Love in Every Line: How Little Infinite Used ShortStack to Create a Record-Breaking Poetry Contest

For the team at Little Infinite, a lifestyle brand dedicated to modern poetry, astrology, romance, self-care, self-development, and culture, Valentine’s Day was the perfect occasion to engage their audience. They envisioned a contest that would not only bring together poetry enthusiasts but also expand their community. Their goal was to create a seamless, well-executed writing competition that encouraged writers of all skill levels to share their work and connect. 

Alandria Baker, the Consumer Marketing Manager at Ingram Content Group, was tasked to bring this marketing campaign to life. She needed a reliable contest platform to manage submissions, ensure an effortless voting process, and increase brand awareness and engagement. That’s when she discovered ShortStack, a game-changing solution for hosting online contests. 

The Challenge

Contests and giveaways are powerful marketing tools for brand engagement, but they require near-flawless execution to be truly effective. The Consumer Marketing team at Ingram Content Group had ambitious goals for their next contest. They wanted to reach both poetry and romance audiences, encouraging members to submit original poems. Alandria and her team wanted to increase new user acquisitions to the Little Infinite brand. Lastly, they wanted to make the entry process as simple as possible so that anyone would feel confident enough to submit their writing to the contest. 

Alandria has run this type of campaign in the past, but now on a more integrated contest platform. She needed a tool that would allow them to host and manage contest submissions smoothly, support voting, and embed the contest directly into their Little Infinite website. 

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Enter: ShortStack

Alandria explains, “We stumbled across ShortStack as a top choice for viral contests during a Google search. We were elated to learn that ShortStack allows for proper entrant management as well as a consistent on-site voting process.” 

ShortStack provided everything and more for their contest requirements. A top selling point was ShortStack’s ability to embed the contest directly on their website. This enables website visitors to enjoy a steady user experience and be more likely to explore other site pages. 

Another advantage was the entrant management system. Alandria was able to review entries before they were displayed, ensuring that only valid entries were submitted. ShortStack supports entry moderation by restricting visibility to approved entries. 

Lastly, ShortStack provided an all-in-one contest experience with voting on the same page. To make it easy for participants to collect votes, entrants could easily share their poems on their social media platforms. 

Their Love Lines Poetry contest was a perfect fit for ShortStack’s Startup Plan, which costs $49 a month. With that deal, Alandria was able to create a seamless campaign that showcased a five-book bundle and celebrated its audience members. 

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The Results: Immense Success 

The Little Infinite team saw one of their most successful contests in the past four years with their Love Lines Poetry Contest. To start, they had over 6,500 page views, which equated to a cost-per-click outcome of a mere 21 cents. They collected nearly 1,400 entries. Since entrants shared their poem submissions throughout social media, Little Infinite increased their reach even more. Over the contest time frame, Alandria saw over 32,000 website views. 

Alandria exclaimed, “We’ve done poetry contests in the past using a similar marketing strategy, but the interest in the Love Lines Poetry Writing campaign was joyfully overwhelming. We took great pride in reading through the submissions and seeing entrants share their submissions via social media to garner more participation and engagement.”

In addition to promoted posts and ads on social media sites, they promoted the contest in the Little Infinite weekly newsletter. The team saw a 25.2% click-through rate, which outperformed previous contests of this caliber! 

Looking to the future

The Love Lines Poetry Contest's success extended far beyond the contest period. The leads collected from the contest were integrated into Little Infinite's existing user database of over 1 million subscribers. Alandria explained that they will continue to nurture the newly collected leads through retargeting campaigns to keep them engaged with the brand. 

For anyone interested in partnering with Little Infinite for future writing contests, Alandria welcomes collaboration opportunities. Reach out to her at alandria.baker@ingramcontent.com to discuss upcoming contests and brand partnerships. 

Why ShortStack was the Perfect Fit

The Love Lines Poetry Contest was an undeniable success, and ShortStack played a crucial role in making it happen. By providing an intuitive contest management platform, effortless website integration, and an easy and effective voting process, ShortStack empowered Little Infinite to run a coherent and engaging campaign. 

The contest not only met, but exceeded its expectations, leading to increased brand awareness, higher than average participation rates, and lasting audience engagement. This campaign reinforced the power of digital contests as a cost-effective, impactful marketing strategy. With the right platform, brands can achieve meaningful engagement and business growth. 

For Little Infinite, ShortStack wasn’t just a tool, it was the key to unlocking one of their most successful contests to date.

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