Case Study
How Evansville Goodwill Broke Registration Records with a 3-Week, Multi-Channel Campaign
When Evansville Goodwill came to Oswald Marketing in October 2024, they had a familiar problem: a beloved community event that just couldn’t seem to grow. The Turkey Day 5K had been a local tradition, but post-COVID momentum was hard to rebuild. Signups had stagnated, sponsorships were flat, and their in-house marketing efforts — though admirable — had only managed to stabilize the event, not scale it.
With race day weeks away and a goal of 2,000 registrations on the line, they needed a strategy that could move fast and hit hard.
The Challenge
The stakes were real. Every missed signup represented lost donation dollars for Goodwill’s mission. Every quiet race day was a missed opportunity to build brand awareness and community connection in the Evansville market. The organization had tried piecing together their own marketing campaigns in prior years, and while they kept the event alive, the needle wasn’t moving.
They needed a partner who could build something bigger — quickly — without blowing the budget.
Our Approach
Oswald’s first move was to stretch every dollar. Rather than rebuilding creative from scratch, we leveraged Goodwill’s existing brand assets and directed the majority of the budget into high-impact, high-frequency media placements across four key channels: social media advertising, radio spotlight segments, streaming television, and digital display ads. This multi-channel approach ensured we reached the right people, at the right time, without sacrificing reach or relevance.
But media buying alone doesn’t win races. We worked hand-in-hand with the Turkey Day 5K run coordinator and Goodwill’s marketing director to ensure fast approvals, aligned messaging, and consistent communication from day one. That collaboration kept the campaign moving at the speed the timeline demanded.
We also did the homework. Our team analyzed demographics of past participants, local population trends around the Thanksgiving holiday, and the media habits of likely runners in the region. That research informed a targeted, well-balanced media mix — and helped us identify valuable partnership opportunities with local radio and TV outlets to amplify community reach.
As the campaign ran, we didn’t set it and forget it. We monitored performance closely and discovered that social media delivered the strongest engagement and direct conversions, while traditional TV and radio reinforced broad community awareness. We used those insights to optimize in real time, doubling down on what was working.
To complete the full-service picture, we also provided race-day event signage — something Goodwill hadn’t been able to pull together in previous years — giving the event a polished, professional presence that runners and sponsors noticed.
The Results
In just three weeks, the campaign delivered beyond expectations.
- 2,225+ registrations — surpassing the 2,000-signup goal
- Strong race-day turnout with enthusiastic community participation
- Positive runner feedback on event setup, route experience, and overall branding
- Measurably increased community awareness of Goodwill’s mission
- Enhanced on-site brand presence through Oswald-produced event signage
Beyond the Metrics
The Turkey Day 5K didn’t just meet its goal — it broke its own record and did so with the kind of energy that sets the stage for even bigger growth in the years ahead.
As Morgan Lange, VP of Mission Advancement at Evansville Goodwill, put it: “Working with Oswald has been great to grow our brand and highlight our mission awareness. Having them also do our promotions products helped us get signage fast that we previously did not have.”
This campaign is proof that with the right strategy, the right partnerships, and a relentless focus on results, even a tight timeline and a crowded seasonal landscape can’t stop you from crossing the finish line first.