I’m headed to Miami to speak at Mom 2.0 (which is a conference I love) and am so impressed with my friends at Hallmark and their Card Showers from Hallmark promotion. First of all, I’m slightly biased by Hallmark because they’re a hometown company, so I’ll admit that.
But I speak at a lot of conferences and see a lot of brands failing when it comes to maximizing ROI on their sponsorship, participation, etc. So, when I see someone doing a bang up job, it makes me happy. When it’s a company I love, that’s also headquartered in my hometown, even better.
So here’s the story. Card Showers is a new online service that makes organizing “card showers” for people easy and fun. Hallmark’s agency Fleishman-Hillard partnered with Hallmark to introduce this new card-sending platform as part of a promotion specifically designed for Mom 2.0. Exclusivity? First peeks? Always good things.
Card Showers is Pretty Cool. Here’s Why.
- Anyone can start a Card Shower. They just visit the platform on Hallmark.com and set one up (easy, breezy);
- Then they can invite friends and family using email or Facebook (not only relying on social media, which is smart);
- When people join the Card Shower, they can purchase a card online, at a Hallmark store or (even better) use a card they already have to send as part of the event (smart).
I can see this having tons of applications for other events and special occasions, which is the whole point of launching a campaign like this at a parent blogger conference. Clearly, Hallmark knows who their target audience is, where to find them and how to identify and, more importantly, bring value to and connect with people who are sure to be early adopters and devotees.
For Mom 2.0, the folks at Hallmark wanted to do something special for the conference attendees. And if, as a brand, your conference participants/sponsors aren’t on your radar screen, well, what are you thinking? I digress. As part of the promo, the team invited Mom 2.0 participants (most of whom are bloggers and totally dialed into the digital space) to nominate the mothers in their lives who deserved to be surprised with a mailbox full of best wishes.
The concept was to do a call for nominations of moms who would be attending Mom 2.0 and then select three finalists. Those finalists will ultimately be featured in Hallmark’s suite at Mom 2.0 and will be showered at the conference with cards from attendees, bloggers who can’t attend the conference but participate online and Hallmark employees. Hallmark will have a variety of cards at Mom 2.0 for attendees to add to the Card Showers.
How They Did It
Hallmark and their agency was smart about laying the groundwork for this campaign. They had an idea and worked through the folks at Mom 2.0 to communicate the card sending ask to conference attendees via Mom 2.0’s email newsletter and social channels.
Additionally, they did blogger outreach with bloggers that they’ve worked with before, to ask for nominations and to help spread the word.
They communicated the nomination and card-sending opportunity via @HallmarkPR on the #Mom2Summit hashtag.
And then, once the three finalists to be honored at Mom 2.0 had been selected, the team emailed the people who nominated the three finalists, walked them through setting up a shower on the Card Showers platform and asked them to help promote card sending.
Additionally, Hallmark will encourage bloggers who can’t attend the conference to send cards for the shower via the platform. Bloggers who are attending can send cards from Hallmark’s suite at the conference, so it will be a fun and interactive thing for participants to do. And then the cards will be presented to finalists at the conference
What do you think the moms and dads attending Mom 2.0 (yes, it’s a parent blogger conference, not just for moms) will think of Hallmark after this campaign? Think they’ll be more likely to patronize Hallmark, who’s now made an impression on them and scored a place in their hearts or some other retailer? I think Hallmark did a really good job here – what about you?
Kudos to the team at Hallmark and to my friends at Fleishman-Hillard. I think the Card Shower concept is terrific and look forward to seeing it in action in Miami at Mom 2.0. More importantly, if you’re a brand looking to make an impression at a conference, do your homework. Add value, don’t just send people to man your booth. Do something unique, original and exciting. It can make all the difference in the world.
Image via Hallmark
Shelly Kramer is the founder and CEO of V3 Broadsuite (V3B), Senior Analyst and one of the founding partners at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked with some of the world’s largest brands to lead them into the digital space, embrace disruption and the reality of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of Digital Transformation. As a brand strategist, she has decades of experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, and driving strategy and growth for B2B brands across multiple verticals.
