This past weekend, I attended the Mom 2.0 Summit in Key Biscayne, Florida. Mom 2 bills itself as a “boutique” conference aimed at fostering open conversations between moms and marketers. For me, I tend to fall into the “mom” genre here, so it’s one of those times where I am surrounded by super smart women who bring their A game.
But it comes to the marketers, there are some companies that really get how to make connections with the attendees and others who quite simply don’t. One of the ones who really gets it it Hallmark – and it showed at Mom 2. Similar to their promotion at Blissdom, they offered attendees the services of a card suite on the second floor of the hotel, away from the hustle and bustle of the main conference area. You would think that being that far away from the action would hurt them, but they made sure that the suite was a destination worth making the trek for.
The suite was cheerily decorated and offered many opportunities for engagement with the brand. You could pick out cards to mail back home, to friends or family, and Hallmark not only paid for the cards but handled the mailing and postage as well. There was a wide variety of cards, ranging from laugh out loud funny to touching and memorable.
“Card Showers” was the promotion that started running before the conference even started. Hallmark solicited names of bloggers who the community felt could use a word of encouragement, support or congratulations. Once the three bloggers were selected, you had the opportunity to “shower” them with cards. It was a really nice touch.
Hallmark really nailed it here. They didn’t shove the brand down your throat. They allowed the messages of support, encouragement and love to shine through, and gave you the chance to reach out and share the love with someone else. You left the suite with many positive feelings about the brand. The people working in the suite were a mix of Hallmark employees and reps from their PR agency, but you couldn’t tell the difference unless you quizzed them – they were all equally engaged when it came to supporting the brand. Other companies should take a lesson from the way Hallmark approached Mom 2.
Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about another brand that caught my eye at Mom 2. Stay tuned!
I love my card! What a nice surprise today just when I needed the laugh. Thank you so much for thinking of me
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I loved the Hallmark Suite at Mom 2.0! It was so warm and friendly and made me feel like we were at “home”. Hallmark PR did a great job and I loved how the cards brought us back to traditional, old school communication.