AWARD CATEGORY E-mail Marketing
CAMPAIGN Win a Fast Million
AGENCY Motorsports Management International
CLIENT Dollar General
After operating stores for 69 years, Dollar General somehow still lacked a customer database. So the retailer came up with a clever way to build one.
The discount chain used its ongoing sponsorship of NASCAR to launch a sweepstakes and collect e-mail addresses for future marketing. The goal: promote the brand and keep customers coming back to its stores.
“If you look at the NASCAR demographic and our shoppers, there is a crossover,” says Monty Bailey, motorsports manager, Dollar General Corp. “We said, ‘Let’s do something unprecedented.’”
Dollar General’s “Win a Fast Million” sweepstakes, which kicked off last June, offered one winner a trip for two to Miami, and tickets and VIP passes to the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series Ford 300 Race and the NASCAR Nextel Series Ford 400 Race. If the No. 77 Dollar General car won the NASCAR Busch Series Ford 300, the winner received $1 million.
Dollar General commissioned Motorsports Management International, a sponsorship management company, to develop and execute exhibits at various NASCAR events. Promotion Group Central handled the sweepstakes.
“Dollar General is a large organization. Instead of spending ungodly amounts of money on something, we said, ‘Let’s take what you have and use it effectively,’” Chris Newman, director of marketing for Motorsports Management International, says of the NASCAR sponsorship.
MMI traveled to 36 events and erected kiosks in a 60-x-40-foot area to talk up the sweepstakes. There visitors played interactive games and collected “Bobby Bucks” for a chance to win prizes. People also received premiums, such as T-shirts, die-cast cars and branded shopping bags filled with product samples and coupons. Stops included 15 NASCAR tracks, the Ohio State Fair and a National Hot Rod Association race over a six-month period.
“This was a good opportunity to communicate with customers,” Bailey says.
Visitors who entered the sweepstakes provided e-mail and street addresses and their ages. People also registered online at www.DollarGeneral.com or via mail.
During the promotion, about 100,000 customers opted into Dollar General’s database. The sweepstakes drew 970,000 entries and 1.13 million visits to the Web page. Traffic to DollarGeneral.com increased year over year, mostly by triple-digit increases during the campaign.
“Companies tend to go really big in one area,” Newman says. “But we decided to touch on all areas. It was all encompassing. We touched every channel we could.”
While Dollar General didn’t award the $1 million prize, (the No. 77 car crashed on the track), the winner walked away with $10,000. And the retailer finally has a database of loyal customers. — Amy Johannes
IDEA TO STEAL
HAVE A CONSISTENT MESSAGE
When running a national promotion, one key is to keep messaging consistent, says Chris Newman, director of marketing for Motorsports Management International. That includes everything from signage, color schemes and wording to convey a general theme.
“It’s important to have the same kind of message,” Newman adds. “When people saw the Win a Fast Million logo, they knew what it was all about. If companies keep everything uniform and streamlined, they will have a lot of success.”
