Bloom Communications

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), Portland, Oregon’s chief transportation agency responsible for maintaining and improving the fast-growing city’s transportation infrastructure, turned to Bloom Communications for market research that would inform future-facing, long-term communications and messaging strategies. Bloom Communications was tasked with gauging public attitudes towards the work of PBOT, getting a sense of the public’s top transportation priorities, determining how current campaign messages were being received, and understanding the level of public comprehension in regards to what the organization is/does.

Bloom created a strategic research approach that utilized an iterative methodology, meaning that insights gathered from each phase of research informed subsequent phases. Implementing both qualitative and quantitative methods, research included internal one-on-one stakeholder interviews, a city-wide poll distributed to 1,000 Portland residents, and focus groups.

Research data and insights in hand, Bloom provided strategic messaging, transportation priority, and communications channel recommendations that, in the words of PBOT’s Director of Communications and Public Involvement, “fundamentally changed” how the organization’s communications strategies are designed and implemented.

Bloom Communications was tasked with boosting the marketing and outreach efforts of Sleep Dallas, a dental sleep medicine practice. Our primary objective was to help the practice attract and acquire individuals with the highest propensity to convert to patients, therefore increasing revenue. We also partnered with Sleep Dallas to position the founder – President of the American Sleep and Breathing Academy, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine – as a thought leader in dental sleep medicine.

Working as the practice’s outsourced communications department, we grounded our campaign planning with qualitative and quantitative research, and uncovered strategic opportunities and key messages to reach, influence and motivate prospective patients to action. With this research as our foundation, we created a comprehensive marketing plan targeted to key demographic profiles in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex, local medical professionals and national experts in sleep medicine.

Within the first six months of campaign execution, overall web traffic increased by 44.75%. Most importantly, Sleep Dallas experienced a 42.56% increase in physician referrals within the first six months and an over 26% growth in revenue, year-over-year.

Jester King Brewery, a nationally renowned craft brewery, enlisted Bloom Communications to help increase local brand awareness, foot traffic, and awareness of all of the brewery’s offerings outside of beer, including the Jester King Kitchen, as well as a private event hall and an inn. Bloom began its support of the brewery with a comprehensive audience research-based campaign plan, and was poised to deliver that plan in March 2020 to begin execution in April. In mid-March, plans changed with evolving awareness surrounding the threat of the coronavirus. Breweries and restaurants across Texas closed their doors and began offering only takeout options to limit the virus’s spread, piercing right at the heart of Jester King’s business model of getting customers to experience the brewery and the brand’s ethos of a “time, place and people” in-person. 

Jester King quickly pivoted to offer takeout-only, online ordering, and a “Country Store” of items from the Kitchen. Bloom pivoted, as well, taking key insights from research to quickly develop and execute on a pandemic-specific marketing and PR strategy aimed at raising local brand awareness of Jester King’s revised offerings. In support of the brewery, Bloom conducted aggressive, proactive media outreach, pitching news stories that showcased Jester King’s innovative offerings to local media. Bloom also implemented cross-channel marketing efforts including email marketing, social media marketing, and direct mail marketing to drive drive-up traffic to the brewery. 

In the initial two weeks, Bloom’s campaign drove significant increases in traffic to the Jester King website from areas in close proximity to the brewery, with traffic from Dripping Springs increasing by 235%, and Bear Creek increasing by 122%. Media outreach earned more than 25 local media placements, reaching consumers in Austin and Dripping Springs. In total, local online coverage alone garnered 5,505,204+ audience impressions.

IT’S TIME TEXAS, a statewide nonprofit organization that champions the movement for a healthier Texas, enlisted Bloom Communications to secure publicity and 50 pieces of earned media coverage for the 2019 IT’S TIME TEXAS Community Challenge to help mobilize schools, businesses, organizations, community members, and leaders toward the common goal of transforming their community’s health. The IT’S TIME TEXAS Community Challenge is a one-of-a-kind statewide competition that spans eight weeks and challenges communities of all sizes across Texas to demonstrate their commitment to healthy living.

With the public relations goal to leverage earned media in target markets to promote the IT’S TIME TEXAS Community Challenge, drive participation, and bring about exposure in as many markets as possible for the statewide initiative, Bloom Communications developed a proactive public relations strategy to identify and create creative story angles and secure local, regional, state publication, and digital/editorial coverage in major Texas media markets.

Bloom conducted an aggressive, proactive media outreach plan to increase visibility for the Challenge, participating cities/towns/communities, community efforts, activities, and participants. With Bloom’s support, the six-week public relations campaign spotlighting the IT’S TIME TEXAS Community Challenge resulted in 71 earned media placements across Texas, online and broadcast outlets, surpassing IT’S TIME TEXAS’ initial publicity goal by 42%. Coverage garnered over 2 million audience impressions, including Community Challenge coverage in the Houston Chronicle, Texas Patch, KTBC Fox 7, KLBJ-AM, the Austin American-Statesman, the Valley Morning Star, the Odessa American, and the Beeville Bee-Picayune, among others.