Table of Contents

Executive

Summary

In an environment where first impressions take place almost entirely in the digital space, effectively communicating an experience and building intent will be critical for Woodstock’s marketing plan to succeed. While online competition grows, travel minded consumers want to know what their Woodstock experience will look like, sound like, and feel like before visiting. They do not want to read about it. While consumer behavior shifts to a fully digital marketplace, a growing opportunity exists to leverage video content and deploy directly to screens in a qualified audience. 

The way consumers make decisions has changed – they are accustomed to a high level of digital engagement with an experience before entering a conversion pipeline – in this case, visiting the Village. Content is now the the basis for how these experiences are sold, and it can be leveraged as a lead magnet that captures a long term, unique-to-woodstock audience (traditional advertising). Once captured, this audience can be activated on a month-to-month basis with measurable impact (direct marketing). 

As a local agency with deep Woodstock roots, a working understanding of the town’s economic ecosystem, and existing on-site content commitments with the region’s largest economic engine, Class Four is the ideal choice to build Woodstock’s first content asset library.

For the strategy component of WEDC’s SOW, Class Four will implement an e-commerce inspired funnel that acts as both a driver of conversion intent, and at the same time, a data capture engine feeding direct marketing and paid advertising campaigns. In e-comm scenarios, all elements of a marketing plan work in conjunction, simultaneously, to create long term audiences that are controlled. As a consumer, your primary value to Brand X is not the initial purchase – rather it’s the compounding value of the lifetime of your patronage. Your first purchase provides Brand X with enough data to re-target you, year over year, until you convert as a repeat customer. In traditional place marketing, this is not generally the case. These campaigns are designed to attract a user now, and create a memorable experience, but lack the ability to re-target post visit, on a full audience scale. To put it simply, modern Ecomm strategy is focused on capturing, converting and re-engaging customers over a lifetime (data capture pe-vist), where traditional place marketing does convert an audience, but lacks the modern toolset to reactivate that audience over and over again (data capture is post visit, if at all). 

By treating a visit to Woodstock the same way we would look at a digital product purchase, our approach is not only highly unique, but highly effective – and by nature, entirely data driven from the ground up.

Class Four is uniquely positioned to meet and exceed the goals of WEDC’s SOW, as a cutting edge full service agency, and one of only three RED-camera production houses in the state. The ‘21 summer travel boom will already provide significant organic upside, however our focus is to carry this momentum to the 2022 calendar year and beyond– while expanding reach through paid placement, physical activation and organic management. The following proposal outlines an approach that fits within the WEDC’s desired scope, will exceed expectations, and offer a high level of trackability to prove value and offer key insights as scope expands.

Content

Production

Our creative team brings together industry experience from commercial and off the grid production. The result? A full stack production house that can scale at a moment’s notice. Some of the largest international brands trust Class Four with their ideation and production with millions of dollars in content attributed revenue. On a local level, our team also supports a growing number of small to midsize Vermont businesses.

Class Four is perhaps the only agency who can provide [within SOW] the volume of content production necessary to cover Woodstock’s asset development needs, and the level of quality necessary for these visuals to compete in an exceptionally competitive marketplace. Our team includes two Woodstock natives and a combined nearly 50 years hands on experience attending and engaging with Woodstock events and experience offerings. Members of the Class Four production team are also on site in the Woodstock Village on a monthly basis 

For a municipality to be effective in the social advertising space, the quality of production will need to match that of major resorts and place-based brands which capture the majority of digital ad traffic. In 2022, over 93% of all web traffic will be video. This content is the de-facto method for reaching audiences, and because of increased competition, ad quality and volume are now just as important as ad strategy. Neither will function to their full potential independently, so choosing the right content provider is more critical than ever.

Class Four is perhaps the only agency who can provide [within SOW] the volume of content production necessary to cover Woodstock’s asset development needs, and the level of quality necessary for these visuals to compete in an exceptionally competitive marketplace. Our team includes two Woodstock natives and a combined nearly 50 years hands on experience attending and engaging with Woodstock events and experience offerings. Members of the Class Four production team are also on site in the Woodstock Village on a monthly basis   

For a municipality to be effective in the social advertising space, the quality of production will need to match that of major resorts and place-based brands which capture the majority of digital ad traffic. In 2022, over 93% of all web traffic will be video. This content is the de-facto method for reaching audiences, and because of increased competition, ad quality and volume are now just as important as ad strategy. Neither will function to their full potential independently, so choosing the right content provider is more critical than ever.

Paid social assets are highly dynamic short content blocks that convert prospects to leads in 15 seconds or less. This is a prospects’ first touch point to Woodstock, and feeds the rest of the marketing funnel. For an in-feed ad to effective, attention must be captured in a highly limited timeframe — and, although all prospects within our audience are qualified, they may not have travel intent at the time of impression (viewing the ad). This means the quality and creativity in social ads must always be top-tier to provoke engagement.

Paid Social assets are highly specific to an audience and have the ability to highlight just one element of the Woodstock experience at a time. For example, the 25-35/yo outdoor focused affluent couples demographic will be targeted with hiking, mountain bike and adventure themed ads, while the 60-70/yo arts and leisure demo sees relaxing walks, geographic beauty, fine dining and ‘picture book’ visuals. Family decision makers experience Billings farm, the downtown shopping area, food offerings and more child centric content. 

Over the course of 12 months, Class Four will develop 20+ paid social assets to cover a wide range of demographics, interests, activities, levels of prospect intent and all three high traffic seasons.

These content blocks are the backbone of our direct marketing and retargeting campaigns. Over a 12 month span, Class four will build short form, 30s-90s video content that highlights Woodstock based events (ex. Wassail) and recurring experiences (Ex. summer at Billings Farm). This video content serves the function of activating and reactivating captured audiences as defined in our ad groups (Page XX). Year over year, these assets are deployed through email marketing and social retargeting. 

Content Deployment Across

Customer Journey

Our strategy builds an effective customer pipeline that works full time engaging new audiences, capturing leads and driving traffic to Woodstock. Engaged audiences see only content and messaging that are relevant to their interests, creating a tailored digital experience of Woodstock, prior to visit.

Before campaigns can function at full efficiency however, a significant margin of the first year spend will need to be directed toward asset production (Top of funnel). At the same time, improvements will be made to the town website landing pages – including restructure of the home page to better serve the information travel minded consumers are looking or (Bottom of funnel). In addition, a low friction lead magnet will be integrated where we expect to capture a minimum of 5-10% of all web traffic through giveaways and merchant-promotion campaigns. This robust data capture engine will feed monthly direct marketing campaigns and provide key insight into Woodstock’s primary engaged demographics (location, interests, age, etc)

Class Four will leverage existing relationships with the local merchant and lodging community to establish promotions and giveaway incentives that are incorporated into the flow strategy. This provides the greatest incentive for voluntary lead (data) capture.

Our strategy builds an effective customer pipeline that works full time engaging new audiences, capturing leads and driving traffic to Woodstock. Engaged audiences see only content and messaging that are relevant to their interests, creating a tailored digital experience of Woodstock, prior to visit.

Before campaigns can function at full efficiency however, a significant margin of the first year spend will need to be directed toward asset production (Top of funnel). At the same time, improvements will be made to the town website landing pages – including restructure of the home page to better serve the information travel minded consumers are looking or (Bottom of funnel). In addition, a low friction lead magnet will be integrated where we expect to capture a minimum of 5-10% of all web traffic through giveaways and merchant-promotion campaigns. This robust data capture engine will feed monthly direct marketing campaigns and provide key insight into Woodstock’s primary engaged demographics (location, interests, age, etc)

Class Four will leverage existing relationships with the local merchant and lodging community to establish promotions and giveaway incentives that are incorporated into the flow strategy. This provides the greatest incentive for voluntary lead (data) capture.