How we helped get 672% ROI from a social media contest
For nearly a year, we have worked with Naples Grande Beachfront Resort as the social media agency of record. We publish content on three social channels five days a week. We regularly brainstorm promotions for holidays and specials. But this quarter we wanted to do something bigger: something that would help us find new leads, grow our Facebook audience and drive revenue. To accomplish all of that, we recommended a referral-based sweepstakes contest through Offerpop, a powerful social media marketing tool. (Full disclosure: Offerpop is a Beutler Ink client.) Offerpop allowed us to easily set up the contest and host it on the Naples Grande website.
For contest entrants, the mechanics were simple: Fill out a short form (think name and contact information) and click "submit" to be entered to win a 2-night stay. We also used a referral program in which users could rack up more entries each time friends signs up through a personalized bit.ly link.
Ultimately, we knew the success of the contest would be only as good as the promotion of it. We focused on getting the word out on three main channels: social media (obviously), emails to the existing database and website visitors.
For social media, we created powerful imagery that would get users' attention in the feed. We changed all of the hotel's profile pictures, bios and headers and made sure to pin the contest announcement to the top of Twitter and Facebook. We regularly talked about the contest and utilized Facebook advertising to extend our reach.
We also designed and developed an email blast that went to all of Naples Grande's existing marketing database. This was helpful in not only spreading the word and attracting sign-ups, but also testing the hotel's email list to see how engaged previous guests were. After the email was sent, website clicks quadrupled and referrals tripled (which we could assume were entirely new email addresses).
Finally, we created multiple website assets, including carousel images and a blog post. The hotel created a unique phone number to closely track any revenue generated through the contest, which was featured on website materials,
The contest has wrapped, and the results are in! We saw a 672% return on investment, as well as big spikes in leads and Facebook fans.
Unique visitors: 12,491
New Facebook fans: 1,056 (more than double an average month)
Signups: 4,182 (33% of people who saw the form signed up)
Referrals: 529
ROI: 672%
Plans for our next are, unsurprisingly, already underway!
