(07/15/22)

Synopsis by Scott Ball, TBW Editor
Original summary by Ian Malepeai, Idaho Department of Fish and Game

Campaign Overview

With the unprecedented increase in license sales in 2020, Idaho Fish & Game hoped to establish 2020 participation level as the new baseline and improve past R3 success. Idaho’s campaign focused on the retention of current resident hunters and the continued recruitment of new resident hunters through multilayered digital advertising on social media, display and email.

We supported the campaign by developing assets to aid the recruitment and retention of hunters. These included developing new content, the gohuntidaho.org website, encouraging mentorship among our current hunters and launching “field to fork” wild game recipes.

When the marketing team created the metrics for this campaign, we set goals to exceed 2020’s record-setting year. In retrospect, and after looking at national trends reflecting that the “Covid bump” was difficult to maintain – our goals to exceed total participation and license retention now appear ambitious. That said, the campaign was still a success in that it maintained our pre-2020 participation rates and provided an increase to pre-2020 revenue.

Campaign Goals

Our goal was to use ACI grant funding to complete a digital advertising campaign to drive awareness and increased hunting participation to residents of Idaho. Ads paid for through the grant were live from September 9 – October 17, 2021, and a campaign to promote mentored license and hunter education enrollment was completed in the spring of 2021. The overall campaign goals were:

Goal 1: Increase hunter recruitment and retention
Goal 2: Provide additional tools & information to support recruitment and retention of hunters
Goal 3: Reinforce an ethos of “Mentoring” in our current, resident hunters

Target Audiences

Idaho residents aged 18-40 with affinity to outdoor recreation, fishing and hunting

Geo targeting Idaho metros: Boise/Meridian, Nampa, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Caldwell, Coeur d’Alene, Twin Falls, Post Falls, Lewiston, Rexburg, Eagle, Moscow

Behavioral Targeting (Display only): Sports & Outdoors, Outdoor Enthusiasts, Active Lifestyle, Hunting & Fishing, Camping & Hiking, Recreational Stores, Weather PMPs

Sample Segments (Social Awareness and Retargeting): Family, Family Activities, Outdoor Recreation, Camping, Adventure Travel, REI, Hunting, Hunting & Fishing, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s

Metrics

Idaho recently contracted with Brandt Licensing and will soon be able to track advertising ROI with Google tags. We were not able to implement this into our 2021 hunting campaign, so our primary goal was an awareness campaign for reach and impressions.

The Display campaign reached 362,670 unique users with an ad frequency of four ads. The 2021 campaign had a 270% increase in conversions versus 2020, and cost per acquisition (CPA) decreased by more than half.

Social performance resulted in 2,428,932 impressions, and conversion increased over 400% from the same period in 2020. CPA decreased by $53, we found that Facebook had twice the click-through rate as Instagram, and men and women engaged with the ads equally.

(Editor’s note: A more detailed discussion of the following results, including factors that affected them, is included in the original summary document.)

Goal 1: Increase hunter recruitment and retention

• Graduate 13,000 students from hunter education (7% increase over 5-year average)
  11,471 graduated from hunter education in 2021.
• 50% of hunter education graduates purchase hunting or combination license in same license year (+6% from 2020)
  Could not complete analysis.
• 55% of 2020 hunter education graduates retained by purchasing a 2021 hunting or combination license (+5% from 2020)
  Could not complete analysis.
• Retain 87% of annual and multiyear resident fishing, hunting and combination license holders (+1% from 2020)
  72% of annual adult resident fishing, hunting and combination license holders were retained in 2021.
• Issue 6,200 passport (mentored hunting) licenses (+7% from 2020)
  We issued 3,807 mentored hunting licenses in 2021.
• 2,000 hunters sign the “Mentor Pledge” committing to mentor someone new to hunting in 2021
  34 hunters signed the “Mentor Pledge.”
• Develop and deploy social media and Google display network advertising
  Completed

Goal 2: Provide additional tools & information to support recruitment and retention of hunters

• Develop at least one video tutorial on how to hunt an upland bird species
  Completed
• Complete two new “Maiden Hunt” videos following a new hunter’s first hunt with a mentor
  One video was completed, and one video had to be scrapped.
• Work with Brandt Information Systems to create marketing email automation to brand new hunters
  Completed
• Work with Brandt information Systems to create marketing email automation to hunter education graduates
  Full integration of our Kalkomey license data into the Brandt system was not completed as planned. Emails continued to be delivered manually through GovDelivery.
• Improve “Field to Fork” promotion by creating wild game recipes section on our website and promote on social media
  Completed and now available at idaho.gov/cooking.
• Hunter Education Newsletter
  Completed through GovDelivery

Goal 3: Reinforce an ethos of “Mentoring” in our current, resident hunters

• Create social media toolkit to inspire mentoring that will be shared with 23 hunting NGOs within Idaho
  Completed. The toolkit is digitally available at Partner Toolkit — Go Hunt Idaho, with password: GoHuntIdaho4Partners.
• Work with First Hunt Foundation and other NGOs to build their ranks of mentors
  Completed
• Work with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers to complete one “Hunting for sustainably” six-week course.
  Completed
• Create Mentor Ambassador Pledge Community and provide ongoing communication and resources
  Completed

Call to Action

A variety of calls to actions (CTAs) were used for awareness ads and re-targeting ads. CTAs included “Learn More,” “Go Hunt Idaho,” “Everything You Need to Start,” “Get Licensed and Loaded,” “Buy a Passport,” “Get Ready for Hunting Season,” “Pull the Trigger” and “Online Hunter Ed, Licenses and Tags.”

All links directed customers to the landing page gohuntidaho.org, where we had additional information and CTAs. CTAs on the landing page included:

• “BUY A LICENSE” to encourage license purchase
• “ONLINE COURSES” and “INSTRUCTOR- LED” for enrollment to hunter education
• “TAKE THE PLEDGE” to support a new hunter through mentoring

Future Efforts

This was the second year of implementing a hunting campaign for Idaho. We plan to continue running future hunting campaigns and applying lessons learned to continue improvement. In the future, we look forward to segmenting our markets into smaller targets with more specific metrics. We also plan to incorporate Google tags to track ROI to the Brandt license system and improve hunter education tracking with integrations between Kalkomey and Brandt.