How Utah Valley Supercharged Their Summer Bucket List
Discover Their Strategy That’s Driving Engagement and Resulting in Hundreds of UGC and Email Sign-Ups Weekly
Explore Utah Valley aimed to enhance its annual Summer Bucket List Challenge to increase adoption and usage. This initiative boosts visitor engagement and local tourism, encouraging exploration of Utah Valley's natural beauty and family-friendly attractions, while fostering community involvement. This year, they implemented Explore, an easy-to-use, engaging and modern experience, to achieve their goals.
Discover the Allure of Utah Valley
Utah Valley, nestled in the heart of Utah, is a vibrant destination that beckons adventure enthusiasts and culture lovers alike. As Utah County’s official destination marketing organization (DMO), Explore Utah Valley showcases the region's dynamic cities like Provo, Orem, and Lehi, each brimming with unique experiences.
Visitors can embark on exhilarating hikes, enjoy world-class skiing, or immerse themselves in vibrant cultural festivals. Thrilling outdoor adventures await in the breathtaking Provo Canyon, the scenic trails of American Fork Canyon, and the pristine beauty of Utah Lake. Additionally, Utah Valley serves as a gateway to iconic national parks like Arches and Zion.
Explore Utah Valley's marketing strategy emphasizes local ambassadorship, engaging both residents and visitors through community involvement and partnerships with local influencers and businesses. A standout initiative is their digital passports, including the annual Summer Bucket List Challenge, designed to inspire gamified exploration and celebrate the region’s diverse offerings.
Prior Years Suffered from Lack of Engagement and First-Party Data
Explore Utah Valley previously struggled with its Summer Bucket List Challenge due to a lackluster digital platform that failed to capture participant interest. The previous platform lacked visual appeal, modern design, and user-friendliness, making it feel off-brand and resulting in low engagement.
Bethany Bee, Digital Content Specialist at Explore Utah Valley, shares, "We wanted something that allowed for photo check-ins and user-generated content (UGC)." In their quest to revitalize the challenge, they turned to Seeker’s Explore platform, a new, more engaging solution.
Revamping the Digital Experience with Explore
Bethany was immediately impressed by Explore and its Challenges feature to create gamified digital experiences that are visually appealing, on-brand, and user-friendly. Additionally, Explore Utah Valley appreciated Explore's custom branding capabilities, ensuring consistent brand identity across all platforms.
“The platform is beautiful and easy to use, and we knew our residents would enjoy the experience.”
Bethany and the team at Explore Utah Valley were further impressed by the first-party data and insights provided by Explore and its potential to enhance customer retention strategies through a deep understanding of participant behavior and preferences. Moreover, since the platform is designed to organically grow users' email addresses, they saw a huge opportunity for re-marketing, tailoring future challenges, and sustaining participant engagement over time.
Fast Deployment and Smart Marketing Yields Quick Wins
Setting up the Utah Valley Summer Bucket List Challenge with Explore was straightforward. Bethany appreciated the user-friendly backend, which allowed her to manage the setup herself. "It was super easy for me to do on my own. The support from the Seeker team was quick and helpful," she says.
To cater to its primary audience of young families, Explore Utah Valley created free and affordable check-in spots, making the challenge accessible and engaging for participants. They added excitement to the Summer Bucket List Challenge with digital passport incentives including custom digital badges, featuring the Explore Utah Valley brand, that participants could unlock by checking in with photos. Additionally, participants were incentivized with fun prizes.
The challenge features three different badge and prize levels:
Adventure Seeker Badge: Unlock with 5 check-ins; prizes include candy and a small souvenir.
Explorer Badge: Unlock with 10 check-ins; prizes include tickets to local attractions.
Trailblazer Badge: Unlock with 25 check-ins; the prize for the person at the top of the leaderboard is one Grand Prize Staycation package.
Additionally, one Grand Prize Staycation package will be awarded to a randomly selected raffle winner.
To ensure a successful digital passport marketing launch, Explore Utah Valley promotes the challenge through various channels, including social media, email blasts, local billboards, and influencer partnerships. They also created a dedicated landing page on their website to drive traffic and provide additional information.
Participants discover things to do using an interactive map and check-in with photos to earn prizes.
Visitors and locals can join the challenge by clicking a link or scanning a QR code. Once they’ve joined, they can discover check-in locations through the interactive map or visual list of places. Furthermore, they can track their progress and compete with other participants for a top position on the Leaderboard, fostering a sense of friendly competition and community.
Once a badge is unlocked, the platform provides an in-app and email notification optimized for sharing on social media. Explore Utah Valley asks participants to collect prizes in person, at the visitor center in Provo, to drive foot traffic and gain valuable feedback.
Record-Breaking Engagement and First-Party Data
The response from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Bethany shares a heartwarming story of grandparents from New York City who, while visiting their grandkids in Utah, used Explore to discover the area and enjoyed it immensely. "It was great to see that even older participants found the app easy to use and engaging."
Within the first two weeks, the Explore Utah Valley Summer Bucket List Challenge has had over 400 participants, resulting in valuable email addresses and other first-party data. Participants have posted more than 245 user-contributed photos (UGC), and the challenge has received 4,526 views. In 2023, before implementing Explore, they had approximately 1,000 participants over the entire summer. In 2024, they are on track to far surpass that number.
Explore Dashboard with over 240 participant photos that were collected in the first 14 days.
Additionally, Explore Utah Valley has seen an increase in social media engagement and website traffic since its launch, highlighting the virality of the experience and platform. There has also been a significant boost in local business participation, with 60+ local businesses collaborating as check-in spots, and an increase in foot traffic to their visitor center. All of these factors reflect the growing excitement and involvement from both participants and local partners, setting a new benchmark for future initiatives.
Explore Utah Valley’s Future Plans
Explore Utah Valley plans to use Explore to launch future challenges aimed at driving engagement for initiatives, such as Restaurant Week in the fall and other seasonal campaigns. "The success of the Summer Bucket List Challenge has made us very enthusiastic about other opportunities to create more engaging tourism trails, such as our winter photo contest, which features activities like snowshoeing and ice skating," Bethany says. They also intend to leverage the first-party data collected through the platform to enhance their marketing efforts and drive retention for future challenges.
Launch Your Summer Bucket List Challenge with Explore
Explore Utah Valley’s successful use of Explore Challenges has significantly enhanced its destination marketing efforts. By creating an engaging, visually appealing digital passport, they have increased participation with visitors and locals alike, generated valuable UGC, and strengthened community involvement. The platform’s ease of use, robust features, and excellent support make it a valuable tool for any destination marketing organization looking to boost engagement and drive awareness.
Feeling inspired to create a Summer Bucket List for your destination? Book a demo and start using Explore today.
