How a Recycling Program Became a Community Success Story | Video Case Study
Lyon County Environmental Department was looking to reduce the number of mattresses that were being thrown in the landfill. Every mattress that was brought to the landfill took up valuable air space because it didn’t compact, so they started a new initiative to recycle mattresses in the community.
The Challenge | Building Awareness of Mattress Recycling
After having tried print and radio ads with little success, they were looking for new ways to raise awareness within Lyon county about the program. They partnered with Blue Key Media to create a promotional piece for their mattress recycling program to raise awareness within Lyon County and the surrounding area.
Testimonial
“Blue Key Media captured the essence of our story. Their planned, intentional effort led to asking the right questions during interviews, which brought out the perfect dialogue used in the story created for us. Mark and Dan are professional, easy to work with, comfortable to be around, and genuinely kind. Thank you Blue Key Media.”
Roger Schroeder | Environmental Administrator | Lyon County Minnesota
Our Approach
To ensure Lyon County’s video was successful, we followed our three-part approach for effective video marketing: Strategy, Production, and Distribution. When all three components align, we see video that results in positive outcomes that actually help move the needle in organizations.
Strategy
After conducting an initial discovery meeting and market research, we realized a traditional promotional video wasn’t the most effective approach for accomplishing Lyon County’s objective. There was a larger, more impactful story to be told beyond just recycling a mattress.
Lyon County partnered with Advance Opportunities, an organization that employs adults with disabilities, to process the mattresses at their facility. Rather than creating an information-heavy, rational focused message, our approach was to create a story-driven, community feel-good mini-documentary that would move the heart of the viewer by showing how the small effort of a community initiative was making a large impact in the lives of others and saving the environment. This would allow people to rally behind the video, enabling it to go viral within the community.
Production
We spent multiple days conducting pre-interviews with the people we wanted to feature. And the creative process involved sifting through all of the information and potential options to find the most impactful story. After two full days of production with a two-person crew, we had captured the heart of the program and were ready to piece it together in the edit.
Distribution
Prior to releasing the video, we worked with Roger to develop a distribution strategy that would enable the video to be seen within the community. The plan leveraged:
- Social Media Outreach– both paid advertising and sharing directly with friends and family
- Community Influencers– asking community Facebook groups, organizations, and other influencers to share the video within their network
- Television Ads– running -30 and -60 second commercials of the video on local access television
The Results | Virality within the community
The video was released on social media, and immediately, we watched it start building momentum. We knew right away that it was resonating with people as the shares and comments were flooding in. Within the first two weeks, the video saw massive success.
The social media efforts were very effective and the distribution strategy helped the video take hold organically within the community. On Facebook, the video was shared over 180 times, had over 11,000 views and hundreds of engagement through likes and comments; LinkedIn had over 40 likes, 9 comments, and 2,500 views; and Youtube had 520 views– without a single cent of ad-spend.
The biggest win was that Lyon County gained two additional mattress recycling partners, boosting the inflow of mattresses to the program. To top it off, one of those partners had originally been incinerating their mattresses, so the video helped them discover an environmentally friendly way to dispose of mattresses.
The decision to invest in video paid off for Lyon County. It has allowed their mattress recycling program to grow and more people are walking through the door saying they chose to recycle their old mattress after seeing the video.
Are you looking to better connect with your audience? Maybe video can help. Schedule a FREE, no-pressure consultation with one of our video experts to see how video content could accelerate your business.
