Travel Contest Drives Database & Reader Interest Data

Case Study Highlights

• 900+ contest entries
• 450+ opt-ins for newsletter
• Gathered valuable reader interest data

The Idea

TravelAwaits is an online-only publication for travelers age 50+ looking for experiences all over the world. We were about to relaunch our website and wanted to celebrate with our readers.

We know one way to connect with our audience is through our newsletters. Because of this, our email list is very valuable. We were looking for a creative way to identify potential travelers and grow our list. A sweepstakes seemed like the perfect fit.

The Execution

As a travel publication, running a vacation sweepstakes was a no brainer. We wanted the prize to be substantial to drive more people to enter, so we decided on a $1,500 travel package.

However, since our readers have vastly different tastes, we didn’t want to limit it by sending them all to the same destination. Instead, we offered up $500 toward a Vrbo property, $500 to Southwest Airlines, and an additional $500 Visa gift card to cover other travel expenses.

The contest ran for two weeks, and readers could enter once a day. This was a great way to help drive people to our site day after day. To incentivize opt-ins to our database, readers could get an extra chance to win for joining our TravelAwaits Newsletter.

In addition to list growth, we used this sweepstakes as an opportunity to collect important user data about our readers, so we can create more content based on their wants. Not only did this data include their age, gender, and zip code, but we also asked them to tell us two destinations they want to travel to.

The Results

We were very pleased with the results of our sweepstakes. Nearly 950 people entered the contest, and nearly 500 opted-in to our newsletter. Beyond that, we were able to learn more about the demographics of our readers and also learn their top travel destinations. We are already looking forward to our next contest and are planning on securing sponsorships as well.