Country Jam USA
Summary
Country Jam USA is one of the largest outdoor country music festivals in the Midwest, hosting artists like Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Toby Keith, Blake Shelton, and more for over 30 years. The 3-day festival draws over 20,000 fans to the Chippewa Valley from across the US and includes camping, food and merchandise vendors, and additional music stages giving fans a variety of ways to enjoy the Wisconsin summer. Country Jam recently went through staffing changes and needed to promote an upcoming festival, while also figuring out if internal marketing or an outsourced agency would work best long-term. Four Peas was brought on primarily to manage their social media strategy. As the pandemic grew and interrupted the festival plans, Four Peas' focus shifted to provide communications strategy and making recommendations for Country Jam's future marketing plans.
Client Challenges
Country Jam had undergone a lot of recent staffing changes and their general manager was making decisions about whether or not to have in-house marketing staff or hire an agency. Her goal was to help the festival grow and connect more with their audiences, especially on social media, but with no internal marketing staff, she knew she would need help. In past years, their internal social media staff easily got pulled into festival operations during the event, which meant keeping up with social media, responding, and engaging online was de-prioritized. Jam knew that to have a successful social media presence, that would need to be better managed during the event, too.
How We Helped
From fall of 2019 until summer 2020, Four Peas helped Country Jam establish one 'voice' to interact with their online audiences; one that matched the experience that fans were getting with the rest of their staff. We also were asked to help support other marketing efforts, and organize a team to run the social media operations during the festival.
We were able to get up and running quickly and could offer their staff ideas and recommendations of how to better use their social media presence to reach their marketing goals, but also to enhance the overall experience for their audience.
“Erin and her team gave us the direction we needed and I knew they would help keep us on track so we wouldn’t fall behind. They helped us focus on the big picture, but also paid attention to the details of execution.”
Strategy
We started by planning out what the year would look like leading up to the event, to make sure we weren't missing opportunities. With so much information to communicate—not just to engage the audience or sell tickets, but also to provide details to ticket holders about logistics—planning ahead was critical to make sure we could fit all of it in without bombarding people all at once. Aligning customers' buying cycle with the information we needed to share was an important part of making it successful.
We also made early connections with university students and student orgs in preparation for launching Jam's first Brand Ambassador program. We anticipated using that program to recruit an enthusiastic group of influencers who could be at the event engaging with audiences on social media, helping respond to questions, quickly communicating announcements, and using social platforms to enhance the overall in-person festival experience.
Execution
Our team started by getting the tools in place to allow us to easily communicate with the Country Jam team remotely, and to allow us to plan and schedule content. We attended weekly staff meetings to ensure we were involved and aware of other communications or marketing and could collaborate with staff. This allowed us to integrate the social media experience with the real-world experience, as well as integrate the messaging across multiple platforms.
“Having Erin and her team onboard was like having an extra set of strategic ears listening for opportunities for social. She was able to respond and plan content accordingly without needing much direction. She offered an outside perspective and new ideas, and really took the time to think through them. That gave me a lot of trust in her and her team's ability to execute for us.”
Specifically, some of the social media content we created and organized for Country Jam included:
Contests - 12 Days of Christmas, Show us your Mug, Quarantine Festival
Sales Campaigns - Lineup announcements, Countdowns, Experience reminders
Videos - Holiday drink recipes, Major announcements, Watch party, Live interview
Custom Playlists - Jam artist playlists on Spotify
Hashtags - #RaiseYourMug, #GoodVibes, #CountryJamUSA
Influencers - Brand Ambassador recruitment
Of course, we all know how 2020 turned out, and we had to plan for the biggest let down of all: telling Jammers the festival would be postponed. Our team strategized through scenarios and offered the staff ideas and best practices in crisis communications to help them navigate the messaging and process as events unfolded. We considered contingency plans and represented the voice of the customer in those strategy sessions.
“Erin and her team really helped us in the planning process when we had to do the unthinkable - postpone our event. The message had to be personal and sincere; that’s how we felt, and they helped us convey that to our audience.”
Results
Country Jam's 2020 festival was postponed, so we weren't able to finish what we had started. But the progress made will have a lasting impact. On social media, their largest audience was, by far, on Facebook. We gained about 1,400 followers and increased their Facebook engagement over the prior year by 60%. On Twitter and Instagram, we more than doubled their engagement. We increased their website traffic using content during specific campaigns to help improve their remarketing efforts.
Aside from the numbers, we established a consistent tone and voice of Jam on social media and across the entire organization, allowing them to connect and collaborate with their audiences for years to come.
"Bringing on the Four Peas team worked out great for our needs during a time of transition. Their quick-start approach allowed us to see progress right away. They also made recommendations as to what we needed going forward; their intent wasn't to stay on long-term, so they trained us and provided insight if we hired internally or worked with an external vendor long-term. That kind of discussion gave us confidence in how we would go about building our team for the future. While we weren't able to execute the festival in 2020, the work Four Peas did with our team was invaluable and we're glad we made the decision to engage their services."
