Goodwill is a leading global non-profit that focuses on providing education, work-related services and affordable retail to individuals around the world.
Halloween is an extremely competitive season to sell costumes and related merchandise — both in stores and online. Goodwill Easter Seals wanted to be seen as the go-to retailer for affordable costumes across Minnesota. College students are always on a budget and they’re the perfect target market to promote this message to.
Goodwill’s main goals were to increase product recognition and brand awareness to college students, drive traffic to local stores and increase sales profits for the Halloween season.
To gain a competitive edge over other online and local retailers, College Marketing Group designed a face-to-face campaign intended to capture the attention of college students in an engaging and meaningful way. Using a combination of location media services and experiential campaigns, we partnered with Goodwill Easter Seals to target multiple university markets across Minnesota. These included:
To spread awareness, College Marketing Group first helped Goodwill display their brand’s messaging on the five campuses using location media. Our team handled printing, shipping, distribution and the placement on campuses.
We put up 420 posters on designated message boards and at the entrance to buildings, study halls, cafeterias, hallways and various high-traffic public areas.
A week later, CMG and our team of brand ambassadors dressed up in Halloween costumes hand-picked from the Minneapolis Goodwill store and distributed 5,000 discount coupon fliers to encourage visits to their stores. We managed every aspect of the event from planning and brand ambassador recruitment to on-site logistics and execution.
Along with engaging face-to-face with college students, College Marketing Group added a digital component to Goodwill’s campaign strategy. During promotion, CMG served digital ads to students by geofencing each university’s campus and geotargeting the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. We also reached students using keyword and contextual targeting.
There are many ways to measure campaign success. One of our favorites is when we see our clients return year after year. We originally launched this campaign in 2018 and Goodwill returned in 2019 to repeat the exact same strategy. Our marketing services enabled our client to:
To learn more about College Marketing Group’s services and how we can create a compelling and unique campaign for your brand, get a quote today!
