Credit Union Contest Microsite Engages 33,734 Unique Visitors

When we started developing a microsite for one of our financial services clients, we anticipated that the contest could go viral. However, we quickly learned there’s no limit to the extent an audience will go to win a contest. Read on for the play-by-play and results.

The Contest

As part of their “people helping people” philosophy, Michigan Schools and Government Credit Union (MSGCU), created a grant submission program. Each year, they give away a series of "mini grants" to classrooms throughout their community, ranging from $200 to $1,000 in value. In May, MSGCU began looking for a way to simplify a very paper heavy and time consuming process. Our team was able to help automate the submission process and involve the community through a microsite with online voting.

The Play-by-Play

• Sept. 1 through Oct. 28 - 76 submissions were received from schools across the region.
• Oct. 31 - Voting was opened to the public and promoted through branches and direct communications with teachers and schools.
• November 1st - Voting sky rocketed and a handful of grant proposals rose to the top. It was determined that students at certain school districts were using school networks to vote in mass.
• November 2nd - Voting peaked with over 11,000 visitors. The remaining two weeks of voting saw an average of 3,000 visitors each day. Teachers set up evening and weekend computer lab time for students without Internet access at home to vote.
• November 4th - Other students caught on and began using school networks and coffee shops to vote in mass. Contest rules were updated to discourage mass and fraudulent votes before the weekend.
• November 7th - Kids returned to school with Internet access and the site continued to average 3,000 visitors each day.
• November 17th - Voting ended and winners were selected.

The Results

• Of the 76 submissions, 20 elementary schools, 7 middle schools, 16 high schools and 3 MISD (special education) schools received grants.
• 53,405 visits came from 33,734 unique visitors resulting in over 258,835 page views.
• The average visitor browsed 4.85 pages and spent 2:13 minutes on the site.
• 773 people clicked on ‘Share This Event’. Over 678 of those shared via Facebook and drove over 7,265 clicks and 17,502 page views in two weeks.
• Sharing occurred via all major social channels including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ (in that order).
• Interestingly, 8,069 of the unique visits were from a mobile device.

Lessons Learned

• Every contest and system can be "gamed". Plan for it and consider it a compliment when your audience collectively dedicates over 2,000 hours to interacting with your brand.
• Don't assume that everyone has access to the Internet at home.
• Mobile should be a consideration for EVERY online campaign.

Have you had success with contests? Please share any lessons learned below.

This blog post was originally published on the Priority Blog at priorityresults.com/blog. Priority Integrated Marketing is now BlueSpire Strategic Marketing.