Hurry-up offense drives massive increase in leads for flag football giant

This wasn’t a ‘Hail Mary’ or some unlikely 28-3 Super Bowl comeback. This was a calculated, hurry-up offense that we knew would drive our client downfield and get them into scoring position.  In other words, a good old campaign sprint to make an immediate impact.

On a Wednesday morning, we brought the entire IOI team together to draw up a game plan and brainstorm for a new client. Fifteen sets of eyes, ears & brains is always better than one. We had strategists, account managers, web designers, content creators, and everyone in between, sharing ideas on ways to have an immediate impact for our client. By that Friday afternoon, a new landing page was built, ad creative dialed in, and a bullet-proof paid media plan ready to rock.

Five days into the campaign, and we’ve secured more than 450 leads for UA Flag Football while improving their cost per lead by 83%. Here’s how we did it:

First things first, we set up a new website that was built to attract and convert leads. This was more than a facelift - we built off the powerful brand image and alore of the Under Armour name, we took a mobile-first approach to design knowing that paid media was the driver of our traffic. We then formed a CTA strategy with scrolling buttons and strategic form placement that would help us capture the right information from the right candidates. While our webdev team built the landing page, our account manager led a HubSpot onboarding session to get the client up to speed on their shiny new CRM- a first for the business.

At the same time, our creative team worked on utilizing Under Armour’s asset library to create social media ads that would appeal to prospective league operators. We produced thumb-stopping ads with photo and B-roll video assets and crafted resolute copy that was guaranteed to draw in prospective league operators.

With a new landing page, CRM in place and ad creative ready to go, our paid media team leveraged their decades of industry experience to pinpoint our target audience. The great news here is that we had a baseline of performance from their last effort, you know without IOI on their sideline.

The results? Our traffic ads are seeing 11 cents per landing page view and we’re averaging two bucks a lead, (waaaaay) down from the twenty-five dollar cost per lead the client had last year.

“Look, everyone knows I love to compete, and this project was no exception,” said Jared Antista, Founder of IOI Ventures and Offensive Coordinator on the Under Armour project. “This client was a prospective partner for IOI that I’ve had my eyes on from the start and I refused to drop the ball on it.”

“The IOI Team has been a super-responsive and professional group that conducts business with a sense of urgency,” said John Kaelo COO of UA Flag Football. “This approach has allowed a quick activation on social media that has produced positive results within hours.”

Adam Van Rees, Partner of the UA Flag Football reiterated Kaleo’s statement.

“The entire staff has the expertise we were looking for to quickly launch a digital campaign with specific initiatives for sourcing new League Operators,” said Van Rees. “Two days after going live we had more than 250 leads in our new CRM!”

So what's next for IOI and Under Armour Flag Football? In two words: Expansion & Optimization. The opportunity to collaborate on new lines of UA business, including team and equipment apparel sales are now on the table. And don’t think, we are happy with our $2 leads, we’re always optimizing ad spend and finding new tricks to get in front of the right audience that is primed for closing.

“The real foundation of our new client growth is built on current client performance. If we do right by our clients - if we care about their goals and truly collaborate internally and externally as a team, the next client often comes to us because of our approach. In fact, our outbound sales or client prospecting is interest based only at this point. Meaning, we might want a ski resort partner or university on our roster so we’ll go get one, but 95% of our sales are coming to us.”  says, Antista.

Need help launching ad campaigns in a hurry? No sweat, we’re veterans of the hurry-up offense. Let’s connect.