Have you ever done a campaign that got way more results than you expected? This amazing thing happened to Daniela, the founder of Savvy Social, a marketing agency based in South Africa.
In this case study, we’re going to show you how she helped a fashion brand generate:
- 5,580 leads
- Over 2,000 Whatsapp shares
- Over 1,000 Facebook shares
- Over 800 new Instagram followers
- High levels of social media engagement
Here’s a screenshot of the social media engagement results in her UpViral dashboard:
Now, for the most exciting part — Daniela’s campaign brought in a total of 20,000 South African Rand (ZAR), which is equivalent to 1,200+ dollars (USD). This was despite the fact that her client wasn’t originally expecting any sales.
In fact, her campaign generated 400% ROI (the result of making 20K ZAR in sales from a 4,000 ZAR investment (between prize + ads). 🔥
At UpViral, we’ve guided thousands of users to go for their big goals. Marketing agencies like Daniela’s have grown their clients’ businesses, thanks to the power of viral referral programs.
We didn’t miss the chance to invite Daniela for an interview to understand how she did it. Consider this your chance to learn from her success and hopefully apply it to your own marketing campaigns.
Ready? Watch the full video above, plus more insights.
Who is Daniela d’Hotman de Villiers and Why UpViral?
Daniela is highly passionate about digital marketing and helping businesses grow through social media. She founded Savvy Social in 2019, which she runs together with her small team.
Savvy Social may be based in South Africa, but she serves businesses across the globe. According to Daniela, what sets her agency apart from the competition is that they’re fast and agile.
She decided to go for UpViral since her agency needed a tool that would amplify the current advertising campaigns they’re running for Exact Clothing. (Exact Clothing is a fashion retail brand with an online e-commerce shop and brick-and-mortar stores across South Africa.)
Before using UpViral, they were already doing Facebook and Instagram conversion ads for Exact Clothing. However, Daniela believed that by adding UpViral to their marketing arsenal, Exact Clothing would benefit more from going viral — which meant further growth.
Exact Clothing’s Campaign Goals
Exact Clothing was aiming for three things:
- More leads ✉️
- More followers 🧑🏼🤝🧑🏼
- More engagement ❤️
Based on the results, Daniela was able to meet these goals — PLUS generate an additional $1.2K in sales unexpectedly.
A note from UpViral: Setting clear goals prior to starting an UpViral campaign (whether for your own business or for a client) is vital. Clear goals provide you with direction and purpose. When your campaign ends, you’ll be able to look back on these goals and understand whether your strategies worked or not.
📖 Read more: Running a Contest Will Help You Reach These 8 Marketing Goals
The Giveaway Prize and Quick Campaign Details
Exact Clothing chose to give out two gift cards worth 1,000 ZAR (or 62 USD) each. With these gift cards, the two winners would be able to shop for modern and contemporary clothing for themselves and their families.
When it came to the amount spent on the entire campaign, it was a total of 4,000 ZAR (or 248 USD). 2,000 ZAR went to the giveaway prize while the remaining 2,000 ZAR was allotted for the advertising campaign.
The campaign lasted for 3 weeks. It started on December 10th and ended on December 31st. This was Summertime in Africa, which was also a good time to do a giveaway.
For the winners selection, they were chosen at random. However, in the giveaway page copy, participants were encouraged to share more with their friends to collect higher points and boost their chances of winning.
Choosing the right referral incentives will increase your success.
The ultimate goal of choosing a giveaway prize is to attract people who will be interested in becoming customers. In other words, a relevant and targeted audience.
You can immediately tell that Exact Clothing picked the right prize — because it’s directly related to their service. In fact, by winning the gift cards, people can start shopping at their e-commerce website right away and enjoy the brand.
Plus, Exact Clothing didn’t spend a lot on the prize. Both prizes amounted to just 124 USD while attracting 5,580 leads.
💎 UpViral Tip: If this is your first time running an UpViral promotion, you can always “play it safe” by starting with a small, affordable prize. It doesn’t have to cost you a lot; however, it needs to be highly relevant to your audience. By getting amazing results from that small but relevant prize, you can then decide if you want to scale further. Then try bigger (or small but multiple prizes) next time for greater engagement and more entries.
📖 Read more: How to Choose a Contest Prize That Attracts Qualified Leads and Helps You Go Viral
The Giveaway Page
Daniela designed this page on Exact Clothing’s website to start promoting the giveaway:
She meant to include lots of calls-to-action (CTAs) “Enter Now” throughout the page as this provided more opportunities to enter.
Notice above the headline, there’s a short text that reads, “Stand The Chance To” followed by the main headline: WIN AN R1000 Exact Clothing Voucher! This copy is clear and straight to the point. You’ll know exactly what the prize is.
Additionally, there’s an image of a family on the right side of the headline. They’re wearing Exact Clothing’s products, which tells participants that they can buy these clothes for the whole family by simply entering.
Right below it, you’ll see another block of text with another headline that reads, “Step Into Summer.” This emphasizes the time of the year, Summer, a great time for giveaways.
Below the headline is a paragraph that provides more details about the prize:
- Exact Clothing will give away two vouchers worth 1,000 ZAR
- By entering, everyone has the chance to shop at Exact Clothing
- The vouchers can be used to buy stuff for the whole family
If you scroll further, you’ll find a heart-warming note, “Make Summer memories with those you love the most! Holidays are for Family” and a CTA button to enter.
Finally, a countdown timer at the bottom of the page. By adding it to the page, it created a sense of urgency, therefore pushing the audience to enter now. Or else, they’ll miss out!
💎 UpViral Tip: Don’t forget to add a countdown timer to your UpViral campaigns. You’ll be able to take advantage of this feature in our UpViral Business and Premium plans. With our countdown timer, you can choose what to display (weeks, days, hours, etc.) including the colors and sizes you prefer that will match your brand.
Lead capture form
After someone clicks the CTA “Enter Now,” this form pops up that will allow them to enter their name, email, and cellphone number.
We asked Daniela why they included a phone number field. The reason was for future advertising. Because, down the road, Exact Clothing would be able to call these numbers or text them for promotional campaigns.
Share page
Daniela added social media share buttons and custom action buttons to the share page.
Below, you can see (from Daniela’s UpViral set-up) that she assigned 5 points for sharing on Exact Clothing’s social media platforms. Their top platforms were Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, and Whatsapp.
Whenever someone signed up, they’d automatically receive 3 points, plus 20 points if they successfully referred a friend through their invite link.
As mentioned, Daniela took advantage of UpViral’s Custom Actions feature. She gave away the following points for these custom actions:
- Follow Exact Clothing on Instagram: 50 points
- Tag 3 friends on our competition post on Instagram: 25 points
- Share our competition post to your story (Instagram) and tag us: 25 points
These specific custom actions helped Exact Clothing reach their goals and increase engagement during the giveaway. Since growing Exact Clothing’s IG followers was a top priority, Daniela made sure that it had the most number of points (+50).
💎 UpViral Tip: You might think that referral marketing campaigns can only bring in more leads for a business. While that is the case with most campaigns, UpViral’s Custom Actions feature lets you reach other goals unique to your business. You can increase your social media following, get more traffic to your website, run a survey, and more!
Driving Initial Traffic and Keeping People Engaged Throughout the Giveaway
To get that initial spike of traffic to Exact Clothing’s giveaway, Daniela ran a Facebook and Instagram conversion ad. Below, you’ll see their ad creatives used:
Both versions used the same text “Get your festive outfits sorted with a R1000 gift card. Sign up to enter now!” The CTA buttons “LEARN MORE” were also the same.
Only the images were different (with unique text overlays). Regardless, both versions portrayed a family wearing Exact Clothing shirts and dresses, which were relevant to the giveaway prize.
It’s also worth noting that while they spent 2,000 ZAR (or 124 USD) on advertising, their cost per lead was only 61 cents — considering that they generated 5,580 leads. Plus, each of these leads referred one person to the campaign.
To maintain engagement, Daniela posted on Exact Clothing’s Facebook feed and Instagram stories. These were a series of “reminder” posts about the giveaway.
As Daniela puts it, “This was a very social campaign.”
📖 Read more: Discover More Ways to Promote Your Giveaway!
How did Exact Clothing get customers from the giveaway?
What’s really surprising is that Exact Clothing wasn’t looking for sales from the giveaway itself while it was still running.
However, Daniela checked their Facebook dashboard and saw the 20,000 ZAR (1,200 USD) which was directly attributed to the conversion ad campaign. “People had obviously seen the ad and they happened to shop from that,” said Daniela. 😲
Reasons This Campaign Worked
As a marketing agency owner, Daniela had a solid grasp of marketing principles. She was able to apply these principles to create an UpViral campaign from scratch.
Here were some of her important takeaways:
- The right incentive: Incentives can attract the right (or wrong) audience. If you want potential customers, then think with your ideal customer in mind. If you’re selling clothing, give away clothing or a voucher that allows winners to avail of your product.
- Well-designed page: Following user experience (UX) principles will help you create a landing page that converts well. Make it eye-catching, and readable, usable. (Here’s an article on landing page elements and making your page stand out.)
- Conversion ad: Daniela believes that starting with a conversion ad greatly helps a campaign. In addition, she emphasizes the importance of using the right message and targeting.
“And use UpViral,” she adds. She considers UpViral as the “cherry on top” that made their campaign even more successful.
We asked Daniela what they would do differently in future campaigns. She told us that moving forward, she might make the suggestion of including more prizes for more chances of winning.
Final Thoughts
Daniela’s UpViral campaign shows us how it’s possible to generate leads through social media. Hopefully, marketing agency professionals can use this case study to grow their clients’ businesses.
Through UpViral and Daniela’s marketing background, she acquired 5,580 quality leads for Exact Clothing and increased their followers. She was even able to lower their cost per lead and unexpectedly generated $1.2k in sales from the ad used for the giveaway.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out our case studies. If you’re ready, we invite you to get started with UpViral.
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