The Challenge
The Unity of Effort is Security Services Northwest’s (SSNW) annual community event that honors and recognizes military, veterans, first responders, law enforcement, and security personnel. It has been held for more than 20 years. The purpose is to say “thanks” to responders, while also bringing the community together for a family-fun, summer event.
Despite its longevity, many people in the Sequim and Port Angeles areas were unaware of the event. Previous marketing efforts had focused on word-of-mouth, Facebook advertising, and a few print ads, resulting in a limited audience. Since the campaign ran in the middle of election season, we didn’t want people to think the celebration was a political event or a political fundraiser. The name “Unity of Effort” also does not immediately sound like an event, which often leads to people asking “What is this?”
The Scope
One goal of the campaign was to promote the event as a festival, not as an event sponsored by SSNW. Advertising efforts put more attention on the festival itself and the responders, and less focus on Security Services Northwest being the host. We wanted people to think of this as a community festival, not a business event.
Additional goals for the 2024 advertising campaign included:
- Increase awareness of Unity of Effort.
- Draw attention to the festival itself, rather than SSNW hosting it.
- Increase attendance from last two years.
- Increase the length of time that people stay at the event.
The Project
Website: We launched a new website and obtained a toll-free number to use for Unity of Effort communication. This helped establish it as a separate community event rather than a company event. The website featured the event schedule, list of attendees, information about how to become a vendor, a map, and contact information. The web URL was used in all our marketing materials.
Digital Ads: Digital ads ran on the Peninsula Daily News and Sequim Gazette websites during a 3-week period leading up to the event. We also ran a “high impact” digital ad on the Peninsula Daily News website the week prior to the event. This featured a large banner ad that appeared at the top of every page of the website. All digital ads linked to the Unity of Effort website.
Newspaper Ads: Full-page and half-page ads ran in the Peninsula Daily News and Sequim Gazette newspapers. These are the two local newspapers that cover the Sequim and Port Angeles communities. Due to their hyper-focus on local news coverage, a large number of residents read them.
Radio Ads: A 1-minute “Save the Date” ad ran in July on the local radio station to draw attention to the event. In the couple weeks leading up to the Unity of Effort, we ran a more detailed 1-minute ad that included details of events. We also ran another 1-minute ad during this same timeframe that focused on the four musical acts that would be performing.
EDDM Postcard: A total of 18,000 6”x9” postcards were distributed via Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) across the 98382 zip code, which covers the Sequim area. This ensured that residents who missed our other advertising platforms were still reached.
City Banner: A banner hung across a main thoroughfare in Sequim a week before the event.
Save the Date Business Card: A “save the date” business card was distributed to local coffee stands so baristas could hand them out to customers. The back of the card listed the events and highlights of the Unity of Effort, and included a link to the event website.
Social Media Posts: We launched Unity of Effort Facebook and Instagram pages to further separate the event from SSNW. A few days before the event, we posted an “Event Guide” of images, which 40 people shared across social media. Videos and reels posted the day of the event also received a high number of shares and views.
The Outcome
The event saw a steady flow of attendees throughout the day, with a total estimated attendance of 2,500 people—our highest turnout ever.
- Social media posts received high organic engagement, particularly in terms of views and shares. The “event guide” post was especially popular, receiving a significant number of shares.
- Our new website experienced a surge in traffic, especially with direct visits.
- The high-impact ad campaign was incredibly successful, driving more referral clicks to the Unity of Effort website than any other source (including Facebook posts and internet searches). The website’s highest traffic day was the day of the event, closely followed by the day the high-impact ad launched on the PDN.
- We’ve had a page about Unity of Effort on the SSNW website for years. This page had originally been the primary source of Unity of Effort information before the launch of the dedicated website. Because of the page’s longevity, it ranked higher in Google searches than the new Unity of Effort website. During the week of the event, most of the traffic to the SSNW website was related to “Unity of Effort” searches, with the Unity of Effort page being the top-visited page for the month by new website visitors.