Building a Marketing Department at Lock 3 Park

Marketing Director, Lock 3 Park (2007)

In 2007, I was recruited by the Deputy Mayor Dave Lieberth to establish a marketing department for Lock 3 Park, the downtown amphitheater for the City of Akron.

My responsibilities were to increase attendance distributing brochures and write press releases for the venue which features classic rock to old school soul.

The marketing plan for the 2007 season featured combination of guerrilla marketing and an email campaign. For the guerrilla marketing plan, the target was Akronites who worked outside. Lock 3 park attendance history shown that most people who attended performances worked outside of downtown

To reach this target audience, brochures were placed in bookstores and shops, but the bulk of the materials were at businesses with large employment in the Akron area including Summa Hospital, Akron General Medical Center, Roadway, Allstate etc.

By giving employees access to the information at their workplace, the probability of these workers going to Lock 3 concert would increase.

The email campaign was targeted towards African Americans who traditionally might only R&B and jazz concerts.The goal was to expose this audience to the many diverse concert opportunities at Lock 3 Park.

Cultivated from an email list of contacts, the first email was a general concert listing before the season started in early May. This was followed by weekly concert updates ,which the email recipients were encouraged to forward the email to their friends, family and co-workers.

The combination of guerrilla and email marketing worked as Lock 3 Park broke all attendance in 2007 as over 100,000 visitors attended performances Lock 3 Park, (the previous record was 69,000 which was set earlier in the decade).

Ideas implemented for the 2008 Lock 3 Park Season

* Cultivated relationship with Bridgestone Invitational .

* Added directions and map to Lock 3 Park brochures.

* Culturally diverse artists added Rock The Lock schedule.

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Kevin Lockett is a social media strategist and pop culture blogger in Akron, Ohio.
In 2009, he launched the green jobs platform Hirejam.com to help Ohioans find green and renewable energy positions.

Mr. Lockett can be can be reached at kazwire@yahoo.com , Hirejam@gmail.com, Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter .