Sometimes the campaign comes before you have time to plan the campaign.
Perry Venue’s new website had just become ready on Friday. In fact, the site went live a little faster than expected—before I even had a chance to properly present the finished project.
And then there was Saturday.
The venue had an open Saturday coming up, a brand-new website that needed eyes on it, and an opportunity to introduce more people to Perry Venue.
There wasn’t a week to sit around developing a campaign.
There were hours.
So: Ballroom Blitz.
Why a giveaway?
The idea was simple: use that open date to create some attention around the venue while giving somebody a chance to experience the space for free.
The Ballroom Blitz giveaway offered a free venue rental, with the winner responsible for the refundable damage deposit. To enter, people followed the Perry Venue page, interacted with the campaign and waited for THE DROP—the post that would officially open the race to claim the prize.
The first qualifying person to respond and complete the required booking steps would win.
It gave us several things to talk about at once: the venue, the new website, the online booking process and, most importantly, what people could actually do with the space.
And all of it had to be created quickly.
Building a campaign at blitz speed
Ballroom Blitz wasn’t one graphic and one Facebook post.
In a matter of hours, the campaign needed a name, concept, rules, promotional graphics, copy, a posting strategy and a final Drop announcement. Everything also had to lead people back to Perry Venue’s new home on the web.
That last part mattered.
The goal wasn’t simply to collect likes on social media. We wanted people visiting the website, looking at the venue, checking availability and learning how to send a booking inquiry.
So even though the giveaway was the hook, the campaign was also putting the new website to work.
Then nobody qualifying could claim it.
And that’s part of marketing, too.
Ballroom Blitz didn’t produce a qualifying winner.
That doesn’t make the campaign something to hide. Quite the opposite.
Not every promotion ends with the result you pictured when you started it. Sometimes you launch something, see how people respond, learn from it and decide what to do next.
We weren’t going to manufacture a winner or pretend the outcome was something it wasn’t.
So we said so.
The doors don’t have to stay closed
Instead of treating the lack of a winner as the end of the story, we changed direction.
The venue was still available. DJ Lyrica will be there practicing, so anyone curious about Perry Venue could stop in, take a look around and see the space for themselves.
The giveaway didn’t fill the room.
But it still gave us a reason to introduce the room.
And that distinction matters.
What comes after the blitz?
Ballroom Blitz was created under an unusually short deadline, and that’s exactly why I think it’s worth showing behind the curtain.
Marketing isn’t always a polished campaign calendar created weeks in advance. Sometimes an opportunity appears and you have hours to decide whether you’re going to use it.
So you build.
You launch.
You watch what happens.
And then you use what you learned to decide what comes next.
That was Ballroom Blitz.
Not every blitz ends in a touchdown.
But you still learn something from the play.
Perry Venue
2810 Willis Avenue, Unit C
Perry, IA 50220
(515) 310-9660