Synopsis

The organizers of the World Series of Barbecue wanted to increase awareness for their charity poker event and shine light on the role that the Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas plays in the lives of the kids that participate in their programs throughout the year.  Every year, the WSOB organizes its annual event to raise money to help fund the programs for the BGCLV.  The organizers were looking for a way to reach a larger audience, increase exposure in markets outside of Las Vegas, and ultimately raise more money for the BGCLV.  They asked Vestor Logic to help.

Event Background

The World Series of Barbecue is an annual charity poker event that benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas.  Howard & Suzie Lederer began this annual charity event in their backyard several years ago. Each year it has grown, both in terms of the number of attendees and the amount it has raised for the Boys & Girls Club of Las Vegas. In the past, the marketing effort focused primarily on the enormous reach that Howard & Suzie have in their network of friends.  The 2010 event would be the first to include any social marketing initiatives as well as any defined online content strategy.

Goals & Objectives

Vestor Logic set out to define a clear set of objectives for both our efforts and the event as a whole.  The following represent our vision for both:

• Use social marketing to raise more money for the BGCLV than in previous years
• Build a centralized database of donors to serve as a base for future events
• Offer supporters a way to officially register for the event in advance
• Provide a secure way to accept donations online from supporters that cannot attend the event
• Share the experience with videos and photos from past events

Techniques & Implementation

Our initial meeting with the organizers revealed that very little, if any, social outreach had been used in the past.  Our first action was to establish the primary base for the event, in this case a Facebook Page.  We designed a welcome tab that was set as the default for all new visitors providing the basic details of the upcoming event along with media from events of the past years.  We used Flickr to aggregate a stream of images from the past year’s events which we embedded on the Facebook welcome tab so that visitors could access them easily.

We also created a Twitter account to share details about the upcoming event as it drew closer.  This account was integrated with the Facebook page feed.

Perhaps the most powerful platform that we leveraged was the Vertical Response email management platform.  We created a database for the event with separate lists that represented the sources for new registrations like Facebook, direct email, and past attendees.  We wanted to know where the registrations were originating from.  Because Nevada Gaming Law requires that the casinos collect all funds for the event, we just needed to register RSVPs.  Vertical Response allowed us to do this very easily and build the database for future events.  We will now be able to leverage this database for the 2011 event and even tailor the email correspondence to the platform that they originated from.

Our email marketing efforts were spaced about two weeks apart and over the course of all emails help to inform the participants of all the necessary details from buy-ins and re-buys to parking information.

We built out all of the creative elements for the event including the Facebook fan page, the custom Twitter background, a micro-site, the Flickr stream, and the email databases.  Once these elements were in place, we began the outreach efforts including regular Facebook updates, tweets, dedicated emails to past attendees, and the “Bankroll your favorite player” promotion.  This short lived campaign was used to establish financial support for a group of local celebrities that would be playing in the event.  Supporters could donate to their favorite player adding to their total bankroll for the charity poker event.  We launched this campaign just two weeks before the event.  Despite the short exposure, the campaign was very successful and encouraged supporters to share it with their friends.

You can read more about the specific implementations and techniques used here.

Results

We couldn’t be happier with the results of the 2010 World Series of Barbecue.  The 2010 event saw many new experiences for attendees and all measurable results showed sizable increases.  Here are a few of the most notable:

• 228 “likes” on the Facebook page
• 310 “followers” on the Twitter account
• Two satellite events were held by supporters which sent the two winners to the WSOB Charity Poker Event
• 68% increase in the number of paid entries
• 65% increase in the number of total players including comps
• 59% increase in total donations
• The event raised more than $217,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas

Working with Vestor Logic

If you would like to discuss your upcoming events with our team, just send us a consult request.  We would be happy to discuss how social media might play a role in marketing your event.