CASE STUDY: Titans of the Toll Road

Targeted Marketing Set the Bar High for the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce’s Inaugural Titans of the Toll Road Event

Client: Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce

Executive Summary

Hosting a new event for the first time can be a marketing challenge. From establishing a brand to getting the word out, you’re starting from scratch. When the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce (GRCC) approached us about helping them tackle the branding and marketing for their inaugural Titans of the Toll Road event, our team was up for the challenge.

After a series of meetings with the GRCC leadership and the Titans of the Toll Road team, we were able to help pinpoint their goals, outline a plan to target each objective, and create custom elements to achieve those goals.

The marketing materials saw a higher than industry standard conversion rate and association average event attendance. In addition, the audience was engaged, and the event got overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees.

GOALS

  • Brand the Event

  • Create Brand Awareness

  • Drive Registration Traffic

RESULTS

  • 7x higher than the industry average conversion rate from the landing page

DELIVERABLES

  • Visual Identity

  • Sponsorship Flyer

  • Landing Page

  • Registration Flyer

  • Social Media Influencer Kit

  • Onsite Signage

Background

The Reston Chamber of Commerce created the Titans of the Toll Road event to bring together some of the biggest names in business for discussion about how being in the Reston area fueled their global success.

In October of 2021, the event featured speakers from Google, Microsoft, and Bechtel, who all chose Reston for their new locations or headquarters.

 

The How

DISCOVERY

The first thing we did was set up a meeting with the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce to get an overview of the event and an idea of what they wanted the event and marketing to accomplish.

From this, we determined that the main goals for this project would be to:

  • create awareness around the event

  • convert awareness into registration/ticket sales

  • help establish the event as a staple that could be repeated in the future

After these goals were outlined, we got to work brainstorming ways we could use our marketing and branding skillset to achieve them.

 

PUTTING IT INTO ACTION

Branding

To create effective marketing materials, we had to establish a clear brand for the event. Given the valuable brand equity of the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, we knew the best thing would be to create a visual identity building off the existing brand rather than an entirely new concept.

Sponsorship Flyer

We created a sponsorship flyer that outlined the sponsorship opportunities for the event. This incentivized businesses to support the event, which could help secure recurring sponsors.

sponsorship-flyer2.png
sponsorship-flyer.png

Landing Page

First, we created a landing page for the event. This page served as a microsite for the event and where we would drive traffic and measure the performance of our efforts using the page’s conversion rate.

Flyers & Ads

We also designed a registration flyer and eNewsletter ad in the Chamber newsletter promoting the event to boost awareness and encourage local businesses and professionals to attend.

2021-09403-TOTTR eNewsletter Ad-gal.png
email.png

Experience Design

Finally, we created signage that was used during the event itself. This included branded event signage spotlighting and thanking all sponsors.

All these efforts helped establish the event as a staple and worked towards making it something that could be repeated.

 
 

The Results

Analytics are the primary way we measure results for any of our projects. This allows us to pinpoint exactly how a specific marketing element performed and if it needs to be tweaked.

REGISTRATIONS

  • For the landing page, our goal was to get visitors to the site and then have them register for the event. We measure this using a metric called the conversion rate, which tells you how many people actually accomplished the task you set as your goal.

  • The conversion rate benchmark, meaning the average percentage of people that register after visiting all event websites, is around 5.2%.

  • Out of the total number of people that visited the Titans of the Toll Road landing page with the registration link, 35.74% registered. That’s more than 7x the industry average.

What’s Next

What’s next for Greater Reston Chamber’s Titans of the Toll Road? Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees and successful marketing efforts, GRCC has decided to turn this into multi-event series that happens throughout the year!

The marketing strategy and deliverables (landing page, flyers, ads, and social media kit) we created for them will serve as the base for their event marketing going forward.