CBUS RETAIL

  Specialty Retail in Crisis: The Covid Chronicles  

CBUS Retail’s documentary series, Specialty Retail in Crisis: The Covid Chronicles was a compelling nine episode video series featuring 43 speakers that was launched over the course of fourteen weeks during the pandemic. COVID-19 derailed not only the customer experience, but also the back-end operations and logistics. This documentary series appealed to industry suppliers, retailers, brands, designers, and all those that make up the retail industry. 

To supplement their documentary series, CBUS Retail hired Video Story Studio to handle the marketing promotion. In turn, Video Story Studio was also able to manage the project to give the concept clear project milestones and assignments to a group of volunteers. Video Story Studio was also part of the team that revamped the membership site and managed sponsors. 

  Goals 

CBUS Retail had multiple goals for this project with the overarching goal to bring together an industry suffering from massive layoffs. CBUS Retail aimed to increase membership to their organization and followers on their social channels to support Columbus as a retail mecca for educating and connecting industry professionals. 

  Strategy  

For this project, Video Story Studio focused on project management, social media, and email marketing. The content was delivered organically while engaging the networks of the speakers, sponsors, and brand ambassadors. The video interviews produced an abundance of content to utilize  in the marketing of the series and promos, gifs, and images were used to highlight attention-grabbing content to entice the audience to tune in. Email marketing efforts leveraged industry relationships with sponsors and partners connecting promoting the series to their network. A Media Kit was developed to make content sharing and promotion an easy lift to all involved with the series.

  Outcomes  

• 16% average increase for Linkedin, Instagram, and Facebook
• The campaign produced a moderate email click through rate. 
• Engaged current and prospective members. 
• Social media efforts promoted longer engagement with the brand through a nine episode series spanning from October 2020 through January 2021 as well as an extended membership experience for possible lifetime engagement.