Case Study Highlights
- $6MM in sales for advertiser the next month
- Identified 192 people ready to move within a year
- Drove in 3,000 sweepstakes entries
- Utilized nationally-managed sweepstakes
The Idea
Our newspaper, the Patriot Ledger, is a 38,000 circulation paper out of Quincy, MA. Nao Rouhana, an individual real estate broker with Keller Williams Realty, recently relocated to the Quincy area and wanted her new community to get to know her and her business. She had three objectives for the campaign: generate marketing leads, create brand awareness, and build an email database.
We saw a great opportunity to help get the word out using promotions. Second Street National Home Free for a Year Sweepstakes campaign came at the perfect time. This nationally-managed contest offered a prize of free rent or mortgage for a year (up to $15,000.)
The Execution
The biggest issue for our advertiser, Nao Rouhana, was building trust with the local residents since she was new to the area. We knew it would be a challenge to identify one marketing solution to drive brand trust and attract her target audience of residents looking to buy or sell homes.
Our answer was the sponsorship of our ‘Home Free for a Year’ sweepstakes campaign. A sweepstakes for free rent or mortgage directly targeted the audience she wanted to reach – existing and potential homeowners in Quincy.
We knew a prize this valuable would attract a large audience, so we wanted to help our real estate broker be able to qualify participants. In a customer needs analysis (CNA) meeting, we asked Nao Rouhana what qualities are most important to her determining a qualified lead.
Based on this, we added lead-generating questions to our registration form. The first asked if the entrant was a renter or homeowner. The second question asked if they were looking to move within the year.
In addition to these lead-gen questions, we also added a clear email opt-in for Nao Rouhana’s. These opted-in email addresses are critical for the advertiser to follow-up with all of these potential leads and reach out to them with offers and information to help lead to a new client.
While the prize was fantastic, to ensure we received maximum participation our team put together a fully-integrated marketing plan heavily relying on email and many other elements including:
- Multiple email announcements
- Digital display ads
- Targeted display ads
- Print ads
- Organic social media posts
- Paid social media posts
- Website homepage promotion
The Results
The campaign definitely achieved our goal of introducing Nao Rouhana to the Quincy market. The sweepstakes received nearly 3,000 entries and 344 people opted-in. Our lead-gen questions also uncovered 192 people looking to move within the year.
Armed with this data and contact information, Nao Rouhana was able to secure new clients. Within just one month of Home Free for a Year, Nao Rouhana closed over $6,000,000 (yes, MILLION!) in real estate transactions – all thanks to this promotion.
Our paper secured $5,000 in sponsorship revenue, but after seeing these tremendous results, we know we can feel confident charging significantly more for our sponsorship package. When you create a campaign to deliver measurable results for an advertiser, it will deliver some huge results for your media company.
Related Articles
Rebecca is GateHouse Media’s Vice President fo Promotions and oversees company-wide training programs, engagement campaigns, and targeted sales initiatives. Prior to joining GateHouse Media, Rebecca spent 16 years in the digital out-of-home industry with Screenvision.