Swimathon

Working with Swimathon for nearly 2 years was one of my favourite projects, dive in to read more….

 

Client: Swimathon​

 

Swimathon is an annual UK-based swimming event that’s been going since 1988 and has raised over £50 million for charities since its launch. It's the world's largest swimming fundraising event.

 

Project in a nutshell:

 

Leading their marketing strategy and implementation in 2023 and 2024

 

What I did and results achieved: 

 

I joined the Swimathon team as a fractional marketing lead in December 2022 to deliver the pre-agreed marketing strategy and recruit swimmers for the May 2023 event.

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I did this through a co-ordination role:

• Drove improved results and optimisations through a digital marketing agency for Google Ads and Paid Social channels

• Successfully applied for Google Ad Grants which saved them some of their valuable budget

• Oversaw a marketing executive and supported them on work across email campaigns, organic social and partnerships

• Managed the SEO of the website, including new content creation to drive new audiences to the website/event e.g. ‘Where to swim in the sea over Christmas/New Year’ and 'Getting back into swimming' 

• Reported to, and liaised with Charity Partners and the Swimathon Steering Group and Working Group(s)

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We signed up over 8,000 swimmers for the 2023 event, a 10% increase on 2022 swimmer numbers thanks to much of the work I did  and I was delighted to be asked to stay on on my fractional role:

• Evaluate the 2023 marketing strategy against the results

• Build the 2024 marketing strategy, using learnings from 2023

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Our 2024 campaign got off to a great start:

• We signed up 2,000 swimmers in the first 48 hours through a pre-sale incentive (lowest price, competition entry)

• I learnt from 2023 that the swimmers themselves needed to be a core part of the campaign, so they featured front and centre in all of our activity - from organic social media posts, to email campaigns to our paid advertising

• We secured additional budget for some regional testing. I recommended a mix of outdoor and social media advertising and was able to demonstrate and uplift in website traffic and sales in those regions

 

A large part of my time in the 2024 campaign was spend overhauling the email database, and email strategy:

• archiving millions of old email addresses that hadn’t engaged with us for years 

• sending fewer but more useful and engaging emails, with customer stories at the heart of these

• bringing in MVT to every campaign (e.g. testing subject lines, time of day, different creative/messaging)

• Bringing in segmentation, so we could send targeted emails to certain demographics and regions

• Segmentation - regional, families 

By doing this, we drove significantly more sales through email (+475%) by sending around half the emails we’d sent the year before.

 

All the work from me and the team paid off: over 10,000 swimmers signed up, a 20% increase year-on-year! 

 

Selena Colmer, from the Swimathon Foundation, had this to say:

 

“Swimathon had a really tough few years during Covid, so 2023 was a big year for us as it was our first year of being ‘back to normal’ but we had lost momentum, and so much had changed. It was great to have Heledd on board for two years, her strategic and implementation work found opportunities to re-engage with our previous swimmers and encouraged them to sign up, but also found whole new audiences of swimmers new to Swimathon. Heledd was great to work with - dedicated, knowledgeable and was able to cut through complex digital marketing jargon with our stakeholders.”

 

I loved the Swimathon project for so many reasons; I was part of a great team; I was able to apply all my skills and knowledge (from marketing strategy to weekly prioritisation) but probably most importantly - it felt really good to be part of something that raised so much for money for good causes. We raised over £1M in 2024’s Swimathon! 
 

And the people I met along the way, through writing their case studies and/or meeting them at the Swimathon events was inspirational - every swimmer had a story whether it was cancer or bereavment that had led them there, or a physical or mental health issue. I really am in awe of Swimathon swimmers, I might even sign myself up this year (although it would have to be for the shortest distance!)