I received an email from Lessiter Media Chairman Frank Lessiter over the weekend talking about the success they’ve been having with quizzes in the last few months. So, of course, I had to take it.
Quizzes are one engagement element that can still be effective now—and frankly can bring us a little relief. (I’ve read that jigsaw puzzles are also reaching new popularity heights.) In fact, this morning, a sports station here presented the most compelling content in weeks by doing quiz questions to callers. And trivia nights have already found a comfort zone online—one friend just gave a thumbs-up testimonial for one and forwarded it to me. They’re charging $18.
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“Hey, it’s Frank!” a pop-up emerges with his photo when I go to Lessiter’s no-tillfarmer.com. “Have you taken the 12-question quiz, ‘How Much Do You Actually Know About Cover Crops?'” It takes less than 5 minutes to complete and we’ll send you a copy of your quiz results in addition to a FREE PDF copy of our popular 28-page eGuide, ‘The Pluses & Minuses of Today’s Most Popular Cover Crops’ via email.”
The link takes me to “How Much Do You Actually Know About Cover Crops?” with a big sponsor logo—Schaeffer’s Crop Enhancements—up top.
“Take this quick 12-question quiz to find out. This quiz wasn’t created ‘just for fun,’ but to act as an educational tool.” I quickly answered the questions and then a final one asking if the sponsor can call me, before getting my results. I got 5 right! Wow, maybe I should play the lottery today. That makes me a “PLODDER.” One point lower and I would have been “McFLY.”
The quiz was fun, yes educational—who knew that forb is not a primary cover crop species?—and great lead gen for Lessiter Media.
“We have received 3,346 total submissions from Nov. 7, 2019, through March 31, 2020,” Lessiter wrote. Some 3,160 are unique. About 1,658 are new email addresses to our database which we are currently marketing to with subscriptions and event promotions. To date, there are 120 new NTF subscribers from this list of quiz takers with a first order date after the quiz launched.” I may have to opt out.
This was the first quiz that Lessiter Media launched with a sponsorship. “We launched [a quiz] last fall for our farmer audience that was a really tough quiz on soil health,” wrote Lessiter. “It was pulled together by No-Till Farmer senior editor John Dobberstein, while Joanne Volkert of our audience development staff handled the marketing aspects.”
Here’s the promo breakdown that Volkert developed…
- 15 total promos in the weekly email newsletters (No-Till Farmer, Strip-Till Farmer and Cover Crop Strategies email newsletters;
- 8 total promos in these three daily newsletters DEUs (NTF, STF, CCS);
- 3 total email promos to our entire grower audience;
- 2 Facebook posts (one on NTF and one on STF);
- 6 total Facebook ad campaigns ($541 total expense);
– Posted once each in several outside grower LinkedIn groups; - Was part of their National No-Tillage Conference event contest in November to earn more entries;
- Posted in “Everything Cover Crops” Facebook Group, another outside grower group
- Farm Babe (Michelle Miller, an ag influencer on social media) shared with her Facebook followers
I had to look up that last one, and there she is, The Farm Babe (thefarmbabe.com). “‘The Farm Babe’ unearths the truth behind modern farming… Big city globetrotter turned Iowa farm girl.” Given the state of my exciting evenings, I may watch one of her videos tonight.
Lessiter said that the quizzes will amp up a bit from here. “With our American Farriers Journal market, we’re starting a monthly quiz on specific areas of trimming and shoeing horses. Hopefully, we’ll find sponsors for this quiz series. As you would guess, we’re happy with the results.”
If you get a few extra minutes, I also urge you to listen to a Lessiter Media podcast titled How We Did It. For the final “bonus” episode of the series, longtime editor Dave Kanicki sat down with Frank Lessiter and wife Pam, along with their son, Mike Lessiter, president of Lessiter Media, to discuss the company past and present. It’s wonderful. And yes, there is a sponsor.
