Big Ten Sweepstakes

Summary

The Principal Financial Group® is a leading global financial company that offers businesses, individuals, and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services.

The Principal came to Overdrive seeking to increase consumer leads by growing their lead generation pool, build brand awareness within their target audience, and drive social sharing and viral propagation. To achieve this goal, Overdrive capitalized upon Principal’s sponsorship of the Big Ten Athletic Conference, creating a promotional contest that included microsite development and design, social sharing, content development, marketing automation, display banner ads, search marketing, and lead generation. The initial fall football program was deemed so successful that the program was repeated during the winter basketball season.

Contest Microsite Design and Development
Lightweight, Shareable Content
Paid Search Management (SEM)
Display Banner Ad Creative
Social Sharing-Enabled Thank You Pages
Triggered Email
Campaign Reporting

Contest Microsite Design and Development

Overdrive promoted Principal’s sponsorship of the Big Ten Athletic Conference’s football and basketball programs through simple sweepstakes that invited users to enter to win a high-value item — tickets and travel to the Big Ten Conference Championship Game for both football and basketball.

A series of microsites was developed with forms that doubled as both a sweepstakes entry form and a lead generator for Principal’s nurture pool. Upon submitting an entry, the user was redirected to a Thank You page that contained a secondary call to action, prompting the entrant to download Principal’s Big Ten Financial Playbook as well as find a Principal advisor to discuss financial planning.

Social Sharing-Enabled Thank You Pages

The Thank You pages for the promotional microsites were socially enabled so that upon entering, users were prompted to take “One More Step!” by tweeting and/or posting on Facebook about the contest directly from the contest page.

Lightweight, Shareable Content: The Big Ten Financial Playbook

Overdrive developed a “Financial Playbook” that included valuable financial tips that both sweepstakes entrants and site visitors could easily download and share. The playbook was also promoted across Principal’s digital platforms during the Big Ten’s collegiate football and basketball seasons.

Triggered Email: Contest Auto-Reply Email

An auto-reply email kicked out immediately to sweepstake entrants, presenting additional offers and calls to action.

Paid Search and Display Banner Ads

Specific to the basketball contest, a paid search and display banner program augmented the online media plan to help drive awareness of the program and traffic to the promotional website.