Interactive Marketing Agency Spur Digital Wins Two AMA Crystal Awards

Houston, TX - Spur Digital, www.spurdigital.com, Houston's leading interactive marketing agency, won two prestigious Crystal Awards from the Houston chapter of the American Marketing Association. Recognized as one of the highest honors among marketing professionals, the Crystal Awards are presented to companies who create the most innovative and effective marketing campaigns.

For the second consecutive year, Spur Digital won awards for Best Internet Marketing Campaign and Best Internet Advertisement. The Best Internet Marketing Campaign award recognized Spur Digital’s work for The Houston Museum of Natural Science’s The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy – The Exhibition. With the objective of building awareness and driving ticket sales for the Exhibit, Spur Digital delivered more than 10 million impressions over three months using a variety of online media including search engines, email advertisements and display banner ads. Visitors that clicked on ads were directed to a landing page where they were invited to register and invite friends to participate in the LOTR sweepstakes.

The online marketing effort helped contribute to record attendance of more than 100,000. In addition to strong results from the direct response campaign, the viral component was very effective with nearly 25% of all online registrants originating from email invitations sent by participants to their friends. To learn more about this campaign, view the web marketing success story on Spur Digital’s Web site.

“Spur Digital has seen tremendous growth over the last 18 months and we are extremely proud of the results we have been able to achieve for our clients, among them The Houston Museum of Natural Science. Winning two more Crystal Awards further validates our unique value proposition while recognizing some of our clients’ noteworthy successes,” said Steve Latham, founder and CEO of Spur Digital.

Spur Digital received a second Crystal Award for the Best Internet Advertisement award, which recognized Spur Digital’s work for The Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Mummy: The Inside Story. With the goal of increasing awareness and driving ticket sales, Spur Digital developed and implemented an Internet advertising strategy that utilized a reputable third-party email list owner. The results from the email advertisement were very compelling with an average cost per action of $4.00, which was roughly 80% below industry averages.

“We could not be happier with the results from both campaigns. Spur Digital helped us maximize visibility and drive record ticket sales for both exhibits,” said Latha Thomas, Director of Marketing for HMNS. “We’re also pleased that the benefits don’t end here: the dramatic growth of our opt-in email list will be very valuable to us in marketing future exhibitions.”

Leveraging the success of these campaigns, Spur Digital and HMNS are again raising the bar to drive awareness and attendance of current exhibits through interactive marketing micro-sites. To learn more about BODY WORLDS 3: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies visit www.HoustonBodyWorlds3.com. To learn more about Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries visit www.DinosaursHouston.com.

About Spur Digital
Spur Digital is a full-service Houston-based Interactive Agency. Spur Digital helps clients leverage the Web to grow their business by developing, implementing and managing online marketing solutions that include search engine marketing, email marketing, online advertising and web analytics and Web ROI Measurement. Spur’s clients include Southwest Airlines, FedEx Kinko’s, Amegy Bank of Texas, Texas Industries, Camden Realty, Pro-Mark Drum Sticks, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, to name a few. Additional information can be found at www.spurdigital.com.

About the Houston Museum of Natural Science
HMNS is one of the nation’s most heavily attended museums—it is a centerpiece of the Houston Museum District. With four floors of permanent exhibit halls, and the Wortham IMAX® Theatre, Cockrell Butterfly Center, Burke Baker Planetarium and George Observatory and as host to world-class and ever-changing touring exhibitions, the Houston Museum has something to delight every age group. With such diverse and extraordinary offerings, a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, located at One Hermann Circle Drive in the heart of the Museum District, is always an adventure. For more information visit www.HMNS.org