Summary

We run contests as a way of raising brand awareness and engagement with our social channels, and as a way to create ties with vendors and our community.

Key Notes and Resources

Main Tools

• Design Wizard for visual creative

• KingSumo for running the contest

Philosophy

• This is a brand-building and awarenesspm play. By using KingSumo, we increase the engagement with our brand on social channels and grow our email lists, increasing our free reach in the future.

• Give away prizes that are high-interest to our clients, Ottawa-specific, and that tie in with our brand. For example, a gift certificate to a local attraction or home improvement store. A bad example would be an iPad (too generic).

• Prizes do not need to be expensive but should be interesting to our potential clients

• CASE workflow

  • Create

  • Advertise

  • Social

  • Email

Strategy

How we will run a giveaway

• monthly giveaway (to start)

• alternate gift cards and physical items (?)

• plan a month ahead and prepare all advertising

• WHY are we doing this give away? (celebration for a listing/sale? seasonal? event?)

1. what are we giving away? (GC, physical item?)

2. why we are doing a giveaway? (celebration of something? holiday?)

3. when will the giveaway run? (Monday to Monday or Tuesday to Tuesday)

4. for how long? (7 full days)

5. should we do paid advertising?

6. how often should we post? (IG stories all the time, twice on IG feed, twice on FB feed, 3X twitter, initial email and reminder round friday?)

7. should our existing client list get a little heads up?

8. what type of client is this geared towards? (linked to #4, SM marketing)

9. what type of posts would be best for this type of giveaway? (video? image?)

How to source prizes

• make list of companies and businesses we want to partner with

• to start, lets select top 5

• find the CEO + CMO and email both

• to craft email, use the Appsumo guidelines and format

• highlight benefits and why they should partner with us (what will they get from partnering with us?)

  • be a part of a growing community

  • focus on local

  • focus on independent

  • sharing our favourite places and things to do in Ottawa

  • “people first”

  • quality

  • dedicated client list that is passionate about Ottawa

  • paid advertising?

• end with “let me know if you are interested and we’ll get rolling” or something that will get a little “yes”

• once we get a “yes”, follow up with an email including more details including:

  • using Kingsumo (highlight that it has built in virality meaning # of entires… get Nick to explain to Steph again lol)

  • ideal contestants

  • what other info should we include as we do not have a massive following or email list to boast?

  • Date it will begin and how long it will run

  • include “the ask”

  • ask what images they prefer we use

• once everything is ready to go live, send a media kit (use Appsumo one as a template) to make it easy for them to share

Procedure

Plan far ahead and follow the steps in the Appsumo Multi-Million Dollar Marketing Playbook. This will give a general guideline of how to proceed.

Schedule

Monthly Schedule:

-Make sure there are no upcoming holidays or big events in Ottawa that may interfere

-Post first Monday/Tuesday of the month?

-Post the contest on a Monday or Tuesday at 8pm

-Run from Monday to Monday night at 11:59 or Tuesday to Tuesday

-A full week seems to be what will work best for our type of giveaway

-We want to maximize week days and nights

-People are least likely to enter a giveaway on the weekends (who knew?!)

-Monday between 9-11pm is the most popular time to enter a giveaway

-Post simultaneously on all SM channels at time of launch

-Do we do a teaser or drop a little lure on Sunday?