How Hop Skip helped a film studio prepare for grand opening

Preparing to launch

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film and television industry reversed recent trends and experienced a robust rebound in production activity and record-breaking work from foreign producers. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, a soon-to-open 187,000 sq. foot film and television production studios was ready to take a slice of the pie. 

At six months from completion, the small team at Big Sky Studios knew they needed to replace their temporary webpage with a proper website, and do other marketing to get their name out there—but what? They were already working at capacity so they decided to outsource to marketing experts. When they approached us, they had a logo and brochure, webpage, and a little-used LinkedIn profile. There was no prospect list with which we could work. They asked for our recommendations to create a splash and generate bookings. They gave us two weeks to produce a go-to-market strategy and tactical plan, and six months to execute the plan.

Our no-nonsense approach

After two weeks spent auditing the competitor’s websites and social media accounts and doing a deep dive into the industry, we presented the strategy and plan. With each tactic recommended, we included the rationale and a budget line. In addition to developing a slick website that would go toe to toe with other comparable studios, we suggested focusing on getting “found” by people searching online. Our approach included Google ads, and publishing educational articles about film production in Winnipeg (because publishing good content on a frequent basis tells search engines that you’re an expert in your domain, so they’re more likely to rank you high for relevant keywords.) And getting Big Sky into key listings for backlinks and awareness. Lastly, we ran a key messaging workshop with the organization’s stakeholders and used that as the jump-off point for writing the website content and social media posts.

In a nutshell:

• Search engine optimization (SEO) – for better ranking with Google, etc., including set up of Google Analytics.
• Listings – for backlinks and “getting found”
• Content – to help with search ranging and the social media presence
  Enewsletter sign-up mechanism – to build a prospect list 
• Google ads – to drive traffic to the website
• Social media – frequent posts for brand awareness

Overall, it was a lean, smart plan that would set them up for lead generation and brand awareness. With a small budget, we felt we could get Big Sky in front of buyers when they were searching for studio options in Canada.

Results 

From social design to fun articles, our team threw ourselves into the Big Sky work and we were thrilled with the results, including a happy client. 

While soft measures of success are wonderful, we tracked the impact of the work with Google Analytics and SEO measurement tools. Here’s the impact of our six months of work:

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