Results

With each piece playing a role in the success of the promotional campaign, the search campaign and site placement campaign generated approximately 25 million impressions and 85,000 clicks over the course of four months.

Without facing a significant cost increase above the average campaign for Starz, the Crash promotional campaign was highly successful—generating 32.5% of overall traffic and 40% of the subscription volume for that month from the paid search campaign and 46.1% from the placement targeting.

The social media monitoring services presented vital insight into the volume, location and type of “buzz” surrounding the Starz original series Crash campaign. By tracking a relevant keyword set, the SEM agency monitored a 670% increase in searches from October (when the series debuted) over the previous month.

The SEM agency working with Starz was able to provide detailed reports on traffic—including the quantity of Starz related mentions, the sentiment of postings and the relevance of where these mentions were occurring. This was a lofty task, considering the agency was able to track nearly 500 mentions related to Crash in the month of October alone. This vital information allowed the Starz digital marketing team to access timely customer feedback and sentiment as well as segmentation and demographics.

The Starz digital marketing team utilized this timely data to reach out to bloggers cited in the social media monitoring report and provide them with enhanced video assets and cast interview opportunities. It also clearly illustrated emerging social networking platforms where potential customers were gathering and discussing Starz content. This allowed the teams to concentrate efforts on select platforms and drive new sales leads.

Additionally, the social media campaign proved to be a type of market research for Starz, providing customer feedback without requiring surveys or other oftentimes unreliable info gathering methods. Due to the anonymity of the internet, online users are less hesitant to convey their true opinions about a topic. By scraping social media networks, collecting information and analyzing sentiment, Starz received invaluable information about their customers, information that is not as easily obtained from surveys, focus groups and prescreenings.

To effectively increase traffic, reduce cost and better understand one’s audience, online marketers must understand that paid search campaigns are not the only option. Starz’s SEM agency understood this concept when they used placement targeting in addition to the paid search campaign, which helped Starz reach a more tailored audience. The agency supplemented these campaigns with social media efforts, allowing Starz to discover audience sentiment and current online assets, monitor growth of conversation after the launch of Crash, provide unique experiences for dedicated viewers and better understand their audience’s mindset, helping to improve product development and future marketing efforts.