Making Introductions: Landmen Group Launches “Meet Us” Campaign

What are landmen, anyway? With the help of their professional association, they’d like to introduce themselves.

Landmen represent the business side of the oil, gas, and mineral exploration and production industry, according to the American Association of Professional Landmen  (opens in a new tab) (AAPL). They are the people who negotiate directly with landowners to secure drilling leases on behalf of oil and gas companies.

Professional landmen have recently found themselves fighting a negative portrayal of their industry in movies and the media. To counter it, AAPL last month launched a “Meet Us” campaign  (opens in a new tab), aimed at landowners in emerging oil and gas shale plays throughout the U.S., to help them learn about the profession and meet landmen living in their communities.

Through a series of videos, AAPL explains what landmen do and the role they play in the oil and gas industry. One example:

An online advertising push and help from other oil and gas trade websites got word out about the videos. The group focused its efforts on markets near major shale plays like Marcellus (New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia), New Albany (Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky), and Haynesville-Bossier (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas), among others.

The early results are impressive: The campaign received over 7.3 million impressions across 30 media outlets in just the first 10 days, according to an AAPL statement  (opens in a new tab). Traffic to the group’s public website—which features a number of additional tools and resources to help educate landowners—saw an increase of 1,100 percent.

“This incredible response by the public indicates that landowners across the U.S. are eager to know about landmen and what they do,” AAPL President Don Key said in the statement. “The ‘meet us’ campaign has uncovered a significant need for public education about the land industry, and AAPL is proud to be leading those education efforts.”

Has your association ever crafted a campaign to educate the public about your industry? How did it go, and what did you learn? Share your story in the comments.

A sample from the association’s “Meet Us” campaign. (YouTube screenshot)