Joybird Game of Thrones Quiz Case Study
The Goal
Joybird, a La-Z-Boy company, engaged our digital PR agency to achieve the following goals:
- Build quality backlinks
- Obtain organic coverage
- Increase organic traffic
- Attract new audiences
To accomplish these objectives, we identified an opportunity to build backlinks using creative content. This became a fundamental component of their overall digital marketing strategy.
Our team developed a series of link building concepts dedicated to achieving these goals. One of these was an interactive quiz based on the popular series Game of Thrones.
The Strategy
The final season of the Game of Thrones series was creating a lot of buzz in the media and within the fan-base for the show. It was a worldwide phenomenon that represented an incredibly valuable opportunity to engage a dedicated audience.
To create a unique and immersive experience that fans would enjoy, we developed a carefully-created personality quiz, using analysis of character values, motivations, and themes from the show. The purpose of the piece was to provide an interactive experience for Game of Thrones fans to be sorted into one of the specific “families” whose stories are told on the show.
We then created a scoring system that would assign a different house depending on unique answers. We tied it back to the client’s brand by discussing the different “houses” associated with the franchise. This acted as a segue into “houses” in general, and by extension, the interior design of homes.
We focused on entertainment and lifestyle publications for outreach. The primary strategy was to promote this content at the optimal time, right as episodes were being released and the entire world was looking forward to the new, weekly installments.
After creating the quiz, we pitched it to 100 journalists with the goal of getting them to write about it in their publications and include a link back to Joybird’s site.
The Results
Coverage Outlets
The campaign was covered in a wide variety of local publications that spanned the U.S. The quiz drove a huge amount of traffic and performed exceptionally well on Reddit and other social media channels.
This quiz represents the successful use of a nearly universal point of interest that engages a large, pre-existing target audience. By creating a piece of new content filling a gap that the fans were intrigued by, our team was able to tap into a massive fandom.
In addition, the content is evergreen and will always work in tandem with the Game of Thrones series. Even after the series finale, people will continue to watch the show and will still be able to indulge in the story using the quiz.
Our link building campaigns were fundamental to the success of Joybird’s backlink profile. Through this campaign, Joybird gained 112 backlinks from local publications all over the nation that boosted its brand awareness throughout the country and brought an influx of nearly 50,000 sessions from those users. This was an incredibly valuable contribution to Joybird’s overall SEO efforts and led to major improvements in their search rankings and traffic numbers.
By combining link building with a full-scale SEO project, the Joybird site has jumped from a 37 Moz Domain Authority to a 56 rating. The Joybird homepage also improved, jumping from a Page Authority of 38 all the way up to 49.
In addition, year-over-year organic traffic has grown by 40%. The overall SEO efforts, including link building and on-page and technical optimizations, have contributed to a significant improvement in search rankings. Highlights include ranking on page 1 for the query ‘sofas’, and ranking first for their most relevant keyword, “mid-century modern furniture”.