5 Leases Secured from Apartment’s Free Rent Sweepstakes

The Idea

KNDE-FM is a DMA 94 radio station out of College Station, TX. While we’ve run promotions and interactive content in the past, we really decided to step up our game this past year. We wanted open up new revenue streams with potential advertisers, and engagement campaigns seemed to be the perfect fit for every advertiser in our market.

When we approached the|VINTAGE Apartments, a local rental community in College Station, we wanted to drive the exact results they were looking for. During our customer needs analysis (CNA) meeting, we found out that the|VINTAGE Apartments was looking to target local college students who would actively be in the market for new housing in the area.

A sweepstakes seemed like a natural fit. We knew we could achieve all the results our advertiser wanted and, hopefully, make them a new revenue stream for us.

The Execution

The first step in a good sweepstakes is determining the prize. While any number of prizes could incentivize a large number of entrants, we only wanted people entering who would be interested in living at the|VINTAGE Apartments.

The advertiser offered up an entire year of free rent as the grand prize a value of over $9,000. Not only was this going to attract a lot of interested entrants, but they would also all be people likely in the market for a new apartment.

While a great prize will attract a lot of entrants, we wanted to ensure we could produce additional measurable results for the apartment complex. First, we started with including an email opt-in for the sponsor. This way they could grow their database of leads for potential marketing campaigns.

We added two survey questions to help the|VINTAGE Apartments understand more about their potential clients: what’s most important to them about their housing choice and what would incentivize them the most.

In addition, we included a survey question asking if the entrant was actively looking for an apartment and wanted to be contacted by someone at the|VINTAGE Apartments – talk about uncovering hot leads!

To maximize engagement, users were eligible for extra chances. For each person who entered with their unique link, they’d be eligible for an extra chance for winning.

It’s important to make every entrant feel like a winner. The apartment company offered every entrant a free month of rent at the|VINTAGE. Since just one lease would mean incoming revenue for 12 months, offering a free month would be a lot of motivation for a potential renter, but not a huge hit for the apartment complex.

We wanted to take the sweepstakes one step further and make this into an event. Instead of choosing just one grand prize winner right away, we picked 50 finalists. Each finalist was presented with a key and invited down to the|VINTAGE Apartments to see who’s key opened the lucky door. We even live streamed the entire event on our Facebook Page.

The Results

When all was said and done, the campaign was a tremendous success.

Five apartments were rented as a direct result of the campaign. Based on an average annual lease, that means over $77,000 in revenue for the advertiser from just one engagement campaign. Beyond that, 110 user asked to be contacted about an apartment, and 277 people joined their email database.

We were able to generate $3,500 in revenue for our station. But the biggest takeaway is coming from all the other apartments in the area contacting us to run this contest for them – they’ve seen the power of radio and can’t wait to work with us.