Don’t miss the latest news about the winner of our $30k Advertising Campaign Contest: Holyoke Sporting Goods!
Diverse business enterprises (DBEs), women-owned enterprises (WBE), and women-owned small businesses (WOSB) face unique challenges within the advertising industry. Navigating the ever-changing marketing landscape is difficult itself, let alone during a pandemic.
Marketing Doctor, a WOSB/WBE, was fortunate to grow during a developing, ongoing pandemic. Many small- to midsize DBEs, WBEs, and WOSBs, however, faced adversity. Our President and Founder, Janet Casey, did not take our growth for granted. Instead, she saw an opportunity to pay it forward within the community.
Earlier in 2021, we opened the $30k Advertising Campaign Contest to small- to midsize DBEs in our local community, Western Massachusetts. Guided by the winner’s goals, the Marketing Doctor team planned to develop and implement a comprehensive, customized campaign complete with a thorough media plan, media placements and creative consulting. Leveraging our award-winning media planning and buying expertise (and unparalleled enthusiasm), Marketing Doctor sought to increase brand awareness and sales for the winning organization. We were thrilled at the opportunity to help a local business get back on its feet and grow.
October 15, 2021
A panel of local business leaders reviewed applications, met with finalists virtually, and chose a winner. On October 15th 2021, Marketing Doctor announced Holyoke Sporting Goods, a local, woman-owned business, as the winner of the $30k Advertising Campaign Contest. Generous support from additional media sources–WWLP TV22, iHeartRadio, and Stand Out Truck–boosted the approximate value of the advertising campaign to $40k!
Holyoke Sporting Goods supplies competitively priced, brand name sports merchandise to local teams, schools, organizations, and businesses. Competing with large, online retailers has proven to be challenging for a small family business—even with 93 years of experience and history behind it. Supply chain issues have had an impact as well. To remain competitive, we recommended first updating and optimizing the website, and then executing a strategic marketing campaign that would help boost sales during the store’s most historically fruitful seasons.
December 2021
Since October 15th, our team has worked closely with Betsy Frey, owner of Holyoke Sporting Goods, in the Pre-Launch Design and Implementation phase (Phase 1) of the campaign.
Our team facilitates biweekly check-in meetings with Betsy. We provide updates on design progress and receive her feedback on any Phase 1 deliverables.
The Marketing Doctor design team created mobile and desktop wireframes for the Holyoke Sporting Goods website. We are collaborating with a trusted website development agency to implement the designed wireframes. Other Phase 1 updates include: newly designed logo options, business cards, and eblast templates.
January 2022
New Year, new Holyoke Sporting Goods logo, business cards, and website design! We are thrilled to collaborate with the winner of our 2021 $30k Advertising Campaign Contest to bring new, exciting developments to life in 2022.
The newly designed Holyoke Sporting Goods website launched on January 18th, with a fresh logo right at the top of the home page. Working with such a beloved, long-standing local business to revitalize its historic brand and grow awareness is an honor for our team.
The Marketing Doctor team is actively working with Betsy Frey, owner of Holyoke Sporting Goods, to finalize the media plan. This includes:
- Producing a prime TV spot and radio commercial
- Building a competitive email blast template
- Developing a robust content calendar
As always, we will continue to update this blog page with all things Holyoke Sporting Goods. Stay tuned!
February and March 2022
As our collaboration with Betsy Frey, owner of Holyoke Sporting Goods continues, the Marketing Doctor team is excited to share the latest update since the newly designed website launched. We filmed the TV commercial! For this project, we:
- Focused on themes such as the store’s Holyoke pride, longevity within the community, and its various product offerings, including custom team uniforms, corporate apparel, equipment, and more.
- Worked efficiently bringing various shots to life that capture every aspect of the store. We can’t wait for the community to see this special place!
Want to see more behind the scenes clips from Marketing Doctor? Follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn).
Don’t forget to keep an eye and ear out for Holyoke Sporting Goods on TV and radio in Western Massachusetts!
April and May 2022
We are LIVE! We are excited to share that the multi-channel advertising campaign is live on traditional media & digital media channels, including:
- YouTube
- Local Radio
- TV
The goal for this campaign is to increase brand awareness, ultimately helping Holyoke Sporting Goods acquire new customers and boost sales. By optimizing the campaign and engaging in daily data analysis, we actively measure the key performance indicators tied to the objectives. Monitoring performance regularly means we can pivot quickly if necessary. Throughout the campaign, our digital and traditional media buyers will continue providing custom reporting with insights and recommendations for how the local business can continue growing their customer base. By applying advertising attribution methods on a local level, we know what media channels are bringing in the most new business for Holyoke Sporting Goods.
From the start of the contest to now, we are thrilled to share that the total campaign value increased from an anticipated $30,000 to $52,500! Thank you to our partners at iHeartRadio, WWLP, WGGB, The Holyoke Reminder, and Stand Out Truck for their contributions to this campaign!
We love collaborating with the owner, Betsy Frey, to fulfill her goals, and we’re proud to be making an impact.
“I know the commercial is working. Several customers have come in who told me they saw it and these are new people. I am truly amazed at the job the Marketing Doctor crew is doing.” -Betsy Frey
June and July 2022
Our collaboration continues! The campaign runs throughout the summer and will wrap up with Fall promotions to local schools. It’s been an honor to be a part of the company’s growth via traditional and digital media planning and buying.
The month of August will include a Facebook campaign to drive traffic to Holyoke Sporting Good’s online school/spirit store, where Betsy makes custom online shops for people to purchase school apparel, uniforms for sports leagues, and more!
Ad messaging in the upcoming months will feature:
- Preparing teams and schools for the academic year early
- Reaching athletic directors and decision makers in the school system
Record-breaking results are rolling in! The Facebook click through rate is 81% above industry benchmark and the view rate on YouTube is 66% above industry benchmark! We anticipate more success as we continue to execute a lead generation campaign as well as a traffic campaign driving users to the website.
As always, we are excited to work with Betsy and watch her business grow!
August-October 2022
The last stage of our paid media campaign with Holyoke Sporting Goods focused on the company’s School Store offerings. Our team ran a lead generation and brand awareness campaign on Facebook/Instagram to support the business during this busy season.
Holyoke Sporting Goods provides custom online school/team/organization “stores” where people can buy swag with their logos and other products. The goal of their “School Store” campaign was to generate new leads and remind repeat customers to put in their School Store orders throughout August — preventing an influx of last minute requests at the end of the month and in early September. The campaign also included a form fill, encouraging leads to provide their contact information and share additional, important details about their product preferences.
The campaign garnered impressive results in a short timeframe! The average CTR performed 70% above platform benchmark, and campaign video ads achieved 15,560 views, demonstrating strong engagement. Schools from surrounding towns placed a variety of orders for products showcasing school spirit.
What a way to start the school year and complete our journey with Holyoke Sporting Goods! It’s been a wonderful experience to collaborate with Holyoke Sporting Goods owner, Betsy Frey, and to work with this beloved local, woman-owned small business.
November 2022
Thank you to Holyoke Media for welcoming our President and Founder, Janet Casey, and Betsy Frey to reflect on the impact of the $50,000+ value campaign over the last year!
Betsy shares, “It’s been quite the year! Marketing Doctor’s been wonderful. They’ve done everything they said they would do. They redid my business card, they redid my webpage, they helped me with advertising…. They were very, very accommodating, very easy to work with. Everybody I met who worked there was impressive.”
Watch the full interview here.
