The HOK Planning Group - Email Marketing

Challenge

The HOK Planning Group, a master planning and urban design division of HOK Architects, one of the world's leading design firms, wanted to communicate directly with its target audiences via an environmentally-friendly medium that provided measurable results. As pioneers in the movement toward sustainable architecture with its development of live/work/play communities, HOK saw the need to "walk its talk" for its marketing efforts as well. Its latest work, new experts, awards, etc., needed to be communicated in an eco-conscious way to uphold the company's fundamental philosophy.

Solution

c21 recommended and launched HOK Planning's bi-monthly e-mail newsletter program, which delivered information directly to recipients' inboxes with no printing or postage necessary. c21 and The HOK Planning Group developed an editorial calendar and responsibilities' timeline and partnered with HOK to write articles. In addition, each newsletter provided a link to at least one outside source of information (e.g., the Congress for New Urbanism Web site), which lent added credibility. c21 included a "forward to a friend" feature, which allowed us to virally grow the distribution list. In addition, c21 designed each story to be teaser length, driving traffic to HOK Planning's site to read the complete story.

Results

The e-newsletter became an integral part of The HOK Planning Group's overall marketing effort. The recipient list grew from approximately 750 to more than 6,000 in six months, and each newsletter averaged an open rate of approximately 45 percent. The e-mail newsletter also doubled visits to The HOK Planning Group Web site, making it an integral component of HOK's business development and marketing strategies with each distribution. The newsletter was such a success that HOK Architects has expanded the program to all of its divisions, decreasing the company's reliance on printed collateral.