Marketing
I started off as a Graphic Designer, but it morphed into marketing fairly quickly starting with my position at Calculated Industries. The Airshim was the most profitable marketing campaign I have completed. Every job since this campaign, I have managed all aspects of marketing, including but not limited to, Analytics, Social Media, Sales reports, Graphic Design assets, and even B2B marketing.
Airshim
Marketing Campaign
The Goal!
The goal was simple. SALE THE AIRSHIMS!
Upper management was unsure how this product would go, so they tossed it to me to try and sale the AirShim using any method I saw fit. This was the first product that was not a calculator for Calculated Industries. Their logic was, let’s see what where this would campaign would go. The goal was to make it succeed but if it failed, the loss would not be as impactful. I ended up taking a crash course in (SMART) Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.
Identify Target Audience
The original target market for the AIRSHIMS were construction workers and professionals that were already existing clients. Management also wanted to bring in a younger demographic that they had not reached before. With the younger demographic (ages 20-45), I thought a more comedic approach would be fun. I presented this idea and got a little pushback because it is something they never done before. Management eventually agreed that they really did have to try to think outside the box and see the results.
Budget!
I had to propose a budget plan of how much everything was going to cost. My budget plan had everything that I was going to do. Management had an original budget of $10k as they wanted to see the profit from the original campaign. Seemed doomed from the start, so had to make due to what I was given! At this point, I had to figure out what was important and what I could do as inexpensive as possible. I was unsure how much the video would cost but had the idea I could use the left-over money to put into META ads.
Develop Message & Content
The message was fairly easy. We had soft launch of the product already, so I asked management what the complaints were because I wanted to address it head on! One of them being “tacoing”. Other inflatable shims would go around the product instead of lifting the product up like intended. I would be using that often during our campaign. Addressing all the complaints head on was going to be our main message.
Choose Channels & Tactics
The tactic was to put money into the video and leftovers into META ads. I knew that I could do all the social media and photography myself, so a lot was riding on this video and the META ads. Our social media was nonexistent so I started all the Calculated Industry channels and made sure the AirShim was on brand with the company. We had all the extra footage from the videos and chopped them up in funny ways along with common internet memes.
Execute, Launch, Monitor & Optimize
After launching the product, I dumped the rest of the money into META ads and monitored them using Google Analytics with our website. At the time the CTR of Google ads was 1-2%. We had a CTR of 4% because of the fun/ creative video! That is all good, but where they buying the product? We made a separate link just for AirShims being sold through social channels. Our CVR was 2.5% which was right on average.
Result!
Management was more than impressed with the campaign and decided to put a lot of marketing dollars into it. The marketing budget went up to around $50k a month. After about a year, Lowes, Home Depot and Amazon started carrying the product. AirShim now has multiple versions and by far sales the most out of all Calculated products!
