Emory Point
Challenge
Emory Point is a 80,000 sq. ft mixed-use development close to the CDC, Emory University and Emory Healthcare on the busy Clifton Road corridor. The development has national retailers and restaurants, unique local merchants and 300 luxury apartment homes in a pedestrian-friendly community.
Emory Point never held an official grand opening, instead opting for announcements as new merchants opened their doors. As a result, the development didn’t garner the public’s attention and many nearby residents were simply unaware that Emory Point was open for business.
The development turned to communications 21® (c21) for marketing strategies to cost-efficiently increase its visibility and traffic within the five-mile drive radius from the property and to capitalize on the happy customers who had already discovered Emory Point.
Solution
Realizing that the literal drive-by traffic was limited to those on Clifton Dr., c21 used the cost effective option of social media marketing on Facebook to create a virtual “drive-by” effect. Though Emory Point had a Facebook page, management was not actively posting or encouraging its merchants to post, and as a result the total number of followers was flat with only two to three new fans per month.
c21’s approach included revitalizing the page’s content and functionality to build fan engagement, combined with an ad and sponsored story campaign to drive new eyes to the page. Content changes included creating an editorial calendar to diversify post types, custom tabs and event listings.
c21 geo-targeted the ad campaign to drive traffic within a five-mile radius and limited visibility to those over 22 years old as the development had good awareness with Emory students who lived at Gables or down the street.
Results
Within one month from the launch of the ads, Emory Point’s Facebook ads received 146,211 impressions, 1,334 clicks, 869 actions and a 0.912% click-through rate.
Thrilled with the success of its trial run, Emory Point chose to continue running ads through the end of 2013. By the end of the campaign, c21 was able to grow their Facebook fan base by 595.6% – gaining 3,926 new fans.