Challenge:
After sponsoring a virtual event earlier in the year that did not meet expectations for attendance and engagement, Huttig turned to ER Marketing to help them create their own unique event, tailored specifically to their southeast region. The challenge was to create a virtual event that would lead to higher participant engagement and stand out in a saturated marketplace with so many trade shows moving online during the COVID-19 pandemic. ER Marketing was trusted to take full control over creative, communications, website functionalities, webinar facilitation and reporting.

Solution:
Our team developed a three-week online educational experience, called Build Your Knowledge, that provided Huttig’s customers in the southeast the opportunity to interact with both live sessions hosted by industry experts and educational industry modules. For each of the live sessions and modules the customers participated in, they received a $5 gift card and an entry for one of three grand prizes. The live sessions and modules were accessible on a microsite, which also gave them access to recorded live sessions that they could refer back to or watch at a later time, since professionals in the building industry were incredibly busy with increased business during this time. The promotion of the online educational experience included naming and logo development, several emails and two mini-campaign promotions with AirPod and Tile Tracker giveaways.

Summary:
Compared to the previous sponsored event, attendee participation increased by over 190% and led to over 35% of attendees completing at least one learning module. As a virtual event that did not have any external sponsors and was fully owned by Huttig, the high turn-out in participation with the online educational experience shows how strategy, creative execution and digital solutions provided by ER Marketing worked seamlessly to drive awareness of Build Your Knowledge and engagement with its live sessions and educational modules.