One of the best things about the internet is that it can be used to promote anything offline. It can be a physical business, a concert, community gathering, or anything you’d like to get people’s attention to.
If you’re curious to know how you can do it, we invite you to learn from Brett Whipp’s case study. Brett is an avid user of our contest platform UpViral and the owner of Shire Talk.
After running a 13-day giveaway to promote a local event in his place, he was able to get these amazing results without spending money on ads:
- 841 email leads
- 777 social media shares
- 20,000 people came to the event
Here’s a screenshot of his contest results:
Let’s learn the steps that Brett took in running a contest that helped him achieve his end goal. Keep reading.
Shire Talk and the Goal for Using UpViral
Shire Talk is a social media agency owned by Brett Whipp. Their mission is to work with local businesses to create brand awareness and help locals get special offers, deals, and more. They do everything from social media management to web design to advertising.
Brett’s goal was to help Cambridge Markets Sydney promote Kurnell Christmas Market, a special event where locals can get the chance to discover local businesses and go shopping. About 100 stalls, rides, and entertainment would be available on that special day for families, kids, and everyone to enjoy.
The owners of Cambridge Markets Sydney originally wanted somewhere between 5,000-7,000 people to show up at the event.
At the same time, Brett also wanted to gather leads from the same area where Kurnell Christmas Market would be held so that by the end of the giveaway, he would be able to promote future local events and products to those leads.
To achieve these goals, he thought of starting a giveaway campaign on social media.
One of the reasons why he went for UpViral was that our platform complied with Facebook’s promotion guidelines. To Brett, that was a huge plus.
He also said, “I think competitions and giveaways on social media are such a great way to be seen and gain recognition in such a busy place, and to be able to pull off some amazing results like growing your leads and collecting data.”
With that, let’s have a look at Brett’s campaign.
Shire Talk’s “Kurnell Christmas Market” Giveaway
For this section, we’re going to take a look at what Brett chose as a giveaway prize and how he designed his opt-in page and share page:
Prize
Brett gave away 2 “Golden Tickets” to two winners. Each Golden Ticket featured 10 different mini prizes which included:
- Sirocco luxury straw summer hat from Carolyn Unwin Hats
- Gift pack from Biophilia Berry
- A Festive Pud from Our Festive Puds
- A candle, a bath bomb, and a soap from Tychace Candles
…and more!
To claim the Golden Ticket, the giveaway winners must show up at Kurnell Christmas Market on November 25. After getting the Golden Ticket, they need to visit the stalls of the brands featured on the ticket to claim their freebies.
Why did Brett choose to give away tickets as prizes? The reason was that the tickets were relevant to his audience. People who had no plans of going to Kurnell Christmas Market to shop will basically have no interest in the giveaway.
Key Takeaway: A giveaway prize has to be relevant for you to achieve your end goal. This also deters anyone who simply wants free stuff (a.k.a. prize hunters) but isn’t willing to engage after the giveaway.
Opt-In Landing Page
You have the option to host the entire giveaway on the UpViral platform or embed the UpViral widget on your website. In Brett’s case, he ran the campaign on UpViral.
This was the opt-in page for the Kurnell Christmas Market giveaway:
A couple of things about this landing page stood out, and were the reasons why Brett was able to collect 841 leads:
STRAIGHTFORWARD HEADLINE
The best headlines that convert well don’t beat around the bush. The headline above, WIN a day of SHOPPING at the Kurnell Christmas Market, tells the audience: that (1) they can win, (2) what they can win, and (3) where they will win.
VALUE OF THE PRIZE
Notice the description right beneath the headline, Each Golden ticket is valued at around $500. Showing the cost of your contest prize works because people value what they pay for. This is an effective way for you to get conversions when giving free stuff away.
SNEAK PEEK VIDEO
To give people a glimpse of Kurnell Christmas Market, Brett added a teaser video on the landing page. Details about the big event were mentioned — that there would be an extensive range of stalls (120 stalls) that would suit everyone who came.
FORM FIELDS
You can see in the landing page screenshot that Brett didn’t simply ask for people’s first name and email, but he also added a form field for phone number.
From our perspective, while adding a phone number form field can be tricky (because not everyone likes to be called), doing so is also a smart way to be able to get quality leads who are truly interested in your brand.
Quick Tip: UpViral allows you to add up to 10 custom form fields and set them as required or optional.
AN ENTICING CALL-TO-ACTION BUTTON
The call-to-action button copy, FREE TO ENTER, reinforces the fact that anyone can join for free. The word “free” is also one of the most persuasive power words.
DESCRIPTIVE COPY
Right below the teaser video, Brett narrates the details of the campaign, from Shire Talk’s partnership with Cambridge Markets to make the event possible, to how people can win.
Share Page
The share page is where you can market your campaign to as many people as possible. Here’s what we can learn from Brett’s share page:
UNIQUE INVITE LINK
Above the share buttons, you can see a unique referral invite link that Brett and anyone can simply copy and paste on Facebook to attract more participants, grow their points, and boost their chances of winning. UpViral will automatically generate this unique referral link for you as you set-up your share page.
SOCIAL MEDIA SHARE AND CUSTOM BUTTONS
Brett didn’t just include social media share buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Email), but he also added buttons that were tied to specific actions:
- Like Shire Talk On Facebook
- Follow Shire Talk On Instagram
- Follow Cambridge Markets On Instagram
- Like Cambridge Markets On Facebook
- Confirm Your Coming On Facebook Event
- Subscribe To Shire Talk YouTube Channel
Brett encourages his giveaway audience to take these other actions to collect more points. He emphasizes this in his copy beside the buttons “Want More Chances to win?”
These additional actions are a great way to maximize the results of your giveaway campaign.
Perhaps aside from your main goal of increasing your leads, you may also want to get more Instagram followers, watch your live streams, or join your Facebook event. Think of any action you want participants to take. This is made possible through UpViral’s Custom Actions feature.
Here’s Brett’s set-up for his Custom Actions:
Quick Tip: If you own an agency, like Brett, you can help your clients grow their social media audience through these Custom Actions. Whatever your priority actions are, assign higher points to them.
Marketing the Kurnell Christmas Giveaway Campaign
While many factors come into play to make your giveaway as successful as possible, publicity is a huge one. This leads us to an essential step: marketing. There are plenty of ways to market your campaign. Brett used the following strategies.
1. Leveraging Facebook Events
Our of the many social promotions that Brett did, Facebook Events was the biggest.
If you don’t know what Facebook Events is, it’s a feature that lets you keep your audience in the loop about any upcoming event in your business. This is made possible with Facebook’s calendar connection.
Brett’s use of Facebook Events was a smart strategy because it became very visible to people who were looking to do something within the area. As you can see from the screenshot below, Brett added the exact location (Bonna Point Reserve). This helped increase foot traffic to the event.
Brett described the event in detail by mentioning the date, time, place, and why people should go. The Details section is where you can use your copywriting skill to get your audience intrigued:
Don’t forget to add tags after filling out the details. Brett chose keywords that were relevant to the Kurnell Christmas Market event: Shopping, Kid Friendly, Farmers market, Wedding shopping, and Christmas. By doing this, Facebook was able to recommend his event to people who had the same interests.
2. Creating engaging social media content
Creating tons of pre-event content will keep people excited about coming. We appreciate the fact that Brett maximized posting on social media, for example, Facebook and Instagram, without spending a dollar on ads.
This was Brett’s first Facebook post that drove people to his giveaway landing page:
Brett shared a photo of an exciting kiddie activity that will take place at Kurnell Christmas Market — face painting. Although this isn’t one of the mini prizes in the Golden Ticket, this gave parents more reasons to go to the markets.
Three days before the event, Brett posted one of the brands featured in the Golden Ticket — Lisa Carney Design. This created more hype around the giveaway so more people would enter and share it. Brett used social proof in the post by mentioning that Lisa is recognised as one of Australia’s top jewellery designers and that her pieces have been featured internationally.
Here’s an Instagram post where Brett shares another one of the prizes mentioned in the ticket. Since there’s no way to add the link to the giveaway in the post itself, Brett mentioned that the link is in the bio.
Doesn’t this post make you hungry? This one showed people that by going to Kurnell Christmas Market, they don’t only get to shop, but also enjoy great food.
3. Sharing the campaign to local Facebook groups
Aside from creating engaging visual posts, Brett also joined local Facebook groups to promote the upcoming event and giveaway.
When joining a Facebook group to spread the word about your campaign, make sure that you’re a fit prior to asking to join the group. Read their rules so that you don’t get banned for posting something unrelated.
It’s also a good tactic to reach out to the admin and ask permission to share the campaign. This is also you showing respect to the group. Lastly, when posting to the group, focus on being helpful, not salesy.
4. Partnering with local influencers
Regardless of your industry, collaborating with influencers can help you reach a broader audience fast.
Brett partnered with an influencer who did a brilliant job in persuading people to come to the event. As you can see, the screenshot of the Facebook post below showed that Brett started producing influencer-generated content days before announcing the giveaway.
Key Takeaway: Starting an influencer marketing campaign before your giveaway generates pre-event buzz which can be extremely helpful in driving attendance.
5. Emailing everyone who entered the giveaway
Once people join your giveaway, what must you do to remind them to keep sharing? That’s right, email them. Follow-up emails are important in every phase of a giveaway:
- As soon as they enter (to thank them for joining and wish them luck)
- As soon as someone signs up through their referral link
- When a fraudulent activity has been detected
- On the winner announcement date
This was the first email that Brett sent out to anyone who entered. It was simple and straightforward. Brett included the number of entries for each new participant, their unique referral link, and instruction on how to increase their points:
However, Brett did something else in the middle of the campaign that made it better: He emailed the 40 people who had the most number of points, congratulated them, and told them that they were in the TOP 40 and that they were a few points away from possibly becoming a winner!
Brett found out that these top 40 individuals shared the giveaway even more because they were encouraged.
Key Takeaway: Go beyond sending automated emails. Show your top campaign “sharers” that you recognize their efforts by sending a personalized email. People engage more when they feel that you care about them.
Announcing the Winner
Exactly on the day of the Kurnell Christmas Market, Brett emailed the two winners and made the announcement on Facebook and Instagram. Here’s a screenshot of the IG post:
The winners had to show up at the event for their Golden Ticket and go around the stalls to claim their 10 prizes.
Brett’s Plan for His Collected Leads
Since Brett does local marketing and was able to collect 841 leads through the giveaway, he would be able to promote future events to his email list. In fact, two to three months later, Brett promoted another event in which hundreds of people from his email list signed up to.
Brett thinks that without that list, it would have taken him weeks to get in front of a huge audience and he’d be probably using Facebook ads.
How Would Brett Rate His Giveaway Campaign from a Scale of 1-10?
“It would be a 9/10. It’s one of my big ticket items when I talk to a local business owner. Because I know that I could give them data – email addresses, phone numbers, etc. I also have the ability to grow their social media (Facebook page, Youtube channel. etc) by giving people extra points.”
Brett was satisfied with the giveaway. What was interesting to him was that the owners of Cambridge Markets were expecting around 5,000-7,000 people and yet about 20,000 people went to the event. What’s more, all the stalls were sold out and the ATM machines ran out of money.
Why Brett Recommends UpViral:
“If you’re looking for a solution that allows you to collect prospects, emails, and phone numbers at the same time grow your social media, there’s no system in the market that does it better.”
Final Thoughts
Giveaway campaigns make it possible to build traffic to any event and collect leads. When choosing a prize, make sure that it’s relevant and interactive. Brett’s Golden Tickets were suited for those who wanted to go to Kurnell Christmas Market. It allowed them to really enjoy the event since they could walk around the shops to claim their free items.
Don’t forget UpViral’s Custom Actions if you want your audience to take specific actions that help you meet more of your business goals or to accomplish the goals of a client (if you run an agency).
Another lesson that the giveaway teaches us is the importance of social media when it comes to promotion. Building buzz and anticipation can be done by sharing posts days or weeks leading up to an event. Consider hosting a Facebook Event. If you can partner with an influencer, that would also make a difference in your campaign results.
Try UpViral today to start your own giveaway campaign and succeed like Brett of Shire Talk. If you have thoughts or questions about getting started, leave them in the comments section below.
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