Objectives & Marketing Strategy

Develop and maintain the CIFD conference website, as well as launch and manage the marketing campaigns and email communications needed to create awareness and drive ticket sales for the event.

Communications Strategy:

The key objective for all stakeholders is to raise awareness for the first annual CIFD conference to ensure everyone including sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and attendees are excited about the event.

The primary touch point for the event will be a dedicated conference website. A multi-faceted, mobile-responsive website is required, as it has to inform a variety of different audiences, support the marketing campaigns, and facilitate ticket sales. Everything from the speakers to the main event agenda, breakout sessions, sponsors, exhibitor registration, floor plan layout, social media and press info, as well as ticket purchases has to be supported by the site.

CIFD and Green Dot will work closely together to develop and maintain a content calendar one month in advance starting six months leading up to the event in 2018. Green Dot will manage, maintain and update all content on the CIFD conference website, social media channels and email communications to deliver a seamless experience for end users.

Green Dot will actively manage and optimize paid ad campaigns on the search engines and on social media to promote the event and drive traffic to the website. The agency will manage the media budget, as well as track and analyze campaign results and submit a formal report on a monthly basis. In addition, we recommend considering ad placements in industry focused print publications such as WWD or using a PR firm for press coverage to support the digital marketing campaigns.

Email communications will be administered via Hubspot (or a comparable marketing automation platform) and Green Dot will work with the CIFD in-house staff to design, develop, test and blast out email announcements, as well as setup and automated email drip campaign to nurture leads and attendees as needed.

As the event gets closer, the level of activity and services provided increases. This proposal includes an outline updates, content development and related services.

We suggest the following schedule for campaign roll-out for 2018:

Asset Development: September – December

During this time period Green Dot will work with the CIFD to determine the final scope of the website development project, as well as the supporting third-party technology platforms that need to be integrated (potentially SCHED, Eventbrite, Hubspot, etc.). The heavy lifting for the design and development work of the conference website is slotted for this time period.

In addition, this is the time period during which the media strategy has to be finalized in order to ensure that the site contains all of the necessary landing pages and content needed to successfully pitch sponsors, partners, exhibitors, and attendees.

Marketing Launch: September -December

Green Dot suggests running a brand awareness and teaser campaign for the conference and the CIFD in general to ensure that anyone in the fashion industry who could benefit from the event becomes aware of the CIFD and the role it plays prior to asking for ticket sales.

During this time the focus would be to build up the social media following, nurture followers with content, insights and information the CIFD can provide, seed email lists with subscribers and leverage any available PR to create a buzz about the CIFD and the conference.

Registration Period: January – April

We suggest opening early bird registration in January, and focusing on the main registration between February and April. During the months of November and December ad prices are extraordinarily high due to the holiday season, and competition for inbox space is also at a high.

Opening early bird registration right after the holiday shopping season will allow us to reach more people in a cost-effective way when registration prices are at their most affordable. In addition, we can leverage the awareness that was created during the pre-registration phase.

Website work, email campaign management and social media management will ramp up as we move closer to the conference date.

Conference: End of April or beginning of May

During the month of the conference, website updates and campaign work will ramp up to their highest level. Green Dot will also provide on-site marketing support during the conference.

Post-Conference: May

During this time period Green Dot will work with the CIFD eam to review the results and make a plan for 2019. The website will be updated as needed and marketing communications will continue at a reduced pace.