Customer Success Story: How a digital magazine used a personality quiz to drive engagement and lead generation

Launching a new platform takes a lot of effort. Not only do you need to set up the platform and create the content, but you need to develop a marketing strategy that effectively gets the word out about it. However, marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Instead, you need to make sure the strategy you employ fits your target audience to ensure you receive the best bang for your buck.Timbuktu Labs, Inc is an indie publisher of books and digital media that empowers young girls through books such as Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. Recently, they released their new online digital magazine called Rebel Girls Boundless. According to Epiphany Ciers of Timbuktu Labs, “Rebel Girls Boundless was created to inspire the trailblazer in every woman, offering authentic perspectives from women around the globe, while celebrating and acknowledging their accomplishments.”To promote the magazine and drive lead generation and engagement, Timbuktu Labs wanted to do something outside the box. So, instead of a giveaway, they created the “Discover What Kind of Rebel Girl You Are” personality quiz. This customer success story describes the results of the quiz, along with how the campaign was set up and how the personality quiz template helped Timbuktu Labs achieve their goals.

Contest Basics:

Timbuktu Labs is the creator of the Rebel Girls book series and website. Rebel Girls was created to inspire girls to “dream bigger, aim higher and fight harder.” With this in mind, the Rebel Girls team created Rebel Girls Boundless, a digital magazine that “explores every extraordinary woman.”In June 2019, Timbuktu Labs created the “Discover What Kind of Rebel Girl You Are” personality quiz to help promote Rebel Girls Boundless. According to Ciers, the quiz was created to gather leads and promote engagement. “We wanted our customers and future customers to feel like they’re engaging in a fun activity instead of a promotional push,” said Ciers.

Timbukutu's “Discover What Kind of Rebel Girl You Are” Quiz built with ShortStack View and Create Your Own.

Visitors to the campaign took the quiz to learn which of the five Rebel Girls Boundless categories fit them best: the Pioneer, the Warrior, the Leader, the Creator, and the Champion.

To find out what kind of Rebel Girl they are, people visited the campaign, then answered the five quiz questions:

• Question 1: What would you describe yourself as? Trailblazer, Visionary, Creative, Fighter or Conqueror;
• Question 2: What are you most likely to do? Create a cure, Open a business, Create something cool, Start a revolution or Master a sport;
• Question 3: Which Rebel Girl would you want to sit down and have a conversation with? Whitney Wolfe, Bozoma St. John, Ava DuVernay, Malala Yousafzai or Simone Biles;
• Question 4: Pick a dream career (literally): Astronaut, Entrepreneur, Author, Activist or Professional Skateboarder;
• Question 5: What is your Rebel Girl personality trait? Bold, Confident, Innovative, Strong or Committed.

Quiz takers filled out a form to learn their results. After submitting the form, the quiz taker’s personality was revealed, at which time they could share their outcome with friends and encourage them to take the quiz themselves.

Participants were asked for their email in exchange for their outcome.The campaign was promoted on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Display. The campaign was also shared by the Timbuktu Labs team on the Rebel Girls website and on all Rebel Girls social media pages to encourage followers to participate.To continue communication with the participants, Ciers says, “The leads gathered during this campaign were used to develop and grow our new digital magazine, Rebel Girls Boundless, subscriber list. This new subscriber list has since been used to update readers on new articles releasing, Rebel Girls Boundless announcements, and occasionally we send additional Rebel Girls content as it makes sense: including promotions, contests, product releases, and other Rebel Girls announcements.”

Campaign Elements:

Campaign setup was made rather easy due to the Personality Quiz template. To make their campaign a success, the Timbuktu Labs team had to think of compelling questions and answers that matched outcomes and descriptions they wanted to display. The Rebel Girls Boundless quiz included:

• Five questions with five answer each;
• Five outcomes and outcome descriptions based on the Rebel Girls Boundless categories;
• A form to fill out to see quiz results;
• A webhook to send new leads to the platform used to send Rebel Girls Boundless emails;  and
• The option to share the campaign.

A template wizard made setting up the quiz portion of the campaign quick and easy. The Timbuktu Labs team added in text and images for the questions, choices and outcomes, then mapped each of the question choices to a specific outcome. Mapping the choices assigns a point to each outcome. When a quiz taker answers a question, the outcome to which that choice is mapped receives a point. At the end of the quiz, the outcome with the most points is the outcome that displays after the form is submitted.

ShortStack's template wizard makes for easy quiz set-upThe form quiz takers were asked to fill out was very basic. It included just two fields: an email field and a checkbox to opt in to the Rebel Girls Boundless email marketing list. A webhook sent the email addresses of those who opted in to email marketing to the platform used to send Rebel Girls Boundless’ emails. Entrants’ personalities were revealed after form submission. Also after form submission, a Share Widget displayed to encourage entrants to share their results.

The Results:

The personality quiz yielded great results for Timbuktu Labs. Over the month of June, the campaign received 15,637 views. Over 71% of views, 11,119 to be exact, were unique views. That means over 11,000 people visited the quiz! Around 100 leads were collected each day, for a total of 3,047 leads. The campaign was shared 120 times via the share icons on the campaign. It’s safe to say that the personality quiz was a great success for the new digital magazine!

According to Ciers, “After seeing how successful quizzes are – we have begun adding an engaging component (such as a quiz) to each campaign we launch to increase engagement, brand awareness, and continue to grow our subscriber list.”

Important ShortStack element: Personality Quiz template

Hands down the most crucial ShortStack element used to create this campaign was the Personality Quiz template. The template includes an easy-to-use wizard that allows campaign creators to input their questions, choices, answers and answer descriptions, along with images if they so choose. The template uses a built-in algorithm for determining the quiz taker’s personality, all ShortStack customers need to do is assign the question choices to the outcomes they determine appropriate. A predefined layout generates professional looking quizzes in minutes. Beyond providing awesome content for the quiz elements, Timbuktu Labs took this template and made it their own by styling it with the Style Panel and custom images they created.

ShortStack's Personality Quiz templateView and Create Your Own

Giveaways aren’t the only way to promote your new platform or product

Sometimes a giveaway or contest isn’t always the best way to promote your product or service.

In the case of the Rebel Girls Boundless digital magazine, creating a unique personality quiz reflected the magazine’s contest was on brand and fit their target market well.

Think about your target market and keep your goals in mind while choosing the best route to pursue for your next lead generation campaign.

Create your first contest now

Get Started Today. It’s free and we don’t need your credit card.