TapKat Success Story: The American Heritage Museum

What if you could raise over $100,000 for your nonprofit this year? 

In 2020, The American Heritage Museum in Stow, Massachusetts successfully did just that, using a TapKat sweepstakes as a catalyst to inspire people to donate. With their first-ever sweepstakes drawing, they raised $101,550. 

Considering that their prize only cost the organization $5,000, that is a massive success! 

We sat down with Hunter Chaney, Director of Marketing at The American Heritage Museum, to get some insight into how exactly he pushed their drawing to such a successful close. 

Key takeaways: 

• Hunter talks about how he did everything he could think of to market the sweepstakes, including a big push to their donor base over email, social media, and even using traditional PR tactics like a press release to reach more potential donors. This approach was a huge factor in their success.

• They selected a prize they knew their donor base would be excited about, which really helped generate interest and donations right away.

• Hunter mentions how easy it is to draw a winner using the TapKat platform. The site is designed to be incredibly user-friendly, which means you can spend more time on outreach and less time on complicated logistics.

Now that their 2021 drawing is off to a rollicking start and the museum is already kicking around ideas for their 2022 drawing prize, Hunter has expressed that he’ll use many of the same tactics to push this years’ sweepstakes to the finish line.

TapKat: Thanks for chatting with us, Hunter. Now, 2020 was the first sweepstakes The American Heritage Museum has done, is that right? 

American Heritage Museum: That’s right. We had one that kicked off toward the end of 2019 and wrapped up in March of 2020. It was an experience sweepstakes. It was very popular. It hit our expectations — we were quite pleased to break $100,000 — and that has spurred our interest in starting a second TapKat sweepstakes. 

“It hit our expectations — we were quite pleased to break $100,000 — and that has spurred our interest in starting a second TapKat sweepstakes.”

TK: What was the prize for your first sweepstakes? 

AHM: It was called “The Ultimate Tank Driving Experience,” where the winner and a guest received driving instruction in both the M24 Chaffee and M4 Sherman, which are WWII tanks. They also received an exclusive behind-the-scenes tank tour through the museum. Winner Jake Zobrist and family had an absolutely wonderful time!

TK: What was it like when you called Jake to tell him that he had won? 

AHM: When I called initially, I spoke to his father, who put me in contact with Jake, his son. I think he’s in South Carolina. He was thrilled. He’s very much a history nut and really excited about it. He never imagined winning something like this, so he was over the moon.

“He never imagined winning something like this, so he was over the moon.”

TK: Are you doing a different prize for your current drawing? 

AHM: Yes. Every October over Columbus Day weekend, we hold a World War II re-enactment. It’s the largest event that we host throughout the year. We have 300-400 re-enactors, and this very dynamic, choreographed re-enactment takes place with a lot of lead-up. Then, during the actual battle, there are pyrotechnics of all kinds. Several tanks look like they’re getting blown up, which you can see in the pictures on our website.

The winner of our sweepstakes prize will learn how to drive one of the tanks. It’s called a Sherman Tank, and it’s probably the most well-known American tank of World War II. We’ll take the winner on a driving course where they will learn how to be a driver in command during the re-enactment. 

There’s nothing quite like driving a tank, especially from that vantage point.

After the re-enactment, the winner will then commandeer a German tank, called a Hetzer, and we’ll put them through driving instruction to drive this tank, as well. They’re very rare, so it’s a special thing. To be able to drive them in this kind of setting makes the prize even more attractive. 

We’re hoping to do equally well with our second campaign as we did with the first.

TK: Tell us about your marketing process. How involved was your donor base? 

AHM: The participation was really good. It was fun to see the various kinds of people who donated to the sweepstakes; it was really an eclectic group of people from all over the country, and that was really nice to see. 

When it came to the marketing side, our donor base was a really good, really effective tool for us as far as outreach. We have two email lists, and we used both of them in this campaign. One is specific to The American Heritage Museum, which has around 5,000 names, and we have another one that we use for the Collings Foundation and the Wings of Freedom Tour, which has about 22,000 names. These are all qualified, active users, whose information we update on a yearly basis. They are very engaged. We’re really lucky to have built up a list of enthusiastic folks who are into either history, aircraft or World War II history.

“We’ve added something in the range of 300-400 people to our mailing list as a direct result of doing the TapKat sweepstakes.”

As far as adding new, active donors to the list, we’ve added something in the range of 300-400 people to our mailing list as a direct result of doing the TapKat sweepstakes. 

Because we know what our donor base is really interested in, we were able to get very specific with our prize. We were really singing to the choir and got a very positive response to the campaign. Knowing what our constituents would be interested in really influenced our decisions. 

And, because we are a museum and our job is to maintain these vehicles, our out-of-pocket expense for the prize was probably $1000 when all is said and done. So, it worked out really well. 

“Because we know what our donor base is really interested in, we were able to get very specific with our prize.”

TK: As far as your marketing reach, what did you do to spread the word? 

AHM: We were really pumping it quite a bit through the campaign’s duration. We would post regular mentions of the sweepstakes in all our email newsletters and social media channels. We tried to leverage every facet of media and technology that we could get into, including press releases. 

At the museum here, we would hand out promotional literature and flyers featuring the sweepstakes. When we held live events (as we do several times per year), we gave out a “gate handout” that included some information about what to expect and details about the sweepstakes.

This kind of outreach was consistent throughout the campaign; we made sure that every week and a half to two weeks there was some mention of the sweepstakes to keep it top of mind. This momentum started to play on itself and we saw, through this aggressive marketing campaign, that it really started to spread and reach new people thanks to the dynamics of social media. That really helped us, quite a bit.

“...it really started to spread and reach new people thanks to the dynamics of social media.” 

TK: Did you do anything fun when you pulled the winner? 

AHM: We videotaped the whole process of selecting names and put it on the big screen of the presentation area. Then we ran the simulated spinning of the numbers. His name came up. We were able to put that video on our various social media platforms. 

TK: Any closing thoughts? 

AHM: It has been a pleasure working with everyone at TapKat. Hopefully our second campaign will do even better than the first one!

TK: Thanks so much for your time, Hunter!

Ready to raise some serious money for your nonprofit using a TapKat sweepstakes? Reach out to our team today to see just how impactful a sweepstakes can be to motivate your donor base, inspire action and raise more money.