The best marketing only happens with the best data. Decisions always depend on the information used to make them.
Alejandra Serna, who goes by Alex, is the director of marketing at Vizcaya. She says, “Like any museum, we love research and data. We’ve done extensive visitor surveys, we look very closely at our Google Analytics and our social media analytics for all platforms, so we have a good sense of who our audience is and who our visitor profile is.”
But even with the time investment in surveys and analytics, there was still meaningful data she felt she needed greater visibility on.
Alex said, “Up until we started working with Feathr, we were unable to track conversions of any kind, for any digital ads. The main reason we purchased Feathr was because you guys can do that. Today, we track everything.”
A time of change
Before COVID-19, Vizcaya had a nearly limitless pool of tourists to market to. But since then, they’ve realized the need for a stronger base of local visitors and members to supplement that more unpredictable group of out-of-towners.
Alex says, “Pre-Covid, we were about 70% tourists and 30% locals, and that has almost flipped entirely post-Covid. Currently we are around 60% locals and 40% tourists.”
This type of adjustment in their audience has led to a reworking of the entire marketing strategy — because marketing is ultimately about serving and responding to a market.
Alex said, “And this is where Feathr comes in. I love geofencing campaigns, so we’ve heavily geofenced all of the high-traffic tourist areas: the port, the airport, all the hotel-dense areas, our top competitors, things like that.”
Part of the strategy was to ensure more tourists heard about Vizcaya, but they’ve also used geofencing campaigns to target specific neighborhoods with demographics they believe could be good matches for membership.
All of that initial research and data Alex collected began to pay off. She said, “So what we tend to convert for memberships is a slightly different audience that is maybe older, retired, has more time to come and spend a few hours at the museum.”
Reaching altitude
Peter Drucker, often considered the founder of modern management, said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” And this has been Alex’s perspective from the start: Gain real data points on marketing campaigns so that she can make incremental progress, resulting in meaningful growth for Vizcaya.
“It’s great to see actual conversions happening,” Alex said. “Prior to this, I had no idea what was working and what wasn’t. I didn’t know what platforms worked, what messaging, what images, because I had no idea what had sold anything. I had a pretty good sense of what generated clicks, but that was basically it.”
Today, Alex can see how each campaign is working down to the dollar and how it connects to her other campaigns.
Looking toward the future
But this is just the start for Alex and Vizcaya. In her first year with Feathr, she’s intentionally running campaigns on smaller budgets to learn what works and what doesn’t.
As a small nonprofit museum, budget is always going to be a factor. Alex said, “I’m always watching our marketing budget, so I’ve staggered our geofencing campaigns to spread the money out and do different tests in different areas. That way in October when I get a fresh budget, I’ll be able to budget even more strategically, knowing already which ones are the winners.”
This ability to see the numbers and build campaigns based on historical data has allowed her to build momentum within marketing.
Today, she can enter any meeting with a clear understanding of the performance of her campaigns, and this is what guides her toward her recommendations and future plans.
She said, “Feathr gives me the ability to see campaign progress with just one click. I don’t have to build anything myself like before. Today it’s like, ‘Oh you wanna see the update? Copy, paste, done.’”