For eleven weeks every August through October, GameTime offers up to 100% matching funds on playground systems through our Playground Grant. This campaign is mutually beneficial for the grant recipients (who doesn’t love free money?!) and for the company - it’s a great source of leads for all sales reps throughout the country.
The largest group of visitors to our website is between the ages of 25 and 34. However, this demographic has represented the smallest number of people who apply for playground grants from GameTime. We know that people in this age group make up roughly half of our key markets. In parks and recreation departments 48% of employees, decision makers, and people who influence the buying decision are in this demographic. Among our school customers, 51% of employees, decision makers, and people who influence the buying decision are in this demographic.
Reaching this group of people and encouraging them to apply for playground grants, was instrumental in increasing revenue for our company, and creating more opportunities for play and recreation in communities across the country.
Our specific goals were to:
Average 10,000 impressions per video, 110,000 total impressions
Increase traffic to our website among users age 25-34 by 15%
Increase grant applications among users age 25-34 by 50%
Increase potential revenue from leads among users age 25-34 by $7M
Increase total leads (all age groups) by 15%
We researched which channels are most frequented by people in this demographic, and provide a higher rate of success of engagement. Our research told us that short videos on TikTok & Instagram offered us the best opportunity.
Working with Mace+Carmichael and Coleman Creative we developed a character named GameTime Grant - a “cool bro who gives out money to build playgrounds.”
We developed scripts for 11 videos featuring employees as actors. Each video was designed to communicate a simple message - “Double Your Playground Budget with GameTime Grant” in a fun and memorable way. Grants were awarded for 11 weeks, and these videos were published each Monday during the campaign to encourage users to submit their grant applications.
The series included 11 different scenarios in which someone was needing half of the budget required for a new playground. They were written to:
Be short yet entertaining
Speak to the various audiences (schools, parks & rec departments, etc.) who may be in the market for funds
Pay homage to online trends and cultural holidays
Be informative and instill a sense of urgency to apply
Have fun with our employees!
We spent less than $5,000 to produce these videos and used free social media for distribution. Our own employees were our actors and locations were chosen based on where our actors were working. Each shoot had its own set of props, scenarios, and locations so organized filming schedules were imperative to keep production moving quickly and our actors away from their desks as little as possible.
While hopping on the video trends bandwagon may not sound very innovative, for our company it is. While we’ve had active and successful social media campaigns for years, it’s never been viewed by our salesforce as a super important source of lead generation (although it has been).
Our research made us feel confident in the strategy. Every video script was strategically written to reach a specific audience and excite our internal salesforce. Both were important to have a successful campaign.
The cadence of the videos was purposeful and coincided with the timeline of the grant process. We incorporated trends, pop culture, and special recognition days such as Talk Like a Pirate Day - Arrrr!!
The challenges we encountered included:
Short production timeline – we had to execute the capture and production of videos in less than two weeks to ensure we kept up the weekly publication schedule.
Minimal production budget – most of our promotion budget was set aside for traditional advertising. This had to be accomplished on a relative shoestring budget. That meant working with employees as actors.
Untested format and approach – we typically market our products to an older audience and use different channels. We had data to support the decision, but no proof it would work.
A salesforce that isn’t trained to support a social campaign – We had to create a campaign that got THEIR attention and made them want to share it to gain the momentum and impressions we needed.
The campaign was extremely successful! The campaign was incredibly fun to execute and brought our team members and outside partners together for a great collaborative effort. Plus, check out the numbers:.
Average of 18,676 impressions per video, 205,444 total impressions
Traffic to our website among users age 25-34 increased 28%
Grant applications from users age 25-34 increased 100% (3rd largest group of applicants, up from smallest group a year ago)
Total potential revenue from leads among users age 25-34: $14.8M
Total leads increased by 38%
