BlogHer Business Day One: Social Media Outreach Case Studies

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Case Study #1: General Motors

Synopsis:

Last November General Motors approached podcasters The Manic Mommies about sponsoring the first-ever Manic Mommies Escape Weekend. GM’s sponsorship focused primarily on providing transportation options toattendees.

Jill Whalen interviews GM's Natalie Johnson about GM's strategy for this kind of sponsorship, and Manic Mommies' Erin Kane about why Manic Mommies accepted GM's sponsorship, and what their attendees thought of the benefits GM sponsored.

Erin Kane: We release podcasts once a week, talking about lives as working moms. Started three years ago. One thing we discovered is that a lot of working moms felt lonely and isolated, resonated with what we were talking about, connecting online. Wanted to get our listeners together in a room -- these people need to meet each other. Started thinking about the escape as a weekend. First escape was last November in Newport, RI.

Natalie Johnson: GM got on a conference call one weekend with Erin and Kristen because we felt this audience might not feel as invited into a GM dealership as they might be if we sponsored an event like this. We wanted to give them the opportunity to ride in our vehicles. We picked the attendees up at the airport and brought them to the hotel. There was also a "ride and drive" component for those moms who wanted to test-drive the vehicles. We did have a route that they had to follow. The key point is that they had the opportunity to drive, but they didn't have to drive. It was just an option for them. Being shuttled in the vehicles was something they really enjoyed.

Erin: Our moms didn't want to feel like they were being given a sales pitch. Don't ask me to ask them to not get a facial to go drive one of your cars. GM totally got that. They wanted to add value for the weekend, so we asked them to pick people up at the airport so the moms didn't have to incur that expense. They would've had to rent a car or take a shuttle to get from the airport to the event. The next day they provided the joyrides and transportation to the mansion tours. The experience was so genuine. Everyone just kept commenting about how much of a value-add the GM relationship was.

In my pro life, I do PR, so it was interesting to be on the receiving end of a corporate pitch. I do know what companies want. We had about 100 people there for the weekend. It was a Friday night to Sunday morning event. It was our first one.

Natalie: (asked why this was worth it to GM for just 100 people) We want to build a relationship with these people. We didn't want to have brochures there, but some of the moms actually asked for brochures. We wanted to establish ourselves with this community.

How did this benefit GM? If you look at the results, they speak for themselves. Before escape, would you have considered purchasing GM? 36.6% said yes. Has perception changed since escape? >70% changed their mind. Would you consider purchasing GM after escape? 92% said yes. The experience we were trying to deliver -- we wouldn't have even thought it would have such a strong impact.

One of the comments made: GM is listening and trying harder. GM would do it again.

(asked if corporations should be doing this) Corps are going to have to consider doing things in a way that they haven't always looked at. Nontrad outreach efforts. Understand what people are saying about their products.

Erin: (asked if companies get it) They're trying to get it. Sometimes companies don't even know what a podcast is. It's not for every business. When we started doing this, we started in the garage. Everyone who's not making money probably thinks "why am I doing this? How much time am I spending on this?" We didn't get into it to make money; we got into it to make a community of working moms like ourselves. We don't beat ourselves up for not selling a lot of banner ads in the beginning. We have 40k downloads a month of