The Client
Rowley Farm Holidays provides luxury self-catering cottages for people who want to get away from the hustle and bustle. The farm is surrounded by 50 acres of grass and woodland to explore and is therefore ideal for nature lovers. Guests can get involved in daily farming activities and get a feel for farm life. Big dog lovers themselves, owner Clare and her family built the cottages to accommodate people bringing their dogs along. Examples of dog-friendly details are the outdoor dog wash, generous provision of treats, crates, towels and if need be, even dog sitters.
- Self-catering cottages
- Dog-friendly accommodation
- Surrounded by nature
- Active working farm
The Goals
Looking to promote Rowley Farm’s dog friendliness, our task was to come up with a creative campaign to entice even more dog lovers to book a stay at Rowley Farm. Being very active on Instagram and TikTok, Rowley Farm was looking for a social promotion where they could involve their followers and gain new ones along the way.
- Promote dog-friendly offering
- Entice dog lovers to book a stay at Rowley Farm
- Engage social followers on Instagram and TikTok
The Idea
We ran a campaign to ‘hire’ a Ruff Reviewer, where people could submit their dogs to become a canine critic at Rowley Farm. The winner would get a free two-night stay at one of the cottages, so they can experience and document all of Rowley Farm’s dog-friendly offering. The activation was launched on International Dog Day when the job description was advertised on socials and sent out via Rowley’s existing mailing list. We also allocated a small advertising budget to drive further submissions.
In addition to contact information, the application form asked for the dogs’ names, their favourite activities and treats. This allowed us to address the follow-up communication to the dogs, telling them that their humans had submitted them for the job.
The tone of voice overall was built around talking to dogs and their dog parents. To make it fun and playful we also included a few paw-some references and puns.
Once submissions closed, we chose 10 finalists who went on to a public vote to determine who would be Rowley Farm’s Ruff Reviewer. The finalists were messaged via email and tagged in Instagram stories, so they could encourage their friends and followers to vote for them.
- Social media and email campaign to kick off the campaign
- Small advertising budget
- TOV tailored around dogs
- Public vote to determine the winner and engage followers
The Results
We quickly received a lot of applications and gained organic momentum. As a result, we decided to switch off ads for the campaign early.
The Rowley Farm website saw a spike in activity from 80 to 504 daily hits following the campaign kick-off. It then jumped again to 624 hits when the finalists were announced, and people were invited to vote.
In addition to growing the mailing list with the contacts submitted to the competition, there were a further 16 contacts who signed up directly to the mailing list
Once the winner visits, there will be further content to promote Rowley Farm and their dog-friendly accommodation.
Website activity: + 170 %
Total votes: + 2,000
Instagram engagement: + 179 %
Instagram reach: + 345%
Instagram followers: + 340
Organic newsletter signups: + 16
