Rother Community Lottery - Case Study

Triggered by the following thoughts, Rother Community Lottery has shown
good performance during what we know to be a difficult time for people's
ability to afford luxuries and discretionary spends (Jan 2022 - May 2022 and
onwards).

We wanted to study further for key insights into how success was
obtained here.
Success:
● 1,000+ tickets by First Draw
● Over 40 causes by First Draw


We believe that 3 main drivers are at play:
1. Engaged Project Lead - Nicola
2. Engaged community champion - Cllr Prochak
3. Engaged PR and COMMs officer - Martin


What do we know about each of these key roles?
Project Lead (Nicola)
- There was an impact of Nicola on leave (March 28th)
- The impact was indicated by a reduction in ticket sales during
this period
- Graphs below show the March dip/plateau period
- What happened in the week running up to first draw:
- Social media activity (Friends GIF! Something funny and relatable
to our audience)
- Almost every other day
- Details of the lottery were included in the weekly newsletter
- How much work did it really take the PL (did they find it intense?)
- “2-3 Hours on average per week, depending on where you are
within the process”

What did they have to say about the process? - Quote from Project Lead:


“Gatherwell have made the process easy to follow and
understand. I like the visual timelines. Craig/Ben have been great
at answering the random queries I have had, quick to respond.
The advice and crib sheets for the licensing helped, I would
recommend identifying the licence holders and getting these
applications done as one of the first key points, along with a
communication plan / logo development.”

Community Champions (Cllr Prochak and others)


● Gambling Mitigation
○ Evening talks with members to promote the lottery efforts
○ Website Champion - Cllr Prochak got involved and spoke directly
to members regarding lottery systems, providing confidence to
those raising queries about the lottery website
■ A particular instance here was around a banking issue that
was resolved as a user issue and explained to the wider
community that it wasn't an issue with the site
● Engaging with the community about the lottery

 

  • Discussions with community members over social media to
    reinforce legitimacy

 

PR and COMMs Officer


Gatherwell suggestions followed (Project Plan), with PR going out regularly
and social media supported heavily across client-owned channels.


Frequent updates from COMMs at Rother, For example Martin Fitzgerald
(Communications Manager) –


“We’ve been doing shout outs to them (good causes) on social
media as they’ve signed up. And now we are counting down to
Tuesday with some social media posts scheduled for later today,
on Sunday and on Monday - to make people aware that tickets
will be on sale soon.


We’ll then continue with the promotion next week and on towards
the first draw at the end of April.”


Further actions of note ongoing from the client’s marketing department:


● Regular social media shout outs
○ Social media countdowns
○ Varying messaging (one clip with a “Friends” gif)
○ CVS supporting with social media posts (tagged)
● Ticket Sale announcements
● Encourage good causes to promote the lottery
● Shout out each good cause that’s joined (tagged in social media
posts)
● Continued promotion through launching periods
● Used marketing material - Pop-up banners for talks and office
● Press Release distributed throughout the project (3-5)
● Weekly newsletter (positive in ticket sales) 35,000 email recipients
● Weekly/monthly newsletter inclusion
● Grant engagement
○ Other schemes/programmes the client operator used as
opportunities to promote the lotteries message and goal
● Obtained feedback from groups who were interested but didn’t join
○ Engaged with chasing causes on the platform for feedback to
better understand their audience and target messaging
● An “all hands on” attitude and push for week 5 or 6


Summary
As of May 24th 2022, Rother Community Lottery has since gone on to sell
1,319 tickets a week (Raising £41,152.80 for causes annually). For the factors
outlined in this short study we continue to promote our core beliefs that
engagement from key roles with the operator is key to the continued success
and health of the lottery.


Key Roles:
● Project Lead
● Community Champion/s
● Communications Lead