Sweepstakes Grows Targeted Database for Parenting Magazine + Sponsor

Case Study Highlights

• $3,750 in revenue for magazine
• 650+ entries
• 450+ opt-ins for magazine
• Sponsor signed on for more contests

The Idea

Indy’s Child is a parenting magazine based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. Our magazine prides itself on being the ultimate parenting resource for families living in the greater Indianapolis area and beyond. We turned to contesting as a new opportunity to drive revenue, grow our email database, and learn a bit about our readers.

The Execution

We hadn’t used contests much yet, so we wanted to ease into it with a simple sweepstakes. We worked with representatives from a local Once Upon a Child, a national children and baby resale shop, about giving the sweepstakes a go. They were looking to build their email database, so this was the perfect opportunity for us both. The store was eager to participate and provided the prize of a $300 gift card to the store.

The success of a sweepstakes relies on finding a valuable prize. While a $300 Visa gift card would have attracted a lot of people, we knew a gift card to Once Upon a Child would attract more relevant and qualified entrants. Someone interested in buying children’s clothing is someone both we and Once Upon a Child would want to add to our email databases.

In that spirit, we included an email opt-in for Indy’s Child and an additional opt-in for Once Upon a Child. To learn more about our entrants, we also included a few lead-gen questions primarily about where our local parenting audience likes to shop. For people who opted-in, both we and Once Upon a Child could use the lead-gen question responses to tailor future marketing emails.

We promoted the contest on our website, in print-ads, through email, and on social media. As part of their sponsorship package, Once Upon a Child received prominent branding and mentions in all of our advertising and marketing efforts.

The Results

When all was said and done, we (and our clients!) were beyond thrilled with the success of our first contest! We were able to drive $3,750 in sponsorship revenue. And with 657 entrants – 457 of them opting in to Once Upon a Child’s email list – the client gained good exposure and a more robust database. On top of all that, we learned some quality information to build out our consumer profiles within our database. Plus, our sponsor is already signed on to run another sweepstakes with us!