The Online Chuck-a-Puck Contest

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Once upon a time there was an email marketing manager for a regional hockey team; the team was a start-up in an area not very familiar with the sport so ticket sales were low. They managed to sell 4000 of their 12500 seats in season tickets, another 2000 would typically sell on their own and their sales team was able to move an additional 1000 through corporate sales/ event nights. This left them with 5000 empty seats.

Disappointed with the empty seats, the owners tasked him with boosting ticket sales – the email manager tried everything, promoting to his email list (approximately 7000 names), working closely with the advertising group for television, print and bill board ads. He tried PR initiatives and even dressed up in a sandwich board to hand out tickets. Nothing really worked.

So one afternoon, while stuffing envelopes, he decided to promote a contest. He put out an email to his entire list (7000 names). Asking recipients to print out the email and bring to the game, those who did would receive a puck to chuck into the goal during half-time. From his list only 700 opened, 200 brought in the email as instructed and had their chance to chuck-a-puck. There were five winners, who received merchandise, free tickets or photos with the players.

After the contest, the announcer told everyone where to sign-up for the next game and their chance to play. By the next week he had 1,400 new subscribers, the email went out and had 3,600 opens – 2000+ people printed to play at the next game (he still had five winners). By the third game he had even more subscribers, an open rate above 60% and a huge conversion. Response was so overwhelming that he pressed further by giving the non-winners an opportunity to fill out an online preference survey with the chance to win box seats for the next game.

Today (three years later) he promotes his events on Facebook. He uses intrigue to engage his fans. He uses online contests to grow his reach. He leverages social media and mobile to survey his recipients. He even gets his fans to predict plays. He was a one man band, but sales are so good he now has a team - a very productive one too.

So the moral of this story is that a little interaction goes a long way. This one contest helped the manager 1) grow his list; 2) get more “cheeks in seats” and 3) actually CONNECT with customers (he collected personalized information that could be leveraged for future campaigns.)

You could do the same, think of ways to solicit interaction, it could revitalize your email campaigns, reduce direct mail cost and give you access to the personal information you need to attract advertisers… you may even unload some of those expensive “Jack Nicholson” seats.