Client: Hill Motley Lumber Co. | Agency: Yonts + Co
Hill Motley Lumber Co. is one of Yonts + Co’s longest held clients. We’ve been working with them since I started at YCO in 2018. Over that time, my responsibilities for Hill Motley have shifted plenty. The YCO team often collaborated on projects for them, with different team members leading depending on the project.
Hill Motley has been a part of the Bowling Green community since 1945. Instead of just blasting this fact out and looking for positive PR, HM wanted to give back as a thanks for their 75th anniversary. Step one was to update and expand their branding for the special occasion.
After designing the 75th branding, we wanted to get the new designs out physically as well as online. We created exclusive merchandise for employees and clientele, a fence wrap for the lumberyard, and more. We were nearly ready to launch our full campaign, but one more thing needed to be completed: a custom website, with a number of new capabilities to use for the campaign.
With that out of the way, it was on to the main campaign! Hill Motley was providing a $7,500 grant to be split between 5 local non-profits. Each NPO would also receive a professional marketing video, at no cost to the organizations. We spread the word and directed participants to enter via hillmotleylumber.com.
Once the winners had been selected, we organized a check presentation event on-site at Hill Motley, alongside a PR push to encourage local news to come cover it. With the ‘public’ part of the campaign completed, we shifted our focus to the ‘private’ part.
Every year, HM takes their top spending customers on a getaway trip to a resort location as part of a points/reward system. That year the trip was to beautiful Maui, Hawaii. It would also be the first time the process would be completely digital, which meant building a whole new site dedicated solely to the trip. (Note: The site design may change as it’s currently being worked on for the next trip.) We designed a unique illustrated style to decorate the site and graphics for the campaign.
After building the site, we directed customers to sign up, register and commit to the trip online. Leading up to the trip, we used SMS and email marketing to communicate with attendees on point updates, travel news, and other information relevant to their vacation.
All in all, after serving the community of Bowling Green for 75 years, Hill Motley’s campaign to give back was a huge success for the brand.
