Sweepstakes Engages National Audience & Drives Huge Revenue
USA Today leveraged their national reach to gather zero party data and thousands of opt-ins for their sponsor
USA Today had a partnership with STIHL, and outdoor power equipment company, and were looking to drive trackable results and promote STIHL to their national audience.
They crafted a sweepstakes with a huge prize and partners with HGTV stars Dave and Jenny Mars. The first national prize was $100,000, a virtual design consultation with Jenny & Dave Marrs, and a landscaping prize package powered by STIHL, valued at $1,500. The two second place prizes were $10,000 and a virtual design consultation with Jenny & Dave Marrs.
With such a desirable prize, the USA Today team had no trouble drawing in users to participate. The versatility of the sweepstakes template designer was maximized as the USA Today team included a banner ad for STIHL at the top of the promotion page and also embedded a video of Jenny & Dave Marrs promoting the contest.
Multiple invitation emails were sent out to USA Today’s national audience to drive engagement, and extra chances were utilized in a very unique way to even further push audience involvement. Not only were there extra chances included for STIHL’s Facebook page and a data generating question of ‘What Fall projects are at the top of your list?’, but USA Today also included an extra chance for entering a codeword users could on their local Gannett online publication’s /for-subscribers web page.
The registration form also included an opt-in for the Fall Home and Garden Refresh Premium sponsors and another opt-in for USA Today’s promotions list.
This sweepstakes received over 145,000 entries from over 27,000 people, with 15% of entrants choosing to follow STIHL on their Facebook page. Nearly 15,000 new opt-ins were collected for Fall Home and Garden Refresh Premium sponsors, and USA Today was also able to add over 1,200 new opt-ins to their promotions list.
All of this amazing work brought USA Today $2.2M in revenue, which goes to show that if you create the right package for larger advertising partners, it can lead to huge returns for your company!
