NMSDC adds one more touchpoint with digital advertising

I had a friend teach me how to change the oil on my Subaru. It hasn’t saved me thousands, yet, mostly because mechanics try to get you into the shop with a cheap oil change. But it did get me thinking, “oh, I can do this.”

Stefan Bradham, VP of marketing and communication at the National Minority Supplier Development Council Inc.® (NMSDC®) had a very similar situation when he jumped in Feathr and began to run marketing campaigns on his own.

“I mean, it's incredibly simple and easy. In the past I had used an agency and there were minimum spends, I didn't have control to tweak things if I wasn't seeing what I wanted, and all we would see on a monthly basis was a wrap-up report. I wanted more control over our advertising and I really wanted to run micro campaigns — start with something small and then invest in the things that were working.”

Part of the switch to Feathr was about control and knowing what was happening, but a large part was being able to put the money where it was actually working.

“The previous group that I worked with, the minimum spend had to result in about 200,000 impressions,” Stefan said. “And there were things that I wanted to test out to see if they worked. I think that sometimes you need quick little wins to get the bigger wins. And Feathr gives me the control to test things out and pick up small wins to invest in further.”

Turning the amp up to 11

Stefan knows how difficult it is to cut through the noise in the market today. And this understanding inspired him to do more than email and social. He thought adding even one more touchpoint might help him grab and keep attention. And attention is everything.

He said, “The sales funnel is broken. People don't come in from the top and then work their way down. They're coming from all different sides and times and locations. And so, to me, it's all about touch points. Some need an email, some need to see it on social media, some need to be reminded while browsing the web. You need to find people where they are and to remind them to come back to the ask. And so having that one additional reminder with a digital ad became essential for us. There’s so much noise to compete with.”

Digital advertising isn’t a silver bullet. It’s one piece of the marketing puzzle. It’s the way for you to turn the volume up from 10 to 11.

Stefan explains their process like this: “Historically what we've done are email blasts and social media. That was it. And so what I was trying to do was to bring more sophistication to close the loop — reminders — the type of thing that when someone hits a page, they're going to see an ad follow them.”

And the winner is... 

NMSDC saw the ticket sales they were hoping for, but that was just step one in their bigger ambition: to connect their audiences with each other. 

Stefan said, “Our annual conference is a place for our corporate members and suppliers to come together and learn from each other, showcase education, talk contracts and capital, and make connections.”

One of the ways that they connect these groups is by sharing educational content designed and delivered by their incredible community. The first year they asked for proposals, they saw around 180 come in, so the second year they wanted to see more.

Stefan said, “This year our goal was 200 proposals but we blew through that at 176% and saw 352 proposals come in. And part of our success came from retargeting. We had a couple of emails that went out as part of the campaign but anybody who hit the site to learn more saw ads follow them as well. We wanted them to understand that we were open for proposals and wanted to showcase their content and talent.”

And this isn’t even mentioning the geofencing that saw 96 clicks, and then once they hit the website, retargeting campaigns continued to bring them back.

What can't we do?

That was NMSDC’s first set of campaigns in Feathr, so they’re excited about what’s next, and Stefan is beginning to ask the question, “what can’t we do?”

He said, “There are a number of other things that I think we can use Feathr for – other programs, education, events, etc. And now we have data to show that it works. I've never been able to showcase the ROI here until now and if there's an ROI, I will throw more money at it. So these results are going to give us fuel to increase our budget going into next year.”

And with that increased budget, Stefan and his team can do even more to help make business in the United States more equitable and just.