Awards Gala.

Campaign

Nat Richmond

Services

Branding, Social Media Marketing,
Graphic Design

Date

December 1st – February 28th, 2025

Strategy

• The GREENlight Awards Gala is Erie’s Black Wall Street’s flagship celebration of Black entrepreneurship and innovation. The challenge was to ensure high community turnout and digital engagement during the campaign window, while balancing reach (broad awareness) and retention (avoiding audience fatigue).

• A dual-channel strategy, with email serving as the storytelling hub and SMS as the immediacy driver, would outperform email-only campaigns by increasing engagement and conversions.

• Email Campaign (12 sends): Highlighted honorees, gala excitement, and community pride.

• SMS Campaign (14 sends): Timed reminders and urgent calls-to-action to drive last-minute engagement.

• Segmentation: SMS targeted highly engaged donors, while email nurtured the broader supporter base.

Results.

📧 Email (7,924 sends)

• Open Rate: 13.7% (−7.7% vs nonprofit benchmarks)

• Click Rate: 1.7% (+17% vs previous period)

• Total Opens: 1,079

• Total Clicks: 136

• Unsubscribe Rate: 0.14% (low, showing stable list health)

📱 SMS (815 sends)

• Click Rate: 19.9% (+1,255% vs previous SMS campaigns)

• 271 deliveries → 54 clicks (19.9% conversion)

• Unsubscribe Rate: 1.5% (higher than email, typical for SMS)

Impact.

• SMS outperformed email on CTR (19.9% vs 1.7%), proving its power for event-driven nudges.

• Email drove higher volume, delivering more total clicks (136 vs 54) because of broader reach.

• Unsubscribes were higher on SMS, highlighting the importance of balancing frequency and timing.

• The two channels worked together: email built the story, while SMS converted urgency into action.
  The GREENlight Gala campaign proved the effectiveness of a blended email + SMS strategy, building a reliable turnout pipeline while reinforcing EBWS’s reputation as the city’s hub for Black entrepreneurship and recognition.