Elle Marketing and Events

Case Study

The Other Side Village

CMO | Full Service Marketing Support | PR & Media Support

The Other Side Village

The Other Side Village is a master-planned neighborhood that provides affordable, permanent quality housing for people coming out of chronic homelessness.

The Challenge

The Other Side Village was facing strong local and political opposition to building a tiny home village for Salt Lake City’s homeless. While there was broad empathy for the homeless population, there were questions about feasibility, cost, location, and vision. The main question was around why this program would succeed when so many others had not met the needs or expectations of the community.

The vision for The Village went beyond just housing and wrap-around services, but rather the conviction that housing alone will never solve homelessness, but community will. The combination of high quality, permanent housing and a strong culture of personal growth, support, and connection is the heart of their model.

They brought on Elle Marketing and Events to support communicating that vision to local leaders, community members, business owners, and politicians in a year-long project.

Our Solution

Our team crafted a communication plan, marketing strategy, messaging guidelines, and PR outreach plan
We brought our content team together to provide full implementation and support
Our support included ensuring that the messaging, communication, design, and visuals were clean, concise, and consistent through every layer of the organization.

Elle Marketing gave their input and collaboration on every single marketing effort for The Village. They helped us build strategy. Content creation was entirely in their corner, deciding how we’re targeting through social media and how to be really deliberate about where we’re pointing different pieces of content. Obviously help with events, capturing assets at events, and really finding creating quality assets and distributing them appropriately. Press releases, our entire digital presence, our website, and SEO. I don’t think there’s a thing Elle Marketing hasn’t touched or worked on.

I think the investments that we made in Elle Marketing have borne extraordinary fruit. We not only wouldn’t be here today, ready to build The Village, but we would also be fighting battles that we won six months ago if it wasn’t for their help. I would just say hire Elle Marketing.

Samuel Grenny

Communications Director

Learn More About The Village

Elle Marketing Project Team

Lydia

External CMO for The Village

Kaitlyn

Marketing Strategist and Project Manager

Jen

Account Manager

Dianna

Graphic Designer

Emily

Copywriter

Paula

Web Designer

Cali

Photographer

Project Categories

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Social Media Management

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Website Design

Creative Process

The Other Side Village approached us for help with all their marketing and PR after working with a big national PR firm with limited success. They wanted someone local who could take care of everything for them. So, we stepped in and provided them with website design, social media management, videography, photography, PR, donor messaging support, and event marketing support.

Our team was there for them every step of the way, making sure they got the best results possible. We know the area like the back of our hand, so we were able to give them personalized services that really worked for them. And boy, did they work! The Other Side Village got way more engagement, support, and recognition as a result of our work!

Where We Helped The Village

Website Redesign & Copy Rewrite

The Village had a basic website that was put up in a weekend by an intern. We ensured that the website design matched up with the their values and objectives, and made it much more user-friendly. The refreshed website now has strong story, clear brand image, concise messaging, and provides an engaging experience.

Social Media

We handled all of The Village’s social media platforms, from Facebook to Instagram, and LinkedIn. We also managed paid ads around specific topics and event activations. Our team created a social media strategy that leaned into storytelling, infographics, as well as weekly Livestreams and community engagement posts to help inform and inspire. Our goal was to be the authority in the conversation around homelessness.

Donor Strategy & Messaging Packages

Donor messaging was an important part of the support we provided to the development team at The Village. We helped created impactful talking points, presentations, leave-behinds, and packages. We even created donor-specific videos to showcase the vision to create real, lasting relationships with their partners.

Event Marketing Support

Our team provided marketing support for The Other Side Village’s community awareness events, helping to increase attendance and engagement.

Videography & Photography

To help The Village tell their story, we did video interviews of their students, supporters, and residents. There were a couple of times their stories had us in tears. We wanted to show the impact of the community-centric values and the passion behind the project.

We also had our photographer on hand at events to capture their story visually. The combo of video interviews and photography helped share their mission and values with our community in a compelling way, which in turn increased understanding and support.

Livestreams

Another tool in our kit was using social media-based Livestreams to have candid conversations with community leaders, homeless advocates, and members of The Village team visually tell their story. We streamed to Facebook and LinkedIn over 50 times!

Press Releases & Media Relations

Our press releases and media relations efforts for The Village resulted in 52 pieces of earned media coverage, which helped to increase their visibility and support. We also had a “street team” who was ready to jump in and further the conversation on social media and in the comments sections.

The results

Our year-long project for The Other Side Village produced exceptional results, reaching over 330,000 people and generating significant engagement and lift of over 300% overall. But more than that, it helped bring a community together for a common cause of compassion. And we were honored to be a part of that.

Our efforts to tell a story and create a consistent brand image, refine messaging, and improve user experience through a website refresh helped establish a stronger online presence and increase community support.

We were proud to be part of such an amazing project and are excited that The Village will be breaking ground on Phase 1 in 2023.