Though they are not in the event management business, Mile Marker Club utilizes in-person events as both a stand alone product to deliver premiere wealth education in the alternative investment realm as well as a means to gain new members into their exclusive club. But with a goal of more symposiums in 2020 they needed high engagement and conversion strategies for their existing database of contacts.
THE CLIENT: Mile Marker Club
Mile Marker Club is an alternative investment group that supports Qualified Purchasers with tools and guidance for wealth preservation and accumulation strategies.
Ryan Parson began Mile Marker Club as a benefit to clients of his US-based financial planning company and also as a means to share his unique wealth strategies with others. As a former employee of corporate America, Parson found freedom he never could have imagined when he abruptly left the insurance world and began using alternative investments to build his own wealth. Having successfully navigated the economic crash of 2008, he knew he needed to share his tactics with others before the next crash.
Did you know the market is cyclical and tends to have a downturn every 10-12 years?
He began running investment funds, speaking on stages about his wealth accumulation tactics, and even authored a book Your Money CEO. All of his efforts lead him to build and support a community of like-minded alternative investors looking to diversify outside of traditional investment offerings.
Today, the net worth of his clients has grown along with Mile Marker Club, and he's looking to make sure they are optimizing marketing and lead generation in a similar way as they are optimizing investment opportunities.
THE CHALLENGE: Plenty of Contacts - Stuck in Low Engagement and Not Converting
With nearly 6,000 contacts in his database, Parson was sure he could get enough to attend a wealth education symposium. And he did -- in the beginning. Though his business was growing, symposium attendance was waining, and he still had low engagement from nearly 50% of his database.
He knew there were good contacts in his database that would benefit tremendously from the event, but he needed new ideas on how to get them to register.
He knew his tried and true email and phone call option of the previous few years just wasn't working since his conversion to HubSpot in 2017.
That's when they reached out for help. He needed 15 more people from his existing database to register and pay for the upcoming high-end wealth education event.
They felt HubSpot was the answer and started looking in the HubSpot Directory for a Colorado agency and reached out to us via our website's live chat (powered by HubSpot, of course). After a few conversations and two members of HIVE attending one of the symposium events in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, we had a kick-off meeting on October 29, 2019.
T-minus 16.5 weeks until their event and only 15 until our deadline to get 15 new symposium registrations. GO!
THE SOLUTION: Re-engagement with Personalization
Our mission was to engage within the database. The best way to engage with your database is by personalizing their experience. When you speak directly to them, when you use their name, when your email or web content knows them or how they are connected to your business, that creates trust and makes them feel heard and seen.
As an inbound marketing agency, we knew the tactics we were proposing would also benefit in attracting external prospects. We, therefore, proposed a multi-pronged approach centered around re-engagement, re-invigorating a conversation with existing contacts in Mile Marker Club's CRM database, and a singular CTA focus on educational content.
The Plan included:
A re-engagement four-part email campaign using personalization tokens, a video invitation from Ryan, a discount code, testimonials from past attendees, and image CTAs as the email headers. - Our basic social media management program included consistent posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, where we shared blog posts, an event flyer, newsletter info, speaker details, past symposium images, and a few links directly to the Symposium registration page.
- The Symposium landing page with a right sidebar form powered by HubSpot. (This came in handy when we needed to quickly change some text and was able to update and go live within minutes.)
- Symposium image CTAs
- Symposium video
- Symposium flyer
- Monthly blogging
- Monthly client meetings
- Project management in our client portal
User Experience Upgrades:
A few quick wins needed to be added immediately to enhance the UX as well as the tracking and automation of the symposium registration process. So while our copywriting team was researching and writing email campaigns and blog posts, we had the web and design teams upgrade their symposium webpage for:
- Ease of sign-up
- Refining and increasing symposium information
- Multiple ways to engage
- Visual appeal
- Data collection
HubSpot Tools and Analytics
By using HubSpot to create embedded forms in addition to WordPress modules, not only was the page more visually appealing with more engaging content to help someone make an informed buying decision, we could now better track the data of viewers within HubSpot.
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The addition of a HubSpot image CTA was used on blog posts and newsletter landing pages and also as email campaign headers. This CTA took visitors to the upgraded landing page rich with information, testimonials, and a video to see what a symposium would be like.
The re-engagement email campaign used HubSpot's workflow tool to identify low-engagement contacts and send regularly-scheduled, personalized emails from HubSpot that included a personal video from Ryan inviting them to the symposium.
The email campaign ran continuously for a week and a half prior to the event. Each time re-evaluating the send list based on who had completed the interest form on the upgraded symposium landing page.
The email was coupled with a voicemail push invitation from Ryan.
The final push and an ultra-personalized experience.
We had 11 registrants with only a few weeks left and more than 20 people that Mile Marker Club's sales team had identified on a hot list that were not yet paid attendees. We had gained so much engagement and determined that several low-engaged prospects were unqualified for the Mile Marker Club program, but we still needed more.
After a brainstorming session with the HIVE Strategy team, we decided to create personalized landing pages in HubSpot. Because of the time crunch to get these live and out in email, we decided to create each landing page manually, using personalization tokens in the URL, header, and footer of the page. We had Ryan create another video with a sneak peek-type message of what he was most excited about for the symposium. And then used the same HubSpot form on that landing page.
Mile Marker Club's HubSpot contact profiles had to be expanded to include the personalized URL so we could use a custom token in the body of the email that would redirect them to their own personal landing page and a personal message from Ryan.
The Results & Impact
So how did it turn out? By using HubSpot's campaign tool, we were able to connect all of the HubSpot tools to track progress across all assets in the campaign and fully see the impact we had created.
As you can see, our campaign was a definite success, with over $35,000 in new revenue attributed to the Symposium campaign! In addition to just adding new revenue, we were able to get a better understanding of the value of the Mile Marker Club contact database, who is a good fit and who isn't, as well as an understanding of what moves the needle for prospects they want to engage with.
Influencing 1,163 contacts throughout this time with a singular, high-ticket focus was no easy feat, but as we worked through the campaign, we were able to really identify the right people from within the database and speak to their problems and needs.
We're excited to continue to work with Mile Marker Club and their fantastic team to make each Symposium better than the last!
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