Monthly Travel Sweeps Leads to $400K in 4 Years

Case Study Highlights

• $400,000 revenue in four years
• 80% opt-in rate for station
• Big win for all station departments
• Drives app downloads for sponsor

The Idea

HOT 96.9 is a station out of the top-ten market of Boston. We were tasked with finding new, creative ideas to drive revenue and database growth for our station. To make a bigger impact on our revenue goals, we planned an annual campaign to drive recurring revenue all year long.

The Execution

Our team came up with the idea of a monthly vacation sweepstakes. Every month, one lucky listener wins a two night, three day trip – including hotel stay and airfare – to a location like San Diego, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. We knew this would be a huge hit with our audience and drive some killer engagement numbers.

Once we decided on our contest, we needed to lock in the sponsorship. We looked at our current HOT 96.9 sponsors first and pitched the idea to Dunkin’ Donuts. This national chain already advertised with us, and we knew they’d be interested in another campaign to achieve their goals of branding and email list growth.

Dunkin’ Donuts happily signed on as our exclusive sponsor. Along with all their branding on the contest itself, the sponsorship package includes much more. Dunkin’ Donuts also receives an email opt-in, social posts on all the HOT 96.9 social media accounts, and multiple spots to direct users to the Dunkin’ website. Plus, they get many mentions by our station personalities on-air. Dunkin’ is now even the official coffee of our morning program, “The Get Up Crew.”

For the vacation prize, the HOT 96.9 team works with a local travel agent to procure $1,000 travel vouchers to the selected month’s destination. Our sales budget covers the cost of the vouchers, and our programming team uses their information about our listeners to pick the next destination.

To drive engagement, we have a robust marketing campaign for Dunkin’ Hot Spots. This includes website ads, on-air mentions and spots, emails to our contest database and previous participants, and mentions on social media. Each month we choose a random winner and send an email announcement which encourages entrants to download the DDPerks mobile app for Dunkin’ Donuts.

The Results

This campaign has most definitely been a success. We’re currently in the fourth year of Hot Spots, and Dunkin’ Donuts has been the sponsor since year one. The first year, they paid $70,000 for the annual campaign, and each year since, they’ve increased the spend. In total, the Dunkin’ Hot Spots campaign has secured nearly $400,000 for HOT 96.9.

Beyond revenue, our station has seen lots of engagement every month. Overall we’ve had thousands of entrants and are consistently getting over an 80% email opt-in rate for our station newsletters.

This was a big win for everyone involved. Our on-air talent loves giving away the prizes, marketing doesn’t have to pay for it, Dunkin’ gets engagement on their mobile app, and our sales reps are making their commission. It’s a win, win, win, win for all!