Illinois Venture Capital Association Case Study:November 2007-March 2008 Campaign:Promote the annual Midwest Venture Summit.
IVCA:The Illinois Venture Capital Association is the trade association for Illinois venture capitalists and hosts an annual event: the Midwest Venture Summit (MVS). IVCA works with entrepreneurial organizations in the Midwest to encourage a strong cycle of innovation and business creation leading to superior investment opportunities. The Midwest Venture Summit (MVS) has become the Midwest's premier gathering of VC's, entrepreneurs, business leaders and angel investors.
BigFrontier Communications Group was engaged to develop an aggressive campaign to extend the message of the MVS to a 13 state "Greater Midwest" area in support of the organization's first ever two day event. The mission was broken into several phases: announce the event in general, solicit presenting companies, solicit potential sponsors, solicit investors and, finally, solicit attendees.
Campaign Highlights:
November:We researched the appropriate locations to publicize the MVS in the Greater Midwest area.Our research team posted information and announcements about the MVS on bulletin boards, chat groups, and on-line entrepreneur newsletters. We registered on over 50 various entrepreneur boards and contacted entrepreneur association in the in the targeted regions to announce the event and call for business plans. They began to roll in.
December : We focused on spreading news about the event itself, to serve as a catalyst for sponsorship sales as well as continue the business plan campaign. BIGfrontier worked closely with all the supporting organizations to provide content for their respective newsletters to keep the MVS top of mind.
January: After receiving a record number of business plans we turned our attention to promoting the event itself. We produced a video clip with Bob Geras and Maura O'Hara informing the prospective entrepreneurs of the Geras $70,000 grant.The clip was uploaded onto Google Video exclusive distribution to our entrepreneur boards and associations.
Bob Geras Grant Headline: $70,000 Geras Grant to be awarded at the 2008 Midwest Venture Summit Geras Grant is largest to date in Midwest
Chicago, IL:January 22, 2008 Uber angel investor Bob Geras is seeking "diamonds in the rough"at the 2008 Midwest Venture Summit (MVS) in Chicago to award his $70,000 Geras Grant, and invites all other Midwest angels to join him in his quest at the Summit.The $70,000 Grant will be awarded to one of the early stage companies presenting at the MVS and represents the largest grant of its kind to be awarded at a venture summit to date, this year.
February: We continued to press for attendees, securing press placements all over the Midwest, and a record three Chicago Tribune placements immediately prior, during and following the event. BIGfrontier also contracted John Gartner, author of the Hypomanic Edge to keynote the 2008 MVS.
Results: We would prefer to let the numbers do the talking:
The 2008 Midwest Venture Summit received over 80 new business plan submissions from the 13 Midwest states, a record number of submissions.Over half of those submissions were companies past the early stages of development.
The summit had over 400 attendees, which included more than 100 angel and venture capital investors. It received positive feedback from numerous attendees as the best MVS ever conducted.