Ripple Marketing

A common client question we have been asked is: How important is video marketing for businesses? From recent research conducted, it was found that 53% of users engage with a brand online after seeing a related social media video. Further to this, 72% of online users prefer to learn about a brand via video. Video Marketing on social media in 2019 has proven to be an extremely effective approach for businesses of all sizes in all industries.

At Ripple Marketing, we understand the importance of keeping up to date with consumer trends and not only reaching our target audience in the right places, but with the correct types of content. 

With Seoid na Trá, a new property development in Bettystown, we saw the true power of video come to fruition with three creative videos we developed as part of our digital marketing strategy in the build up to their latest phase launch earlier this year. As video marketing for realtors is a relatively new avenue waiting to be explored, we saw this as a gap to take advantage of the benefits of video marketing on social media.

Using Facebook, Instagram and YouTube advertising, we developed and implemented a highly creative digital marketing strategy, utilising the three videos we created for Seoid na Trá. Using highly targeted audiences, we maximised our cost per click to drive website traffic and brand awareness in the early stages of this new developments release. 

With video being our main form of content, we were able to connect with our target audience on a more personal level and improve brand recognition. Due to Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm rewarding video content, we were also able to reach more of our target audience for less, as users view video 5 times more than static posts on Facebook alone.

22,500 runners, 30,000 supporters and 1,800 volunteers took to the streets of Dublin on Monday 27th October for the KBC Dublin Marathon 2019. This year was the 40th celebration of the KBC Dublin Marathon and KBC’s first year as the official sponsor. 

The weekend kicked off on Friday 25th October when the Expo event opened in the RDS where all the runners go to collect their race number and walk around the exhibitors and soak up the atmosphere. 

KBC had a large stand where runners and supporters could get their photo taken on the official finishers podium and pick-up some KBC hand clappers and KBC fan banners. There was also a large digital screen which displayed messages sent in by runners and supporters.

Behind the scenes we were also busy turning the landmarks, marathon race route and the streets of Dublin KBC blue for race day.

KBC Cheer Zones 

To create atmosphere, noise and engage with all supporters and runners along the Marathon route, we created our own ‘KBC Cheer Zones’ at Myo’s Castleknock & Nutley Lane. 2 actors were based at each zone, who acted as running motivators. They had megaphones and motivational messages on placards, which were used to encourage runners and engage with the crowds out on the streets. We had merchandise staff on hand, who distributed the KBC hand clappers which create noise, and we set up a colouring zone for children where they could write support messages on the KBC Fan banners. DJ booths were branded with KBC banners and the entire Cheer Zone was turned ‘KBC Blue’ for the day.  The atmosphere was electric and it was a great way to motivate the runners to make it across that 26.2 mile finish line.

It was a case of “On your marks, Get set, Go!” for KBC Bank Ireland as we partnered with the digital bank to launch their sponsorship of the prestigious Dublin Marathon and Race Series. 

The sponsorship launch coincided with the inaugural KBC South Dublin 10k which took place in Grange Castle, Clondalkin. This is the first year of KBC’s sponsorship and we wanted our campaign to focus on building awareness, driving engagement and celebrating the KBC Dublin Race Series.

As KBC are known as a digital bank, we wanted to bring their campaign of #RunThisTown to life on the day. Our activation was for the runners, their family members, the supporters, and the volunteers. Our social media team was on hand to take winner’s podium pictures and send them directly to the participant’s phone so they could share instantly on social media.

As well as turning the location KBC blue for the day, we set up a KBC chill out zone which boasted a large seating area to provide some chill space for runners to warm down and celebrate with family and friends. Our fun photo props were on hand along with our photographers who made sure everyone got their moment of glory on the winner’s podium. From participants sharing their pictures on Facebook we organically reached 9,172 people. 

SSE Airtricity is Ireland’s largest provider of 100% green energy and we are delighted to be looking after their brand sponsorships in partnership with their Sponsorship and Marketing team. SSE Airtricity is also the Official Sustainability Partner to Dublin Zoo and has been since 2017. It’s always a pleasure to help bring this partnership to life by working closely with SSE Airtricity and Dublin Zoo.

Since the partnership began, we’ve organised and managed two events per year in Dublin Zoo that highlight the importance of sustainability in everyday life. We create a family friendly event that is not only fun for kids of all ages, but educational at the same time. The first of 2019’s events took place earlier this summer. This year’s events took a more focused approach to sustainability and placed emphasis on climate change, which inspired the event name of ‘Protect Our Planet Weekends’.

The objective of this event was to educate children and parents on the perils of climate change, and importance of sustainability and biodiversity. 

We set-up a family fun event within the grounds of Dublin Zoo, along with a mixture of fun props, soft play games, educational props, and our event stage. We also managed a face painting station where children could get their favourite animals painted on their face. A DJ also played animal themed songs to keep the atmosphere going over the entire weekend.

In addition to this full event set-up, we organised and managed 13 staff members who acted as ‘Eco Explorers’ to educate zoo goers all around Dublin Zoo. We provided them with costumes to suit the character. The Eco Explorers were located at the main entrance, at the 10 sustainability stations dotted around Dublin Zoo on the‘Eco Explorer Trail’ (which families can enjoy through a free smartphone app), and at Haughton House. Each staff member was fully briefed for the day and played a key part in the visitor experience. 

Our branding team worked closely with Dublin Zoo and SSE Airtricity in the lead up to these events. We fully brand the Eco Explorer Trail and Haughton House and produced and installed a child friendly photo op where kids and families could get their photo taken. This was perfectly located at the front entrance so it was visible to all visitors. This photo op and branding really increased brand awareness over the weekend and we’re looking forward to utilising it again at the next event in August.

For many, the arrival of the Dublin Bay Prawn Festival signals the start of longer nights, brighter days and months of summer fun ahead.

Now in its ninth year, this is one of Ireland’s largest festivals organised by Fingal County Council promoting all that is great about Howth. Renowned as a seafood lover’s dream, with many of Howth’s award winning restaurants and cafés serving up locally sourced specialties, there is so much more than prawns on the agenda for this weekend. The festival atmosphere continues into the night in these bars and restaurants with a host of entertainment and festive seafood menus.

We were delighted to get involved once again this year to deliver an extensive one month digital strategy service prior to the event. We also had live on-site digital marketing, aimed at promoting event awareness and driving footfall and attendance over the weekend.

We want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change.

- Over 1 million people reached digitally,

- 40,000 engaged on social media,

- 100,000 views on Twitter,

- 8000+ story views on Instagram

We think it was job well done!

To coincide with our new rebrand from JGA to Ripple Marketing, we needed a new fresh web presence to best showcase what we do. We opted for a custom design approach to give us complete control over UX and design without limits of template based systems like Wordpress.

After research and development, we set about designing an easy to use, clean web experience that would maximize conversion rates.

The website was to be aesthetically pleasing while maintaining maximum functionality.

After meeting as a team to discuss requirements and work out he content that best illustrates where we are at, we set pen to paper and worked out the wireframes of the site.

Once we were happy with the functionality and the layout we got into the nitty gritty of building the site from scratch, being sure to maintain the look and feel of the rebrand and adhering to the newly established brand guidelines that had already been successfully implemented across our various media and communications. We wanted the site to be a portfolio piece in itself that would take advantage of superior SEO and page loading speeds.

With this in mind, everything had to be optimized and fine tuned for each device that may be viewing the website. We are happy with our high score for page loading speeds on Google Insights. As we know, users don’t like hanging around too long for a page to load so we were keen to keep the bounce rate to a minimum. We will continue to improve our website as we go but 94 is not bad at all.

For the home page we developed an animation to emphasize the ripple effect of our brand. It’s serves a purpose to catch the users attention, when they initially arrive on our website and cement our core concept of 'Feel the Effect'.

Another requirement of the site is to allow easy updates by any member of our team so we implemented an excellent content management system for blog posts and general website updates. We update content regularly to keep things fresh.

On the backend, we added Zapier functionality to forms to minimize manual admin. There are many ways of using automation to speed up your processes in ways you may not think of. Get in touch for more info on how we can help your workflows and processes.

Taking a mobile first approach to design is very popular these days and we incorporated this also but without any sacrifice to the Desktop and tablet experiences. We encourage you to check out our site and feel free to let us know what you think via our contact page. Watch this space for updates.

Carroll Estates – Marketing Partners

Our marketing partners in Carroll Estates Dublin ltd. recently launched Seoid na Trá, a new housing development in the stunning seaside destination of Bettystown Co. Meath. 

Working with Carroll Estates, we developed a digital marketing campaign which covered all aspects of paid social media advertising and paid Google advertising. This campaign was designed to maximise traffic to the already constructed Seoid na Tra website (which was designed and constructed by Ripple Marketing), and raise awareness of the new development launch date.

We utilised targeted Google display ads, Facebook and Instagram advertising, and Google search ads as part of our campaign. This was crucial to building an interest audience who wanted to view Seoid na Trá.

Prior to the launch weekend, we also ran an email marketing campaign to complement the social media and Google advertising campaigns. Potential purchases were emailed relevant and concise information to help drive sales and increase footfall at the launch weekend. 

Visit www.ripplemarketing.ie to read more

As part of our marketing partnership with Dun Laoghaire – Rathdown (DLR) tourism, we developed a three-part video series aimed attracting visitors to the area through powerful visuals. As video marketing on social media is so important in 2019, we saw this as an excellent opportunity to improve awareness and footfall across Dun Laoghaire – Rathdown. 

As we embarked on our journey with DLR Tourism, we carefully planned, created and launched a unique video series to utilize across social media, with Facebook and Instagram Ads, and YouTube, through Google ads.

This video marketing campaign began with an idea generation meeting in Ripple HQ to identify the most effective and creative campaign to implement as part of DLR’s Marketing Strategy. We strongly focused on key activities and flagship attractions in the County Council district to attract tourists and locals alike to different events and activities in the area. 

With so much on offer in DLR, we started with a very broad target audience, which was segmented into three categories: Urban Splash, Well Worth The Climb and Between The Lines. 

Once we had a concept and storyboard in place for each video, we set out visiting multiple locations around the county and recording a variety of drone and handheld video clips to capture everything that is great about Dun Laoghaire - Rathdown. With the help of a few locals, we were able to capture some action shots at different attractions and organic interactions which helped create a sentimental feeling across the videos.

It was back to the editing studio to produce this three-part video series. After filming, editing and production were complete, we finally had the perfect product which we rolled out strategically across Google with YouTube ads, as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as part of our digital marketing campaign with DLR Tourism. 

All this resulted in over 500,000 impressions, 270,000 video views and 263% account growth on social media. 

Is video marketing effective? Absolutely.