Driving 360K+ Opt-Ins at Scale with One Cohesive Campaign

The Idea

The Black Press team set out with a clear goal: grow newsletter subscriptions at scale while deepening relationships with advertisers and engaging audiences across their network.

To achieve this, they developed an in-house, nationwide syndicated campaign designed to maximize reach, drive repeat participation, and create meaningful value for both their audience and their partners.

The Execution

Black Press Media brought this vision to life with Proudly Canadian, Proudly You — a multi-sweepstakes program featuring six themed contests. Each highlighted travel, lifestyle, and adventure experiences across Canada, supported by a diverse group of tourism, hospitality, and lifestyle sponsors.

Rather than relying on a single promotion, the team built a cohesive, multi-campaign series syndicated across multiple publications – 6 total sweepstakes, each syndicated to 5 other publications within their organization. Each sweepstakes offered a unique prize package while reinforcing a shared national theme—allowing the team to:

• Extend campaign longevity
• Cross-promote across properties
• Maximize reach and repeat engagement

With over $17,000 in prizes, the campaign delivered strong audience appeal. To drive participation, Black Press supported the program with a full-funnel promotional strategy, including:

• Network-wide digital advertising
• Newsletter placements
• Social media promotion
• Print amplification

To align with their primary goal, newsletter opt-ins were included in each sweepstakes registration form, along with an opt-in for participating sponsors. Custom lead-generation questions were also added to each registration form, enabling sponsors to collect valuable audience insights and high-quality data.

The Results

The Proudly Canadian, Proudly You campaign successfully unified multiple prize packages under a compelling, ownable brand—and the results exceeded expectations.

The Black Press team originally set a goal of 450,000 total entries during the run of the campaign from July through December, and they smashed that goal with a total of 1.3MM entries. Through these entries, they received a staggering 360,000+ newsletter opt-ins across all 6 sweepstakes, and 36,000+ sponsor opt-ins.

By combining a strong thematic concept with a scalable execution model, Black Press created a campaign that not only drove massive engagement, but also established a repeatable framework for future success.

Building on these results, the team is already planning their next syndicated program—now with an even stronger foundation for revenue generation and sponsor integration!