Aldersgate Holiday Lights Tour
Direct Lead Gen / Account Management
3rdThirdMarketing
Nov-Dec 2020
Covid-19 shut down Life Plan Community marketing as we knew it at 3rdThird. With ‘IRL’ events out the window, my team got creative with content marketing, webinars and virtual tours. But when it came to securing twelve million-dollar sales contracts in the final month of 2020, we knew we had to go a little bigger for our client Aldersgate Life Plan Services.
In collaboration with Aldersgate’s Shamrock Campus team, 3rdThird developed a successful event marketing campaign within several 🔥weeks, and helped this client pull off their inaugural “Festival of Lights.” This event not only secured contracts to hit sales goals before the end of the year, but also delivered unprecedented local involvement — bringing together community members across vendors, leadership, workforce, residents, families and new prospects.
The holiday crunch:
Client, middle of November:
“We need 12 new prospects to sign before Dec. 31.”
I was like, sure.
Planning & Fundraising
To pull off such an ambitious sales goal, we knew we’d need to get prospects out to see and experience Aldersgate’s magnificent 231-acre campus for themselves. A virtual event wasn’t going to cut it, but Covid-safety was a very real concern.
In a brainstorming meeting, I threw out the idea of a driving tour, and we ran with it: what if we invited prospects and the surrounding community out to experience a magical holiday festival on a massive scale, all from the safety of their own vehicles?
With this flyer, we asked local vendors and partners to sponsor decorations, tree by tree. Our client received over $40,000 in sponsor funding within a week, and decking the halls began in earnest — while at 3rdThird, my team went into promotion overdrive.
Promotion & Advertising
With Aldersgate’s Marketing Director hanging lights for days at a time, my team had a quiet inbox moment to plan & execute separate key tracks for event promotion:
Existing Leads — Nurture Track
Direct Mail - trifold, personalized invitations to the event of the season. Delivered in-home to waitlist and Future Resident Club members.
Email (at left) - a follow up that hit inboxes a few days later.
New Leads — Prospecting Track
Facebook & Display - smart Lookalike audiences built from successful Mailchimp lists & behavioral data.
Local Print, Radio and TV spots.
Community Outsiders
We rebuilt the campus map in the client's new brand colors, and included a direct, 1-way route for event visitors. We decided to keep the hot cocoa, cider and Santa visit along the path a surprise.
As a folded 11.5 x 17, this piece showcased the map on one side, and the community's event and promotional offerings on the other. (Yes, I attempted multiple times to cut this copy by 80%... you should've seen what the client initially requested we include.)
Pulling It Off
Over 500 cars of prospects and families showed up for this feel-good event.
Wordsmith CEO Suzanne spoke under a shower of fake snow, surrounded by the incredible team that made the event possible — and from afar, we made sure every minute was captured for future promotions.
Results & Reporting
Happy holidays.
Not only did Aldersgate secure the 12 apartment deposits they were looking for, but also filled the sales funnel with 101 qualified new leads captured by the website. In total, 198 leads were captured across all channels in the month of December, setting a new standard for the holiday season.
The traffic of our dreams.
Aldersgate’s two sites (really, don’t get me started) received a record number of High Potential Visitors in December, more than double that of the previous December. Direct mailing to a quality leads lists, and a little bit of viral Facebook interest, secured early success with traffic spiking in the weeks leading up to the event.
Legs on Legs
Aldersgate’s Holiday Lights Driving Tour was a by all measurements a breakout success, bringing cheer to senior residents, workforce, and community members from all over the Charlotte area, and serving as a testament to the power of a community mindset in a dark time.
Next year, Aldersgate looks forward to bringing the event back, and promoting it to an even broader audience with the incredible video and photo content captured at 2020’s inaugural festival.