Australian couple Doug and Sally Beitz moved their young family to the Micronesian island of Kosrae to follow their dreams to start a holiday resort in the beautiful location. After more than 20 years running a successful resort they decided to return to the Gold Coast to be closer to their grown up children who moved back to Australia and spend time with their grandchild. In a world-first event, the family decided to give away the resort in a raffle. When they approached WordStorm PR, 15,000 tickets had been sold, however their goal was to sell 50,000.
WordStorm was very quick to commence the campaign and immediately started pitching to TV to organise an exclusive interview for Sunrise. We also pitched to all relevant online, radio and newspapers to create buzz and encourage ticket sales. It was important for us to focus on media relations, to give the raffle the social proof it needed, to convince consumers that it was not a scam. Each time the raffle was featured on News.com.au, tickets would sell like hotcakes. As a result, we found ways to re-approach media by coming up with new angles and reporting competition updates. This led to several pieces published on News.com.au as well as coverage on Sunrise, The Project, Today Tonight, Business Insider, Courier Mail, Daily Mail, Elsewhere, Escape, Grazia, Herald Sun, Mamamia, MTV, News.com.au, PerthNow, RealEstate.com.au, The Advertiser, The Daily Telegraph, Yahoo Be and 3AW.
