PR Case Study: Disastrous Best Man Speeches
When wedding accessory and stationery supplier Bride & Groom Direct wanted to enhance its online visibility and SEO, PR agency Search Laboratory devised a campaign to tell customers’ true stories of disastrous best man speeches with the help of miniature Lego figures. The campaign went on to lead a 10% revenue increase YoY.
Campaign: Disastrous Best Man Speeches
Client: Bride & Groom Direct
PR Team: Search Laboratory
Timing: March – May 2016
Overview
Bride & Groom Direct, established in 1993 and a CCA Occasions brand, is the leading supplier of a range of personalised wedding accessories including invitations, favours, and save the date cards. With a reputation for quality and service, the company provides both products and advice for couples planning their wedding day.
Bride & Groom Direct began working with SEO and PR company Search Laboratory in January 2016. Tasked with increasing visibility and online revenue by improved search engine rankings, a campaign was devised to capitalise on true stories of disastrous best man speeches, collected from customers and social followers of the Bride & Groom Direct brand.
On signing with Search Laboratory, key performance targets were set to work towards online coverage in both the wedding niche and wider mainstream media, in order to increase awareness and visibility of the brand in search rankings leading up to the summer wedding season.
Objectives
- Create and implement a PR campaign to gain coverage and links on high authority sites
- Boost overall search rankings
- Increase traffic to the Bride & Groom Direct domain
Strategy
Bride & Groom Direct already has a loyal customer base (which extends to its following on social media) of largely female customers. This provided a pool of engaged people to gather funny and embarrassing stories from involving best man speeches. This topic would be interesting for a cross-section of demographics, not just Bride & Groom Direct’s largely young, female audience.
Preliminary, research for similar stories that had been covered by major target publications in the past showed that outlets such as The Telegraph and the Metro had written about the topic area. However, this revealed a gap for similar content to originate from a brand with an active community, effective research, and professional imagery.
Using the stories as a basis, pictures were created using Lego mini-figures to depict the funniest stories set upon a wedding cake. This was done to increase the shareable nature of the piece and grab attention.
It was clear when planning the campaign that the success would depend on two elements: the strength of the stories, and the execution of the imagery. Collection of the stories was conducted via social media with the use of seeding towards relevant wedding-related keywords and accounts. The favourite stories were chosen from the data set with image creation in mind to make full use of the creative license that the Lego figurine cake-topper scenes provided.
On completion of the material, outreach was targeted towards the wedding niche and mainstream publications, with journalists identified in the planning stages. Social sites such as Reddit and Imgur were used as catalysts to increase awareness and engagement with the imagery.
From the initial outreach, the campaign was able to garner immediate coverage that was continued into wider markets, including international coverage.
Results
PR coverage
- 18 links and five pieces of coverage.
- Covered on major sites such as The Mirror, Yahoo.com, The Sun, MSN.com, New York Post and BuzzFeed.com.
- Estimated coverage views: 2.5 million calculated using Coverage Book (total publication readership/average views per article).
- Social shares: 456,000 (estimated using Coverage Book).
SEO improvements
- One of Bride & Groom Direct’s most important search terms, ‘wedding invitations’, has moved from position seven to position four.
- Organic revenue has increased 10% YoY
- Since the campaign was launched, organic traffic has increased 20% YoY.
- 12% increase in SEO visibility.
(All SEO improvement stats from CCA Occasions, tracked by Google Analytics)
Got a cracking campaign – with impressive results – that you’d like to showcase? If so, please email [email protected].
