minute to waste. Game on!

SOLUTION: BEM’s first priorities were to create a formulated content strategy, a content calendar, and targeted social media posts. In doing so, we focused on driving fan excitement, instilling “fear of missing out” (FOMO), and prompting urgency to buy tickets. The content calendar served as a platform for efficiently managing Countryfest’s marketing communications and distributing content. From experience with other clients, BEM knew this tool would be helpful in tracking and confirming campaign effectiveness by correlating content to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Such a calendar helps users map out original content for each target audience and strategically determine how and when content should be shared with fans.

RESULTS: BEM’s campaign for Countryfest exceeded the goal by generating an impressive 3 million impressions and 250,000 engagements via social media -- at a low cost-per-thousand impressions and per click. We verified nearly 1000 clicks via social media channels led consumers to consider making a ticket purchase. Estimating 25% of these clicks led to actual purchases, the total ticket revenue from social media during the three-month campaign produced an approximate 13X Return on Investment (ROI) for the client. BEM made the available budget work hard from day one, and the outcome brought big smiles to fans and management alike.

Here are some additional key wins that BEM delivered to Countryfest:

• 118% increase in Year Over Year (YOY) Instagram engagements

• 108% increase in YOY Instagram impressions

• 50% increase in YOY Twitter engagements

• 29% increase in YOY website visitors referred from social media

Your event rocks. So should your marketing. BEM can help make it happen! Start today by requesting our 3 free growth ideas.