You might have seen some of the very unique video ads that Poo~Pourri has created on YouTube while you’re waiting for another video to start. They’ve produced some very engaing and funny videos to talk about a product that no one really wants to talk about. If you haven’t seen this lady in the blue dress who is in the ads and has a nice English accent then click on this link to watch.
Poo-Pourri is a pure blend of natural essential oils that stops bathroom odor before it begins developed by Scentsible LLC. We are currently assisting them with their 2018 Breathe Easy Sweepstakes. They have invited people to show how the chemical-free formula of Poo~Pourri helps them to Breathe Easy by producing and posting their own video for a chance to win up to a $500 Amazon gift card.
Participants can enter multiple ways. They can post their video to their personal Instagram or Twitter account using the promotional hashtag #BreatheEasySweepstakes and tagging @poopourri. They can also post it on Facebook by visiting the Poo-Pourri Facebook page, finding the sweepstakes post and including the link to their video in a comment to the post. There is also this sweepstakes webpage that participants can visit and fill out the sweepstakes registration form and include a link to their video.
There are actually four periods to this sweepstakes and it’s now in the final countdown ending tomorrow, May 31st. Each week one random winner is drawn who will receive a $100 Amazon gift card. Once the sweepstakes ends, one Grand Prize winner will be randomly selected from all entries who will receive a $500 Amazon gift card.
We are again using the Shortstack application to assist with this sweepstakes. We have created this online webpage that pulls all the posts from both Instagram and Twitter that have used the promotional hashtag #BreatheEasySweepstakes. I wrote a post last month about two new hashtag sweepstakes we are running for Danmar Equipment that did just that. In their case we are also hosting the promotional websites so participants can enter multiple ways, either on Twitter or Instagram, or through an online entry form. So this is a new feature that we’re seeing more and more of our clients using.
We anticipate doing more of these types of promotions that utilize hashtag entries. If you would like more details on how to set up a promotion utilizing the Shortstack application please feel free to contact me. It’s a great tool and it also includes a great support team. Hope you enjoyed the Poo-Pourri ads.
I wrote this post last week about the NatureSweet Spring Sweepstakes that will be awarding three winners with a Yeti® Cooler Prize Pack. All they have to do is fill out the entry form and submit a photo that shows them, their friends, or their family enjoying tomatoes. They can just upload the photo on the entry form or they have the option to post the photo on Instagram and copy and past the Instagram URL address in the field on the entry form to enter that way. I explained in this post that we used the ShortStack application to build the entry form and collect all the entrant’s data and their photos.
I had also mentioned that we would be starting a couple of new promotions using the ShortStack application that not only allows people to enter and submit their photos from an entry form, but it also allows them to post their photos from either their Instagram or Twitter account using the promotion’s hashtag. It then pulls those into the campaign as entries and posts them on the contest web page. Here are the two promotions we are running for a new client, Dannmar Equipment, who provide automotive equipment to garages.
The first promotion is called the Garage Equipment Supply Contest. Participants are invited to upload a photo of their garage for a chance to win a garage makeover. Three grand prize winners, three second prize winners and three third prize winners will all receive gift cards to the Garage Equipment Supply Store. Total of all the gifts cards amounts to $15,000. There are three different entry periods that will run from now till the end of 2018 and each period will have three winners. A panel of judges will review all the photos submitted at the end of each period to determine the winners which will be based on the following criteria, brand awareness 50% and relevance to the contest theme 50%.
The second promotion is for another one of the sponsor’s brands and is called the MaxJax Contest. Similar to the GES contest, participants are invited to upload a photo of their garage for a chance to win a MaxJax, which is an auto lift valued at $2,000. Again there are three different entry periods that will run from now till the end of 2018 and each period will have a grand prize winner and a first prize winner. A panel of judges will review all the photos submitted at the end of each period to determine the winners and they will use the same criteria as in the GES contest.
So what is unique about these two promotions is that they both have the two methods of entry, the online entry form and the Instagram and Twitter posts. The Garage Equipment Supply Contest participants must use the #GESUSACONTEST hashtag and the MaxJaxContest uses #MaxJaxContest hashtag. All entries from either method go into one database and all the photos can be viewed in one photo gallery that is on each of the contest pages. Since these both just started we don’t have any real entries as of yet.
We hope to be doing more of these types of promotions, so if you would like more details on how to set up a promotion utilizing the Shortstack application, please feel free to contact me. It’s a great tool and it also includes a great support team.
Today’s post was written by Alex Ditty, Client Operations Manager at SEEN. You can read more posts written by Alex on their blog.
Contests and sweepstakes are smart and effective ways to engage your community and promote your brand. At SEEN, there have been hundreds of brands across a wide variety of industries who have used our campaign management platform for these types of promotions.
Because of this experience, we’re commonly asked whether it’s better to have participants enter simply by sharing with a hashtag or if the brand should also include an entry form for participants to complete. In short, our answer is always, “it depends”. It depends on the goals of the contest and what you’re hoping to gain. This is a topic that has been written about on this blog before, and we’ll go into more detail on the differences and benefits of running a contest or sweepstakes with hashtag sharing versus requiring completion of an entry form to help you plan your next social media campaign.
Entry FormBenefits
Requiring completion of an entry form gives you the ability to gain more information from the participants. This benefits you in three important ways. The first is simply the ability to get in touch with the participants in order to send the winners their prizes. When you’re unable to collect contact information you’re limited to social messaging to try and get in touch with the winners, which may not yield positive results.
Along with contacting the winners, the second benefit is that you can also gain the ability to contact all of the participants in future marketing campaigns. When they provide you with contact information and opt into your email marketing, then you’re able to use the promotion as a lead generation tool. Additionally, this process can help unify your customer’s identities by creating a link between their email address and social profiles.
The third and often the most overlooked benefit is the opportunity to gain important learning. With an entry form you can have your participants share important data with you such as location and demographic information. This new touch point can help impact other marketing initiatives by gaining a better understanding of who your customers are and how you can connect with them.
With the Registration Tool in the SEEN Campaign Manager, participants verify their social accounts and enter their contact information to confirm their participation in the campaign and to link their social and email identities to your marketing.
Entry Form Drawbacks
Though you’re gaining more useful information with an entry form, you’re also slightly complicating the entry process for your participants. By adding in this additional step for participation, you may limit the involvement from your community. It is possible for this to act as a filtering mechanism to determine who is really interested in your brand, however it may also restrict the overall number of people that participate. Before implementing a mandatory entry form, consider the potential barrier that this can create and how it may affect participation.
Hashtag Sharing Benefits When you’re launching a social media sweepstakes or contest, an easy way that you can get people involved is simply by encouraging them to share with a promotion-specific hashtag. This will most often result in higher participation numbers than those that require an entry form. This ease of entry is one of the biggest benefits, and the additional social sharing that the hashtag provides can also help you increase the reach of the promotion. Participation is likely to be the most important success metric in your campaign and hashtag entries can give you confidence that you’ll have a high participation rate with its simplicity to enter.
Hashtag Sharing Drawbacks
Hashtag entry will gain you a lot more campaign entries and likely lead to higher participation rates, however ir misses out on the vital learning and marketing benefits that entry forms provide. When you simplify the entry process, you take away opportunities for the participants to also share vital information with you that can strengthen your relationship with them. When planning a contest or sweepstakes based solely on hashtag sharing, ask yourself if participation or data collection is the more important success metric for your goals.
So, which of these entry types is best for you next promotion? Well, that depends on your marketing goals. The first step is to determine your goals are and with those in mind, you can properly implement either of these participation options. Some brands don’t have the luxury of building entry forms for each of their contests, which makes hashtag entry the only option. Fortunately, there are tools like the SEEN Campaign Manager where you can easily implement either or both of these options with no development work.
Understanding the benefits and drawbacks of each participation option, we’ve designed our campaigns to simplify the process for both the social media managers and the participants. For the manager, launching a hashtag based promotion and turning on custom entry forms are very easily done with a click of a button. And when registration forms are implemented, participants are still converting at over 40% in the average SEEN-powered contest. These kinds of results help you take advantage of both worlds to maximize the ROI of your social media campaigns.
NOTE: You can read Donna’s blog post that will be posted later today here on the SEEN blog. Feel free to contact us if you’d like more information on utilizing the SEEN Campaign Manager.
You might have seen some of the very unique video ads that Poo~Pourri has created on YouTube while you’re waiting for another video to start. They’ve produced some very engaing and funny videos to talk about a product that no one really wants to talk about. If you haven’t seen this lady in the blue dress who is in the ads and has a nice English accent then click on this link to watch.
Participants can enter multiple ways. They can post their video to their personal Instagram or Twitter account using the promotional hashtag #BreatheEasySweepstakes and tagging @poopourri. They can also post it on Facebook by visiting the Poo-Pourri Facebook page, finding the sweepstakes post and including the link to their video in a comment to the post. There is also this sweepstakes webpage that participants can visit and fill out the sweepstakes registration form and include a link to their video.
