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#3. Farm Aid
http://www.farmaid.org
MarketingSherpa Summary:
With no budget, Farm Aid wanted to increase traffic in the
three months before their annual September benefit concert. They created a cool
microsite, http://topofthehaystack.ning.com, and ran a contest challenging fans to upload
photos and explain why they were the ultimate fan. Email signup and a tell-a-friend
feature also appeared at the site. In response, the site received millions of visits, and paid
subscriptions increased 73% for their Farmyard Fanclub membership compared to the
year before.
Agency: ISITE Design
Client/company: Farm Aid
Brand campaign was conducted for: Farm Aid
Launch date of campaign: July 11, 2006
Target audience/demographic: Farm Aid concert fans and good food enthusiasts
Campaign Goal:
Farm Aid's website typically has lots of activity in early July, when the annual
benefit concert is announced, and again in late September, when the concert is
held. But users tended to disappear during the three months in between. We wanted
to find a way to keep users interested and involved in the site during the full
three-month period. We wanted to create a viral contest that went beyond a funny
forward to capture authentic stories from users and engage them in a fun way
that would have them coming back to the site over a two- to three-month period. Oh, and
did I mention we had zero budget?
About Farm Aid: Farm Aid is a national nonprofit organization with the mission of
keeping family farmers on their land and promoting fresh local food. Farm Aid
raises awareness with a large annual music concert featuring top artists,
including Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp and Neil Young.
Creative:
A campaign microsite called Top of the Haystack was created to seek out the
ultimate Farm Aid fan. The ultimate winner would receive an all-expense paid trip
to the 2006 concert. The site went far beyond a typical sweepstakes,
encouraging fans to upload a photo and explanation of why they were the
ultimate fan. Fans then were pitted against each other in head-to-head contests.
Results were tallied on
the site, and a leader board tracked fans moving up and down in the rankings.
Having fans participate in the challenge and see all the stories not only was
highly engaging and encouraged repeat visits, but it also shared the amazing
stories of Farm Aid's many supporters. Additional random drawings, sponsor
involvement and integration with the main website kept interest high and drove
significant results for Farm Aid during a normally slow period. While the microsite
had a separate brand than the main Farm Aid web site, careful attention was put
into how to effectively integrate them to encourage visitors to engage in our
mission-oriented content. Google Analytics was put in place to measure the
effectiveness of the campaign.
Seed Strategy:
We contacted friends and family first to get enough entries to fill the contest
before going live. Then, we announced the contest in an outbound email to our
house list of 20,000 users and linked to it from on our website and blog.
We provided our early entrants with e-cards and tell-a-friend tools to encourage
them to help spread the word.
Buzz Generated:
• July 11, 2006 – haystack featured on www.youthnoise.com
• July 12, 2006 – contest mentioned on http://blog.owensraffle.net, a blog about
sweepstakes and contests
• July 17, 2006 - blog entry on http://agwired.com/2006/07/17/farm-aids-top-of-the-haystack
• July 17, 2006 – Mentioned in Ning’s blog
http://blog.ning.com/2006/07/top_of_the_haystack.html
• July 26, 2006 – fan asks members to vote for her on the Mothering.com
discussion board
• July 27, 2006 - News entry on John Mellencamp's online fan club
http://www.clubcherrybomb.net
• July 28, 2006 – Haystack is featured on the home page of the Randi
Rhodes show and mentioned on the radio show
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/todaysshows?from=150
• Listed as one of the top apps on the Ning site for the duration of the contest
• Contestants asked people to vote for them on their own personal blogs and
MySpace sites
Specific (Goal-Related) Campaign Results:
We went beyond traffic to measure the ultimate success of the campaign. The
goals that really mattered were how well we engaged visitors in crossing back to
the Farm Aid website and engaging in our mission-oriented content. Results
exceeded Farm Aid's wildest expectations. They included:
• 73% increase in paid membership accounts year over year during the campaign
period
• 56% increase in new accounts in August (The concert is announced in July and
held in September, so this is a key month)
• 11% of the microsite visitors traveled on to visit the main Farm Aid website
• Visitors were viewing an average of 60 pages per visit during the contest
peak
• More than 500 people submitted amazing and heartwarming stories and photos
• Early success secured a sponsor for the campaign to cover the prize cost
• Hundreds of fans promoted the contest virally with e-cards
Biggest Learning:
If all goes well, we’ll bring the contest back this year when we announce the
concert, but this time we’ll extend the initial time period to seed the entries. This
would allow the early buzz to grow over a longer period of time, and more entries
at the start would encourage a bigger initial impact from word of mouth and viral
from the entrants themselves. We still got millions of visits and consider it an
overwhelming success, but we feel some small changes like this could greatly
increase the participation.
The most surprising part of the campaign was all of the fantastic stories that
came in from the entrants. It opened up our eyes to the power of user-generated
content and gave us more ideas for how to incorporate the same ideas on our
main site.
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