marketing case study 03
Building Community Engagement
Integrated Marketing | Community Engagement | Marketing Communications
By combining communications, event planning, and volunteer coordination, I helped create a seamless experience that increased participation, and strengthened community connections.
01 project Overview
Lex Read in Chinese is a nonprofit organization serving Chinese-speaking families with children age 3–6 in Lexington and surrounding communities. Its mission is to strengthen children's Chinese language development while fostering a stronger sense of cultural identity through engaging community experiences.
As a core volunteer, I led the planning and marketing coordination for the organization's annual Easter Family Event, which attracted approximately 100 families. Beyond organizing the event itself, my role focused on developing an integrated marketing strategy that increased community awareness, encouraged participation, and delivered a consistent experience across every stage of the campaign.
Role: Marketing & Event Lead (Volunteer)
Campaign: 2025 Easter Family Event
Audience: Chinese-speaking families with children age 3–6
Scale: 100 participating families
02 background
The annual Easter Family Event is one of Lex Read in Chinese's largest community programs. While Easter is a familiar holiday for many local families, the organization wanted to create a culturally meaningful experience where children could enjoy traditional Easter activities while interacting in a Chinese-language environment.
The campaign's objectives were to:
- Increase awareness of Lex Read in Chinese within the local community.
- Encourage more families to participate in Chinese-language activities.
- Create an engaging cultural experience that strengthened children's confidence and sense of belonging within a Chinese-speaking community.
03 The challenge
The project required coordinating both marketing communications and event operations across multiple stakeholders.
Internally, I managed planning for event logistics, including registration, participant grouping, activity design, scheduling, volunteer coordination, photography, activity vendors, prizes, venue arrangements, and contingency planning for weather.
From a marketing perspective, the greater challenge was communicating effectively with multiple audiences, each with different motivations and information needs.
- Parents needed clear event information and reasons to register.
- Volunteers required role-specific communication and scheduling.
- Community partners needed promotional materials that aligned with the organization's mission.
- Sponsors expected visibility and community engagement opportunities.
Creating one message for everyone would not be effective, so the campaign required a coordinated communication strategy across multiple channels and audiences.
04 Campaign strategy
To achieve the campaign objectives, I designed an integrated marketing strategy that guided families from initial awareness to long-term community engagement. Each marketing activity supported a different stage of the participant journey while maintaining consistent messaging across channels.
Awareness
WeChat Articles
Community Groups
Posters
Consideration
Event highlights
Registration Info
Messaging
Conversion
Registration Form
Volunteer Coordination
Participant Grouping
Engagement
Event Hosting
On-site Coordination
Community Interaction
Optimization
Volunteer Debrief
Documentation
Process Improvements
Awareness
The first goal was to increase visibility within the local Chinese-speaking community.
To achieve this, I:
- Wrote and published WeChat articles introducing the event.
- Promoted the event across multiple community WeChat groups.
- Designed promotional posters.
- Distributed printed posters in local community businesses to extend offline visibility.
Using both digital and physical channels helped reach families through multiple touch points.
Consideration
Once families became aware of the event, the focus shifted to encouraging registration.
Marketing materials highlighted:
- Family-friendly outdoor activities.
- Easter-themed games.
- Chinese-language immersion.
- Opportunities for children to build friendships within the community.
At the same time, I created the online registration form and ensured all campaign messaging remained consistent across promotional channels.
Conversion
As registrations increased, marketing and operations became closely connected.
I coordinated volunteer recruitment, organized participant groups by age, and ensured that event capacity, activity planning, and communications stayed aligned with registration data.
This integration helped create a smooth transition from online registration to the on-site event experience.
Engagement
During the event, I served as the event host, managing the program timeline and coordinating volunteers to maintain a smooth participant experience.
The event successfully brought together approximately 100 families, creating an interactive environment where children could experience Chinese language and culture through games and family activities.
Post-event Optimization
Following the event, I organized a debrief session with volunteers to review the entire campaign.
Rather than evaluating only attendance, we documented operational challenges, communication gaps, and opportunities to improve future events, including participant flow, activity transitions, volunteer coordination, and on-site communication.
These insights became a reference for planning future community programs and helped establish a more repeatable event planning process.
05 results
- Successfully supported an integrated marketing campaign that attracted approximately 100 participating families.
- Delivered consistent messaging across digital, community, and on-site channels.
- Coordinated communications for multiple stakeholder groups, including parents, volunteers, and community partners.
- Established documented post-event learnings to improve future campaign planning and execution.
06 Integrated Marketing Insights
Looking back, this project demonstrated that successful community marketing extends far beyond promotion. Creating meaningful engagement required aligning messaging, communication channels, operational planning, and the participant experience into one cohesive campaign.
Through this project, I learned that:
- Integrated marketing is most effective when every communication channel supports a shared objective.
- Different audiences require tailored messaging while maintaining a consistent brand voice.
- Marketing and operations should work together to deliver a seamless participant journey.
- Community engagement begins before the event and continues through thoughtful post-event follow-up and continuous improvement.
- Reviewing campaign performance and documenting lessons learned helps build scalable, repeatable marketing processes.