THE BRITISH HORSE SOCIETY - AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT CASE STUDY Between November 2015 and November 2016, a range of data-driven, audience-focused initiatives were undertaken at The British Horse Society (BHS), to deliver an audience development approach to communications. This was a new approach that required careful relationship management, excellent communication, and collaboration across all levels to implement. As I led this framework, I used my working knowledge and expertise of the organization to deliver outstanding results. ● ●
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A 55% increase in the Society’s overall digital audience; included visitors to the website, followers on social media, and recipients of the monthly eNewsletter Improved SEO visibility; achieved through implementation of Google Business; previously, search results for the BHS was text; after my work, it also included: ○ images ○ a map showing the location of head office ○ latest Tweets ○ opening hours and contact details ○ on mobile, the function to phone the BHS directly from search results, advice on opening hours through Google Maps, and the ability for users to upload their own photographs for inclusion in Google results if taken at head office Redesign of the eNewsletter for optimization; led directly to increased engagement: ○ increased font size and tappable links to phone directly for mobile devices ○ regular items that achieved high CTRs were given icons ○ removed social media links, as engagement with them was negligible ○ tested subject lines for the likelihood of it being detected as spam ○ included the personal pronoun, “your,” in subject lines ○ use of Google’s custom URL builder for deeper data than might be provided by the email service provider ○ additional advertising space for third-parties, to generate some extra revenue A 36% increase in Facebook followers; achieved through strategic use of data obtained through Facebook Insights, and advertising; Facebook was overwhelmingly the most popular social network in use by the audience: ○ posted at around 8pm, as that was when the audience was online ○ posted branded images; leading posts with an image ○ worked with the in-house graphic designer and marketing team to hone graphics and copy to present distinct messages in Facebook advertising Introduction of cross-channel comparisons; this showed the impact of different content for different digital users across different channels; it highlighted that there were human individuals at the other side of big data: ○ jobs listings were the most popular item on the email, while membership normally achieved the most website traffic ○ 8pm was usually the most popular time for all channels ○ the website achieved the highest amount of engagement from males compared to other channels