Case study: A trade association demonstrates the value of construction careers
Associated Builders and Contractors of Maine is a 150+ member construction industry trade association that wants to be known as an asset to commercial contractors for lobbying, training, safety, and in particular, workforce development.
ABC Maine had never invested in a marketing plan and needed both a membership marketing and thought leadership strategy. In recent years, the media had slowed coverage of ABC Maine’s Annual Craft Championships, a statewide event for high school students to engage in hands-on activities with experienced construction industry tradespeople.
Since ABC Maine sought to engage multiple audiences (members, prospective members, students, parents and educators), and had both an annual event and the brand positioning as messaging goals, we developed an integrated communications campaign to reach these audiences.
Fluent was responsible for creating and managing a new blog and maintaining a social media presence, both with an emphasis on increasing awareness of the Craft Championship and on the opportunities available to skilled workers. We created content to tell the stories of why members join, and why they had chosen a career in construction. An integral piece was a video, “Why I Chose Construction,” which fueled the social media campaign and the promotion of Craft Championships as well as our outreach to the media. We also developed a series of careers stories featuring members.
We launched a Facebook campaign targeting parents, students and teachers which also directed traffic to the new blog. ABC Maine leadership used the video and careers stories at various career events around the state to engage their audiences in meaningful 1:1 conversations.
Attendance of the Annual Craft Championships increased by 10%. Two TV stations attended and there was a cover story in the local mainstream print media.
The social media campaign received 271,000 impressions from our target audience (young Mainers ages 13 – 24) on Facebook and Instagram. A separate campaign promoting Craft Championships to parents and teachers generated an additional 36,000 impressions. In less than a year from its launch, blog traffic grew to 2,100 users to the blog, 2,471 sessions.