BeCause

Case Study – Scottsdale Cultural Society

March 26, 2014
One donor is heading to Bali. Another is off to Maui, staying at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua. And yet another fulfilled a self-described “bucket list” item by attending the Grammys in Los Angeles in January of 2014.

When the Scottsdale Cultural Council needed to add an extra element of “WOW!” to its ARTrageous fundraising gala, it turned to Mitch-Stuart for help. And one unforgettable night later, the organization has raised a tremendous amount of money and offered its biggest backers once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

The Council, which can be found on the web at sccarts.org, offers the citizens of Scottsdale and visitors chances to be a part of world-class art while also fostering younger or newer artistic voices. That can mean anything from concerts and performances at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts to exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art and even public works seen throughout the city.

All of that, of course, takes funding, a portion of which is brought in every year at the ARTrageous gala. This year, Natalie Cole was the special guest, and the evening’s theme was “An Unforgettable Evening.” As a part of that, the SCC worked with Mitch-Stuart (and our technology partner, GiveSmart) to offer “Unforgettable Travel Packages,” including our show-stopping trip to the 2014 Grammy Awards.

“We wanted to try something new and the trips were fun and exciting,” according to the organization’s Director of Donor Relations Eileen Wilson. “Our event committee members thought that by offering the trips it elevated the level of our silent auction and caused a buzz at the event.”

Utilizing GiveSmart’s silent auction technology and Mitch-Stuart’s expertise in travel arraignment, SCC was able to cause that buzz and add to an already “unforgettable” evening.

“The experience was very easy,” Wilson added via email. “And [the] customer service was excellent.  I was actually surprised that we sold multiple trips.”


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How Non-Profits Can Profit from all the Tools in the Marketing Tool Box

February 20, 2013
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the blogosphere — the list of social and digital platforms grows every day. And with this growth comes the belief among marketers that each will be the future savior of the brand, company, and product or in our case, the non-profit. Conventional wisdom — demonstrated by the tremendous numbers of eyeballs and viewers these vehicles attract — is that each entity can navigate the new landscape and leverage some or all of what is available.

We've taken the plunge at Mitch-Stuart, Inc. and believe we're laying the foundation for our future in this arena.

No doubt you should get involved in the social-digital media "space" — but there is a caveat. We were speaking with a friend recently who is the Director of New Media for a large, well-known multi-national ad agency. His specialty is social-digital experiences.

With everyone looking to him and his "bag of new tricks" as the proverbial silver bullet for a renewed and revitalized success for their brand or product, his honest response was:

"I'm just a ‘new tool in the tool box.’ We still need to be doing traditional marketing activities with traditional media IN CONCERT WITH a social-digital media effort. We are not a stand-alone function who will save the day. We can add new dimension, new ways of reaching our target audiences — but we work best when we all work together."

At Mitch-Stuart, Inc. — we're successfully doing traditional marketing — with the added power of social and digital efforts — and here are some of the benefits we are seeing.

Facebook — In mere months we've designed a page that serves as a sounding board for ideas such as contests and photo displays and we now have a presence in this "must-have" medium. We also use Facebook to link to our newly created blog and highlight news of the company.

Twitter — In 140 characters or less, every day we tweet out news of interest to potential customers and clients. We have seen our followers grow, re-tweet, favorite our comments and we reciprocate to other like-minded "tweeters" in the travel/non-profit space. We're not only generating buzz about our company, but of industry news and trends.

YouTube — Here is a situation where we are exploring to find the best way to use the platform. We recommend strategizing the best way to use each of the tools to reach your audience and tell your story.

Blog — The Mitch-Stuart blog you are reading provides a place for us to demonstrate our expertise as well as give "shout-outs" to great clients with great stories to tell. We see our posts linked to other companies and do the same for theirs. Our blog also helps to provide us with ideas for direct mail, publicity and our upcoming newsletter. It also gives us the opportunity to comment on timely topics and start conversations with readers.

Stay tuned, there's a lot more to come!


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