Kinetic and Rocky Mountain College Takes Annual Fundraiser Virtual and To New Heights

Black Tie Blue Jeans is the biggest and most important fundraiser supporting student scholarships at Rocky Mountain College (RMC), a private liberal arts institution in Billings, Montana. Like almost everything else in 2020, this event had to be completely reimagined to keep students and attendees safe.

The traditional formal dinner with speakers, student testimonials and a live auction was out of the question, so RMC reached out to Kinetic Marketing & Creative to help it take this highly anticipated event entirely virtual.

While everyone misses gathering together as a community, we recognized that in this new digital format, there were also some big opportunities to connect with alumni who have since moved away from the area. These potential donors were not in attendance at the past in-person fundraiser event simply due to logistics.

Our goals included reaching this broader audience, connecting with potential donors outside of Montana and strengthening RMC’s online presence, brand awareness and messaging. Ultimately, the driving goal was to raise money for scholarships and impact the lives of RMC students.

AN ALL-OUT, MULTICHANNEL CAMPAIGN

We knew this year was crucial to infuse the emotional appeal for student scholarships in every aspect of the campaign, as live testimonies and personal interactions with students were impossible. Many assumed this year’s event would be canceled and time was of the essence.

The Kinetic team immediately kicked off what would be a hard-hitting, seven-day campaign by developing a general awareness plan that included content creation, social media strategy, digital ad placement and email sequencing to connect with as many RMC supporters as possible.

… and then we really got to work.

Collaborating closely with RMC administration and students, we created an impactful three-minute testimonial video, which we posted to the RMC auction website and social media accounts.

We also developed five separate emails, each with their own messaging and powerful call to action, and facilitated their automation. Our team then built out the imagery and content for their Live Auction and Scholarship Challenge pages via the OneCause platform ensuring ease of use, accessibility and clear on-brand messaging. Finally, Kinetic’s social media specialists focused on increasing engagement through Facebook and executed an intelligent ad campaign targeting both alumni and past donors finely segmented with regard to both contextual and behavioral triggers —regardless of their geographic location.

ABOVE AND LOOKING BEYOND

We didn’t stop there. Throughout the campaign we tracked and measured social media and website impressions, engagements and interactions to inform our next move based on specific intent. The Kinetic team also stayed in close contact with RMC leadership and administration to facilitate on-campus championing of the event to continue to increase event visibility and leverage influencer promotion.

At last, our entire team was thrilled to learn that RMC’s Black Tie Blue Jeans 2020 not only met and exceeded its ambitious monetary goal, its social media fan base increased by nearly 6,500 people, engagement went up by a whopping 15,060.9% and social post impressions grew by 915.1% over the previous month.

“EVERY DAY GREATER”

This is our motto at Kinetic Marketing & Creative, and while we love all of our clients and every opportunity to take part in creative projects, this is the kind of “greatness” that makes us especially proud.

Yet, even as we have the data, numbers and statistics to prove the solid outcomes of this campaign, some levels of success can’t be measured. Because RMC surpassed its goal and built deeper connections with alumni and donors both near and far, more students will have opportunities to transform their lives through education.