HGTV took the registration form for TV's biggest sweepstakes online, with some startling results.
Over the past two years, Scripps Networks has moved registration from snail mail to online for its Home & Garden Television Dream Home Giveaway -- the biggest sweepstakes on television. In the process it has produced a wealth of user data, dramatically increased traffic to HGTV.com and generated significant new online revenue opportunities.
Now in its ninth year, the six-week HGTV Dream Home event awards a new dream home valued at more than one million dollars built by HGTV, as well as a new GMC vehicle. Promoted both on air and online, this year the contest attracted more than 36 million entries, the vast majority of them now coming via online registration.
“Our primary goal was to provide an exciting editorial environment that would hold the interest of users and get them to come back after registration,” says Jeff Meyer, SVP of interactive sales for Scripps Networks. “Maybe your interest was just to win a million dollar home, but once you are on our site, you are enveloped in content that is compelling to home owners, especially those looking to renovate or build.”
In addition to saving time and processing costs, the online registration yields a formidable amount of data about users that can then be used to make future direct response offers. It can also be combined with behavioral data provided by TACODA Systems to determine the current interests of users and serve them ads that meet those interests.
A wide variety of ad-sponsored online Scripps newsletters benefited greatly from Dream Home registration when sign-ups were offered on the Dream Home sweeps "thank you" page. This included newsletters originating from sister sites within the Scripps family. For example, the DIY Network (it stands for "Do It Yourself") newsletter saw an especially significant growth in 2004, and that growth continued this year.
The online signup also drives a significant amount of traffic to the site. For example, Dream Home 2005 amassed 52.5 million page views during the December 17, 2004 to February 28, 2005 contest, comprising 13 percent of total page views to HGTV.com in this time frame. Time spent on the site averaged an astounding 20 minutes per visitor, who consumed an average of 34 page views. Users often moved from registration to specialized content amassing 640,000 page views. Visitors spent an average of a little over 90 seconds on articles. The longest amount of time was spent on "Dock House Kitchen/Living Article" (two minutes, 10 seconds) and "Entertainment Room Article" (two minutes, four seconds).
But a special feature providing a 360-degree tour of rooms in a dream home held users even longer -- averaging four minutes. Using a mouse, site visitors could move from room to room and turn to see the latest in new home ideas and technology. (You can see the 360-degree tour here.)
Within this virtual tour, certain products on display were hotspotted, and this highlighted them with a red outline. When users clicked on the highlighted items, information about the items appeared in an adjacent window. This provided HGTV with a new revenue opportunity as advertisers paid to have their products hotspotted.
“Consumers love to tour the dream home and see how it's furnished. If they like a particular item, they want to know who provided it. In television, this is product placement, but in our environment, it's more like print in that it's resourceful for our users. The direct exposure for the sponsor is a strong benefit as it's so integrated and relevant,” says Jim Sexton, vice president of HGTV.com.
“With a track record of ever-growing site traffic during the Dream Home Tour, we are able to provide advertisers with a substantial audience of active in-market buyers of everything from kitchen appliances to flooring, from windows to sinks. This attracts major brands like Bissell, California Closets, Jeld Wen, Lumber Liquidators, Moen, Sherwin Williams, Subzero and Wolf,” says Meyer. “We were able to sell a range of ad units and positions throughout our inventory, since visitors explored every inch of the site looking for new ideas for their own homes."
During the Dream Home Tour contest period, users consumed three million sponsored page views, spending slightly less than one minute on each page.
Additional resources:
Read more about the behavioral targeting aspect of this campaign.
About Home & Garden Television: America's leader in home and gardening programming, HGTV is now distributed to more than 80 million households, making it one of the fastest-growing networks in cable TV history. HGTV's website, HGTV.com, is America's leading online destination for home and garden information, with original stories and projects straight from the experts. Visitors can search more than 35,000 projects online.
About Scripps Networks: Scripps Networks is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), a diverse media concern with interests in newspaper publishing, broadcast television, national television networks, interactive media and plans to enter the television-retailing market. Scripps operates 21 daily newspapers, 10 broadcast TV stations and four cable television networks. Most recently, the company acquired The Shop At Home television-retailing network. Scripps also operates Scripps Howard News Service, United Media, the worldwide licensing and syndication home of PEANUTS and DILBERT, and 31 Web sites, including HGTV.com, foodnetwork.com, diynet.com, FineLiving.com and comics.com