La-Z-Boy Comfort Stories campaign drives 13,000 new prospects
Tue, 2009-04-07
La-Z-Boy, one of the world's leading residential furniture producers, regularly runs contests to drive traffic to their website and to gain new customer contacts. To mix things up, they ran a "Comfort Stories" campaign featuring Bazaarvoice Stories™.
Promotion encouraged people to share
The "Comfort Stories" campaign encouraged consumers to share their story around "How has La- Z-Boy brought comfort to your life?" Consumers vied for the chance to win one of the grand prizes: a $3,000 room makeover or a La-Z-Boy recliner valued at $600. Additionally, participants had the chance to instantly win smaller prizes, ranging from a Nintendo Wii to Amazon gift cards.
The contest ran from November 11, 2008 to February 8, 2009 and was promoted through four email blasts and buttons on their home page. Consumers submitted their stories, then La-Z-Boy chose the ten best stories and published them so consumers could vote for their favorites. The winning story was announced on February 9, 2009.
La-Z-Boy aimed to drive registrations and opt-ins, drive return visits and frequency, and increase natural search traffic.
La-Z-Boy gains 13,000 new prospects
During the promotion, 2,722 stories were entered and more than 38,500 visitors registered, either to enter to win a daily prize or to vote for a favorite story.
Of these, 33% — a total of 12,924 — directly opted in, requesting more information about La-Z-Boy. These constituted new contacts to La-Z-Boy’s email database. The Comfort Stories produced a higher opt-in rate compared to past contests; La-Z-Boy believes this is due to participants having positive experiences with the brand in the past.
67% of registrants said they planned to make a furniture purchase within the next 18 months.
Contest participants come back to site
Consumers returned to the promotion an average of 6.8 times. On average, consumers spend three minutes per entry, so in this case, consumers spent at least 21 minutes directly engaging with the La-Z-Boy brand.
Contest increases natural search traffic
La-Z-Boy saw their overall site traffic increase approximately 8% attributable to this campaign, which they believe was driven by entrants recommending their friends enter, read, or vote on their stories. Contest sites virally promoting the campaign also helped drive traffic.
The bottom line
La-Z-Boy's innovative contest engaged consumers on a deeper level than their standard, regular sweepstakes.
