Case Study Highlights

• $20,000 increase in monthly sales YOY for veterinarian
• 200 photo entries submitted
• 2,200+ people participated
• $2,500 sponsorship revenue for station

The Idea

KIX 102.5 is a DMA 148 station based out of Joplin, MO. Near the Missouri border, our station serves our large community covering the Four States – Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

With the March basketball season approaching, we wanted a contest idea that would allow us to capitalize on the bracket frenzy and also reach a broad audience beyond just basketball fans. That’s how our Mutt Madness contest got started.

The Execution

Once we picked our theme, we needed the perfect advertiser. We knew a lot of businesses would be interested in participating. Basketball promotions are a popular theme in March, and pet contests are popular any time of year.

Since this contest would drive in animal lovers and pet owners in the area, we secured Cornerstone Animal Hospital, a local veterinarian, as our sponsor. The vet wanted a way to grow their email list and identify potential new clients. We knew we could deliver on this with our contest.

The contest was divided into five rounds and started at the very end of February with a one-week open nomination period. Then we broke our contest into five rounds: Scruffy 64, Half-Obedient 32, Snuggly 16, Alpha 8, and the Furry Four.

Each week, our listeners voted on the most recent set of pups to help narrow it down to the next round. Not only was it fun to come up with the names of the different rounds, but each round provided another opportunity to market the contest to our listeners.

To market the contest, we leveraged on-air spots, emails, and website ads. Our sponsor, Cornerstone Animal Hospital, even had their own dedicated website page linking their clients to the contest.

But the marketing tool that really shined was social media. Our station and our sponsor created Facebook Posts advertising each round of the contest, and these drew a lot of engagement from listeners.

To achieve the goals of Cornerstone Animal Hospital, we included an email opt-in for them to grow their list. We also included a lead-gen question asking who the user’s current vet is and how often they visit them. This was a great way to identify a potential future client.

Additionally, we included an email opt-in for our station’s email database. We consider every contest an opportunity to grow our email list and collect data.

The Results

The contest was a huge hit with our listeners. Users submitted over 200 photos, and nearly 2,000 people participated throughout the six weeks. Our station also considered this a win as we added hundreds of new subscribers to our own database and secured $2,500 in revenue.

Cornerstone Animal Hospital was very pleased with their results. The veterinarian added over 600 new subscribers and identified potential clients through lead-gen questions. Plus, their monthly sales were up nearly $20,000 year-over-year. This was definitely a fun way to capitalize on all the basketball excitement in March!