Hordes of wishy-washy followers will get you nowhere. But a core, passionate audience will skyrocket your business growth. The trick to getting your startup off the ground is building that core audience quickly and cost-effectively, and then selling them your products and services.
Ultimately, it’s this group of engaged people—the ones who follow what you do, buy what you sell, take advice from you, and look to you as a thought leader—that will allow you to make money, and lay the foundation for your future company.
To be honest, there are a whole bunch of ways to build this core following when you’re starting out. But in my experience, there’s one particular combination of tactics that does so in a fastest, cheapest, and most effective manner.
With this guide, I’m going to share exactly how to build your core audience, what’s known as your “seed audience,” using contests and Facebook ads.
I’ll show you:
- Why giveaways and contests are beneficial for building an audience.
- How to build the perfect contest for maximum growth.
- How to properly market a contest that will get you results (Facebook ads).
We’ve got a ton of info ahead of us, and if you stick with it to the end, there’s a little offer for some personalized advice on how to build YOUR own audience using a contest. So let’s get started!
Table of Contents
What’s a Seed Audience and Why Is it Important?
How to Build an Audience Using Giveaways and Contests
How to Build the Perfect Contest for Maximum Growth
How to Market a Contest to Get Results
A Bonus Giveaway For You!
What’s a Seed Audience and Why Is it Important?
Building your first 100 (often called your “seed” audience) is always the hardest step of getting a company off the ground. That number goal will vary, and it could mean email list subscribers, engaged followers, or even frequent readers of your blog. These are the people who know you, and are not cold prospects.
This is so important, as the people who know you, are familiar with your brand, and have interacted with you multiple times convert at twice the rate of cold prospects. The below screenshot shows the value of returning visitors and how they’re twice as valuable as cold traffic.
The conversion rate for new visitors to my site is 2.18% but the conversion rate for returning visitors (the people already familiar with my brand) is 4.96%.
Another example below shows that the channels that have multiple touch points (referrals, email, and direct) convert at much higher rates than those in which the prospect may have never heard of the brand before (paid search, organic reach).
This is the number one reason you want to build a large core audience, so when you have something to promote, sell, launch, etc., the people you share it with will convert at much higher levels than cold traffic.
The problem is that a lot of the advice on how to build your seed audience is vague and not very actionable.
For example, many experts will tell followers to start posting on social media, blogging, speaking at events, writing books, starting podcasts, or even building relationships one by one. But let’s be honest, that takes way too long!
Don’t get me wrong, they’re all things you should do in the long run, but not very actionable in putting together your “to do” list for next week to hit your short-term growth goals. Some of the things on that list are going to take months, if not years.
I’m going to be upfront with you on this—building an audience is not easy, and as you can see from the common methods mentioned, it can be very time consuming and expensive.
The good news is there are methods that are less time consuming and less expensive. One of the easiest to execute is the giveaway or contest.
How to Build an Audience Using Giveaways and Contests
Everyone is always busy, their inbox is continuously overflowing, and they’re not just going to signup for “newsletter updates” anymore.
As a business, you have to provide your audience with value and give them something they want or need before you ask them for something in return. That’s why contests and giveaways are the perfect incentivizing tools.
Contests and giveaways all work in pretty similar ways, no matter which company or platform you choose to run them with.
You give entrants a prize/reward/service as an incentive to engage, and gamify the lead generation experience to make it fun. In return, you receive beneficial information from them like an email address, user feedback, phone number, referral, and in some cases actions like a social follow. The list goes on and on, as this method is very flexible and can adjust to what your KPIs (key performance indicators) are.
Again, this is one of the most cost-effective ways to collect emails, followers, and more when compared to running generic lead ads (usually $3-5 an email), or organically building a list (which can take months, if not years).
Aside from offering incentives, they have a viral referral system built in, as entrants often need to refer others in order to increase their chances to win. For example, referring friends and co-workers might land the participant an additional 100 entries.
(Unedited photo source: Aurora Magazine)
The type of contest I recommend is a “leaderboard contest,” as it’s by far the most powerful and flexible online tool for building an audience and stimulating engagement.
What’s a Leaderboard Contest?
It’s a gamified contest that has a leaderboard/scoreboard, and entrants have to collect entries (points) to move up the leaderboard, beating others to the top while unlocking prizes along the way via milestones (e.g. unlock a prize once you collect 200 entries).
(collect entries on the left, to rank and move up the leaderboard on the right)
Leaderboard contests are fun for entrants, but they also expose you to a broader community and get you more exposure. Let’s dive into exactly how to set up an effective leaderboard contest.
ATTENTION: Want to go from zero to 500K+ Instagram followers in 12 months? Instagram is the perfect place to build a core seed audience of passionate followers. Join our Free Instagram Masterclass below and learn how to use Instagram to build your following and get more exposure.
How to Build the Perfect Contest for Maximum Growth
Step 1: Plan Your Contest
Start with a few questions:
- What type of people do you want to attract?
- What are those people interested in?
- Where do those people hang out (websites, social channels, Facebook groups, etc.)?
The reason you want to ask these questions is to ensure you attract people who will eventually turn into customers. There is no point running a giveaway and getting signups from people who would never buy your product or use your service.
Here are some examples from companies that attracted the right audiences with their contests:
- Foundr offered a free ecommerce course and mentorship, which attracted ecommerce entrepreneurs, a core part of their audience.
- Scott’s Cheap Flights offered a free trip to Croatia, attracting people who like to travel.
- PageHabit offered 12 months of books, attracting people who read frequently.
- VYPER (my company) offered free lifetime subscriptions to software, attracting business owners.
Keep your target audience in mind as you continue this process, making sure you attract them with whatever you offer.
Step 2: Choose Your Contest Prizes
Now that you know who you are trying to attract, find a compelling prize/service/offer that will really get these people excited.
If you already make or own the product or service you want to offer, great! If not, you can either buy the prizes or partner up with other companies to get those prizes for free. For example, if you run a coffee ecommerce store, you could offer free coffee for a year, or a free espresso machine, or an in-depth guide on making latte art, etc.
This is the prize structure that we recommend, using the example of the ecommerce coffee store:
1st prize – Espresso machine and six bags of coffee (largest prize and most impressive)
2nd prize – Six bags of coffee (less impressive but still good)
Random Winner – Espresso machine (randomly select one participant to win a prize that can be anything, as long as it isn’t as big as the 1st prize)
500 entries – Coupon codes for the best coffee products (20% off or $10 gift card)
2,000 entries – Guide on how to make the best coffee (could be a PDF or training video)
5,000 entries – The ultimate barista video course (could be an email drip course, video course, or in person event/class)
You can add or remove any of these, but the best-performing contests usually have at least a 1st prize, a random winner, and one entry milestone prize.
This will also depend on your budget and access to prizes. If you are just starting out, you might have to build up to bigger contests, so you could start with $100, $50, and $20 Starbucks gift cards for your prizes.
Here’s another example below of travel blogger working with companies and using the promotional products as a prize!
All these products were given to the blogger for FREE. The prize does not have to be super professional by any means!
As long as the prize offers value to your audience and is something they can get excited about, you will have a winner.
Step 3: Building the Contest
So full disclosure, I run a platform for contests, which means I’m clearly biased here. But in my experience, using a tool to create and manage your contest is much easier than building it yourself. Building it yourself requires a lot of manual labor and resources. You would also have to create formulas in Excel to pick winners and send a ton of manual emails, and ain’t nobody got time for that!
Of course, the other option is to just participate in someone else’s contest as a prize contributor and get them to do all the work instead. 😉 That’s not a bad route, since it still lands you some solid exposure.
But if you do go with the option of creating and managing your contest with a tool, you will want to make sure that the software has the following traits:
- A good referral system – so people can refer your contest to others
- Incentivization features – one of the most important features to make a contest go viral (we will touch on this later)
- Easy to use
- Cheater protection
- High-converting templates and elements built in
- A leaderboard feature
Note that we won’t go over the exact contest setup process in this article, because that will depend on which tool you use. Each tool will include setup instructions and tutorials. In this article, we will focus on the elements of an effective competition and how to get more people excited about it.
Create a Catchy Heading (Get People to Click)
This is one of the most important things about your contest. Really give it some thought.
The example from Foundr’s contest was “Win This Ecommerce Mega Bundle” and had a subheading of “Win everything you need to start and scale your online store! Including Training, 1-on-1 Mentorship, an Ecommerce Store, Your Branding Done For You, Our Latest Step-By-Step Training Course…and More!”
These are super strong titles because it’s clear who the contest is for, and they clearly explain the benefit of entering. One thing they could have also added was the value of all the prizes, e.g. “Win This Ecommerce Mega Bundle (Valued at $45,798).”
A few other title examples for other industries would be:
– Ecommerce clothing: Win a New Wardrobe Valued at Over $10k
– Ecommerce products: Win the Ultimate Yoga Gear Package!
– Gaming: The Gamer’s Paradise Giveaway (Exclusive Access)
– Subscriptions: Win 12 Months of FREE xxxx
– Speaker/Blogger: Win Mentoring & Training From xxxxx (Valued $20K+)
– Courses: Top 5 Winners Get Our New xxxxx Course For FREE (Usually $1,300)
– Artists: Win a Signed Copy of XXX & VIP Concert Tickets
– Travel: Win a Trip to Prague!
– Software: Get a Lifetime Membership to VYPER
– B2B: WIN $837 Worth of the Most EPIC Business Books
Create Compelling Images to Showcase Your Contest
Since you want your images to be shared a lot, design something eye catching. If you don’t know Photoshop, try user-friendly tools for amateurs like Design Bold or Canva.
Include the highest-value prize in the image and/or add a badge with the value of the prize. You also want to use your catchy headline as text overlay to get people to click through to your contest. Make your offer on the image as enticing as possible (increase your perceived value).
Here’s an example with a catchy headline, dollar value, and a visual of what they can win:
NOTE: If you are running ads on Facebook (more on this later), include the title but keep the text to under 20% of the image. Also, wherever you are running ads, you want the ad to stand out, so make the colors different from the platform. So if you are running an ad on Facebook for your contest, stay away from a blue/white color pattern. Use orange, red, yellow, purple, etc. to pop out!
You can also show off brands that are contributing to your contest to build authority.
Here are a few more contest images. Review them for inspiration and notice how they compel you to click.
Terms and Conditions
This is a very important part of your contest that protects you and your entrants from any complications.
Take a look at this download that highlights the terms and conditions in the United States for running giveaways and contests (Europe and other countries may be a little stricter).
Some software programs can auto generate these terms and conditions for you, just add any extra irregular terms you might need covered.
Showcase Your Prizes (Images and Descriptions)
If you’re running an ecommerce store, you already need decent product shots, and the beautiful thing about digital is the ease of repurposing. So take those product shots and use them in your contest (for the contest page and prize images). And it’s even better If you have some lifestyle shots (photo of people using your product or placed in a real-life situation).
HACK: If your product has a feature that can be shown, create a gif to show off the functionality:
These images don’t need to be uber professional. The key here is to show an exact representation of what the winner will receive as a prize.
If you are giving away something digital, it gets a little tricker because the prize isn’t tangible. Find a way to graphically represent what you are giving away.
Foundr used this image for its recent giveaway:
How would you showcase a prize that includes something like a night out on the town? Here is one way:
As long as you can visually illustrate your prize, the entrant will feel they are getting something rewarding.
Confirmation Emails
You will also need a confirmation email that people will receive when they enter your contest. These are great opportunities to upsell people on special offers, present discount codes, etc.
This is an excellent opportunity to add some extra value. Not only will this email confirm the entry, but it will also provide their unique sharing URL and introduce your brand. Plus, it can be a little bonus-delivery vessel.
These are a few things that we’ve seen people include in their confirmation emails that were just brilliant:
- Coupon code (20% OFF)
- $10 gift card (using an actual image of a gift card from their brand). This has a higher perceived value, but is still essentially just a code they enter at checkout to claim the discount.
- Free training course (links to a private course or YouTube playlist)
- Free educational download (PDF, white paper, etc.)
- Free templates (e.g., a WordPress theme or plugin, a design PSD pack, a planning worksheet)
All of these things increase the value of your confirmation email and get people engaged with your brand and contest.
Use the Full Power of Incentivization
Some software will offer the option to add in additional actions for people to take to score more entries. This is the main part of your leaderboard contest, because the more entries participants make, the higher up they will rank in the leaderboard.
This is also important, as it allows you to leverage your contest for more than just emails. Collecting an email address is always good, but collecting an email + follower + review + app download + podcast review is even better (see more examples below)!
The way you get people to do all these things is by rewarding them with entries in your contest. If they want to win the prize you’re offering, they’ll want to collect more entries by doing all these things.
For example, a participant could get an additional 50 entries to the contest for watching a YouTube video (this increases the views on your video and makes it more authoritative/popular).
In VYPER, these are called “bonus entries,” which allow you to create an action for pretty much anything on the internet. See example below.
Make sure that whatever software contest platform you use, it has an incentivization feature.
These are extremely powerful as you can incentivize things that would normally only occur organically and over a long period of time.
Some of the most popular custom entries that you can use:
- Join our Facebook messenger list
- Read a blog post and leave a comment about what you learned
- Subscribe to our podcast
- Share our Kickstarter project video
- Like, share, and comment on a Facebook post (build your social engagement)
- Watch, thumbs up, and leave a comment on this YouTube video
- Complete this short quiz (could be a Google form or Typeform you use to collect information about your target market)
- Follow on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Spotify…
The list goes on and on, so you can see why this feature is so powerful!
Test Your Contest
Make sure you send your contest to a few friends, loyal customers, or mentors to get their feedback before launching. A second opinion never hurts and usually helps you pick up some things that you may have missed.
Enter your email in your own contest, make sure the confirmation emails send, that the pages look good, and all your coupon codes work (if you are offering them).
BONUS: Marketing Resources
We will go into detail on how to market your contest in the next section, especially how to use Facebook, as this is one of the best channels to choose when getting started.
Here is a free download to a fantastic guide on how an agency created and marketed an extremely successful contest for the launch of their clients eCommerce store. Here is also a case study on Foundr’s contest.
ATTENTION: Want to go from zero to 500K+ Instagram followers in 12 months? Instagram is the perfect place to build a core seed audience of passionate followers. Join our Free Instagram Masterclass below and learn how to use Instagram to build your following and get more exposure.
How to Market a Contest to Get Results
This is the make or break of your contest. Think of it like owning a restaurant; you could have the most amazing restaurant, but if you don’t tell anyone about it, no one is going to show up.
There are two ways to market a contest. We will list off a few options, but only go into detail on how to use Facebook ads, as this has the highest success rate and is the most scalable strategy.
Paid Marketing Strategies – much faster but cost money
- Facebook ads (good for pretty much all industries)
- Pinterest ads (good for fashion and décor-focused businesses)
- Twitter ads (good for tech, business, news, music, and event-focused businesses)
- Paying to be featured in someone else’s email list
- Paying influencers to post your contest (good for most, but really depends on the influencer). Some tips for making this work:
- Look for 10-50k followers
- Engagement rate over 5%
- 80% of their posts are directly related to your industry
- Try and offer free product before offering to pay them
Organic Marketing Strategies – much harder and more time consuming but FREE
- Sending an email to your existing list (if you have one)
- Adding your contest to your website
- Posting your contest on all your social channels every 2 or 3 days while running it
- Partnering up with another brand and getting them to share it
- Posting in Facebook groups (or other forums)
- Submitting your contest to directories
- Putting your contest on StumbleUpon
- Working with free influencers to share your contest (usually friends)
- Sending personal messages to your followers (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Going on podcasts and mentioning your contest
So when should you used paid and when should you use free marketing?
This all depends on the results you want. If you are happy to run multiple contests and build an audience over time, you can go the organic option. Just know you will have to do a lot more legwork to get traction. So if time is on your side and you want to save some money, organic is a good option.
If you want fast and scalable results and have a bit of cash in the bank to burn (we recommend at least $200 to get a contest started), it is better to go with paid acquisition. Instead of hustling for every click, you can work on other areas of your business or contest (like building out the follow-up email drip).
Using Facebook Ads to Market Your Contest and Build an Audience
Now we’re going to dive deep into Facebook/Instagram, as this is by far the best option for driving targeted audiences to your contest. This can drive leads for as low as $0.20 per email and is extremely scalable.
To get similar results, you’ll want to follow some of these instructions. I’ve also created a video that will walk you through how to set up your contest on Facebook. Below the video, I outlined the steps in bullet form.
Steps for marketing contests with Facebook ads:
- Create a Facebook Business Account here.
- Add a Facebook page
- Add an ad account
- Link your Instagram
- Add your billing information (set an account spend limit if you wish)
- Make sure you add your Facebook pixel to your contest (more detail in the video)
- Understand the structure of the account
- Campaigns (choose conversions or traffic campaign, set spend limits)
- Ad sets (choose budget, run time, targeting, placement and bidding)
- Ads (choose your ad type and create your ads with title, text, image, or videos)
- Custom Facebook audiences to exclude
- Converted leads audience (exclude from all campaigns – you do not want to show people ads to sign up to your contest if they have already signed up)
- Website visitor audience (exclude from all prospecting campaigns – you do not want your prospecting and remarketing audiences overlapping)
- How to optimize your contest campaign
- What good metrics look like
ATTENTION: Want to go from zero to 500K+ Instagram followers in 12 months? Instagram is the perfect place to build a core seed audience of passionate followers. Join our Free Instagram Masterclass below and learn how to use Instagram to build your following and get more exposure.
Build Your Audience
Whether you’re building your seed audience or you just want to grow your current one, contests and giveaways are a great marketing tool. Get out there, launch a contest and start raking in those leads, customers, social followers, and custom actions. 🙂
Hopefully, at this point, you have a few ideas on what type of contest you could run with your business, or even what you might be able to give away to attract your ideal audience. You should also have a huge list of ideas on how to market the contest and the exact steps to start with Facebook ads.
A Bonus Giveaway For You!
Want to run a contest? Comment below with with your business URL and I will reply with an idea for a contest and what you could give away as a prize to help you get started.
Looking forward to learning more!
Cool article! I am really getting into what can be done with gamified contests!
Hi Jack, I own an social adult day care center focused on the senior Latino population. I am curious as to what you might suggest in terms of a give-away. See – http://www.centrodeamigos.com
This was a great article that helped me a ton when I first got started with Vyper. I built my seed audience early on and after that things have really taken off.
Awesome to hear Ben, thanks for the kind words 🙂
Yes. Especially the core audience build.
Thanks, glad you got some ideas from the post 🙂
I’m launching a new sexy and sustainable swimwear line called EcoCheeky. Would love to hear your thoughts! EcoCheeky.com
You have a good product for giveaways as it goes well with creative that is Instagram friendly.
I’d suggest using a random winner prize. Or even using a monthly giveaway to continue generating exposure, referrals, and followers.
You will want to use the bonus actions like
– follow on IG
– upload an image of XXX and tag us
– share this Facebook post about the contest
– comment, like this Facebook post
Ideally, you need to create a reward that people really want so they share your content and are happy to refer others.
So swimwear wardrobe refresh, including complimentary products as well. Sunscreen, tanning oil, beach towel, beach umbrella or esky. You can team up with other companies for this or just purchase yourself.
The easiest is just to give away your won products though.
Examples
– landing page option http://vyper.io/c/8987idszc
– widget option – https://vyper.io/contests/widgetviewtest?id=8987&rh=1015
Vyper it’s really really great tool
Thanks Mayko!
Wow this is so informative.. I’m definitely going to start doing this
Thanks, glad you got some ideas. Let us know if you need help with your contest!
Great read, thanks! I’m getting ready to plan my campaign soon and this was helpful in clarifying many of my questions.
Awesome, glad it helped 🙂
This is an amazing article perfect for the promotion of vyper! A lot of useful information and benefits just from reading. Definitely a must read for sure. Very detailed.
Thanks Roger!
Hi Jack, thanks, this was super helpful – I am relaunching http://www.MBAchic.com and was thinking to post an Instagram (@MBAchicblog) giveaway / contest this week to build our email list (secondary goal is to grow our IG page).
I have been testing out branded gear (T-shirts, tote bags, phone cases, etc..) and thought about giving one or more away… would love to hear your thoughts and if you would do something different? Really not sure what would be best as this is a first go at this. Thx again!
If you are trying to collect emails and grow your following from one contest you will probably have to use contest software.
I’d recommend putting together a few prize packs that are focused on what has a really high perceived value.
>>>>> 1st place <<<<>>>> Random Winner <<<<>>>> Collect 1000 Points <<<<<
– Guides, consultation, access to a training course etc. (digital products that are easy to replicate at scale).
You will want to use the bonus actions like
– follow on IG
– upload an image of XXX and tag us
– share this LinkedIn post
– comment, like and share this FB post
Ideally, you need to create a reward that people really want so they share your content and are happy to refer others.
Take a look at this example contest to get an idea https://vyper.io/c/199
Thanks so much for your response!! Much appreciated, Jack. 🙏😍
NP 🙂
The quality of what Jack has posted here is undeniable. Thanks, now I have so much to implement.
Thanks Teddy 🙂
I highly recommend participating in this project. He has everything to be the best in this field: a great idea, a great team and a powerful community
Thanks man!
Hi There,
Long list FULL of FUNNEL of Spoon-Feed, Guide-to-Action, Choice-that-u-can-do and other detail that only need the ACTION to be taken ASAP to see the RESULT.
Will Definately Boomarked it and put it to work
Thanks
Hafizzat TokanGB
Awesome, we are about to also release a crypto guide so stay posted.
Cool article. Thanks! Question: Facebook does not let you run a contest where you ask people to ‘like’ your facebook page?
You can not force someone to like your page to gain entry into a contest. You can change the wording to visit my Facebook page.
Also, don’t mention “like my facebook “page” in your ads.
Love this growth hacking tool. Easy to set up and collect leads.
Clearly, there are many details to a successful leaderboard contest… Thank God you have volumes of material to learn from and better Vyper does much of the menial detail work for you. Thanks for the info, Jack.
Thanks Wes, glad you liked the guide!
My name is Richard and I would like to run a giveaway for
my blog https://www.richardrobertsimsuccess.com.
So if you’re in the internet marketing space you need to choose something that’s going to attract people who are going to buy from you.
Looks like you are selling information (let me know if you’re not).
Meaning you have to attract people looking to learn.
Things you should think about offering.
– courses, guides
– marketing tools (lifetime deals)
– work efficiency tools (computer & productivity stuff)
I’d suggest you go with a more evergreen rewards giveaway. Something like this – https://vyper.io/blog/new-feature-the-gamified-growth-widget/
Cheers,
Thanks Jack, that was excellent. Interested in your thoughts around what I should offer for a contest (including the grand prize and all other prizes), site is at https://www.bevisiblesports.com
Hi Sandy, since you have a product that appeals to a very specific person it would be a good idea to create a “runners bundle giveaway” or something like for the sport you find most of your customers using your product with.
The prize structure could be
1st place – Your compression sleeves, $300 gift card to nike.com and a Fitbit or fitness tracker.
Random Winner – same as above minus the fitness tracker.
Collect 1000 entries – Get $20 off (in the terms you would say $20 off if they spend over $50).
You will want to use the bonus actions like
– subscribe to our FB messenger
– follow us on FB, IG etc
– share and comment on this FB post (then turn that post into a Facebook ad)
Hope this helps 🙂
Good view and awesome project
Thanks 🙂
Very detailed instruction. Thanks Jack Paxton
Glad you liked it 🙂
awesome read!
Thanks 🙂
It is a great way. I intend to own a relationship blog.
Nice, reply if you need any tips 🙂
great article good programme.
Thanks 🙂
Contests are a great way to get more engagement. Do you ever wonder if the engagement through contests is more made up than real, and how does that affect the new audiences you want to target after the contest is over?
Hi Bryan, I would say the engagement is real but some people go wrong when they offer general prizes and get people engaging that are not in your target market.
If you choose a prize that your ideal customer would want, you will attract “your ideal customer” if you offer something generic like a $100 visa gift card, you will get a lot of engagement but it will be less relevant and lead to a lower quality audience.
Great article…
Thanks mate 🙂
Thank you for the clear and thorough article! I would appreciate it is you could give me an idea for a contest? My website is argentouskim.com 🙂
Sure, the apparel space is a good one for giveaways.
You can give store credit (Win a new wardrobe) and also partner up with a complementary brand.
For example, if you partnered up with a jewelry brand
1st place – New Wardrobe + jewelry
Random Winner – New wardrobe
Collect 1000 entries – Get $20 off (in the terms you would say $20 off if they spend over $50).
You will want to use the bonus action like
– subscribe to our FB messenger
– follow us on FB, IG etc
– like, share and comment on this FB post (then turn that post into a Facebook ad)
Hope that helps
Great article. Extremely detailed and in depth.
Thanks James 🙂
Great article with actionable steps I can straight away implement for my business. Definitely need to start building my core seed audience.
Thnaks Adrian, glad you liked it and got something out of it 🙂
Thanks Adrian, glad you liked it and got something out of it 🙂
Very good and promising project. Fast evolving. I hope in the future will collect the necessary capital and will work for a long time. Good luck to you!
great article
Thanks!
that’s huge thanks for the info
NP, glad you liked it 🙂
that’s definitely worth a try! I am coming 🙂
Can’t wait to see your contest, thanks Masuk!
thats definitely worth a try and ill do this asap
Thanks, glad you liked it 🙂
Fantastic and just in time for me to implement as a part of my big book launch giveaway. Love VYPER and all of its tools!
Thanks Jonathan, let us know when the contest is live, would love to take a look 🙂
that’s huge thanks for the info
Yes it was hahahaha
Thanks 🙂
Solid information and tools
Thanks, we put a lot of time into this post so glad you liked it 🙂
Great article Jack! Thanks for taking the time to put it together!
Not a problem, glad you liked it!
Jack, super good jnfo. Thx.
http://Www.passrider.com is my site url.
Thx.
Kerwin
Hi there, I actually did a presentation at TravelCon and made this free training for people in the travel space that might give you some good ideas – http://www.vypergrowth.com/travel-blog-growth-study
The largest travel users of VYPER usually give away free trips etc but you might be a little more unique as your target audience seems to be employees in the travel industry.
My biggest takeway is how important yet simple it is to build a proper seed audience. Thank you.
Thanks Daniel, glad you liked it.
It’s hard to build a seed audience organically so hopefully this can speed it up a little. Need to get to that 1000 true fans as fast as possible 😉
Wow. Just wow. Now I know why you guys are the contest campaign experts. Thank you for sharing this.
NP, glad you liked it 🙂
Worth reading.
thanks 🙂
Awesome post, what do you recommend for a weight control supplements? https://fifthelement.com.mx
You have a lot of product to offer but you could also give away complimenting health products to make the prizes a little more diverse.
– yoga mats
– apps like brain.fm, headspace etc
– gym memberships
– store credit
IDEAS
1st place (most entries) – $500 worth of your products and a wellness pack (yoga gear, blender, 12-month gym membership)
Random winner – $500 worth of your product
5000 entries – 1 free bottle of N-NMP
2000 entries – Get $50 store credit when you spend $100
200 entries – A vitamin checklist or guide that people can use to make sure they are consuming all their daily needs. (this needs to be a free downloadable asset)
Nice Article!
great article
Congratulations, very good post.
Thanks 🙂
This is amazing!
Hey Jack,
Great article. I’m launching my dog subscription newsletter and this is great given I’ll need the emails.
My problem at this time is determining the prizes to offer. I was thinking of providing some dog toys, treats, etc. but I’m afraid that their perceived value is not that high (most of them are less than $50).
Should I look for more expensive prizes or I’m I just overthinking here?
Hey Kevin,
You may be overthinking this a little. If you give someone enough dog toys and treats you can create the messaging like “Win a years worth of dog treats”. In the terms and conditions just state it’s a bag of treats a month or something.
The other thing you could think about doing is finding the top rated dog products and including them. Use the validation of those products in your title.
Win the worlds best dog bed, or win Americas top rated dog leash and 12 months of treats.
These bundles have a much higher perceived value.
Hope this helps 🙂
thank you
np 🙂
This is awesome, but still ,contest needs better rewards so it incentives the users to participate
The better the prize the better the results usually. As long as the prize is aligned with the desired audience of course.
Thanks!
Very Good.
Good
Great article
Thanks 🙂
Excellent project
Awesome
Can’t wait to try all of this, thanks
Awesome, let us know if you have any questions.
Thankyou.
It is a nice and worthy blog!
Thanks, Sanket!
Thanks.
interesting article….opened my eyes a lot
Awesome, glad you liked it Scott!
Jack, we’re launching a new watch brand and offering 3 color ways at the start. Price point is $179-$199. What is your suggestion?
Hey Rose, Watches are a great product as they have such a high perceived value. We actually ran a case study that uses watches in a contest where everyone wins something that you might find interesting http://www.vypergrowth.com/viral-ecom-webinar
It was a much lower quality watch we offered for free but you might still get some ideas from the training.
In terms of a contest, I would suggest the below prizes:
1st place (most entries) – New wardrobe which includes your watches. You could deliver this is a gift card (Bloomingdales, MYER etc) for the outfit and then send them the 3 watches.
Random winner – All 3 watches.
5000 entries – 1 free watch (award this at the end of the contest so you can batch process it.)
2000 entries – Get $50 off a watch
200 entries – A syle guide on how to find the right watch for your wrist.
Feel free to post your contest in the replies if you want me to review it for you.
Great project! Good luck!
Hi Jack, thanks for the great article and also the fantastic training you did for Start and Scale! I’m planning to use a Vyper contest to launch my new jewellery brand and would love to know your thoughts on prize structure/ amounts. The current pre-launch landing page is https://artoflife.co and the price point for the initial collection will be about £65/ 85 USD. Love to know what you would suggest for the first, second and random prizes etc. Was thinking a gift card (in £) that they can use for this and future collections for the main prizes? Thanks! Nikki
Hey Nikki, glad you liked the training, that’s such a good Facebook group and David is the man!
For you contest I would suggest this prize structure.
1st place (most entries) – $500 worth of jewelry (does not have to cost you that much, just inflate the RRP)
Random winner – $250 Gift Card
5000 entries – $10 off any purchase
1000 entries – Buy One Get One Free (can be only a selected item, just add it as a new item in Shopify)
200 entries – free guide on how to identify real diamonds/gold etc (whatever digital guide/knowledge you can share)
NOTE – at the end of the contest one you have drawn the winner, send out another email saying (You Also Won – Get $20 off with this gift card when you spend $50 in store).
This will help generate more sales after the contest has finished as well.
This is very useful post.
Hi Jack,
We are currently running a contest that can be viewed at https://fairwaysmembership.com/
In previous years, our ‘Waiting List’ has been a high converting tool to gain new members. So, this year, I wanted to gamify it with a giveaway as a part of the contest.
Any ideas or pointers would be of great help. Our recent FB ad netted 250 link clicks and turned into 47 form submissions. So, a 19% conversion after click and a total cost of about $5 per entry. In my opinion, that is a bit high cost-wise for what we’re looking to accomplish.
Thanks in advance!
Yes, $5 per lead is pretty high but it depends how much money you can make in return for that lead. A gold membership seems like a good ROI.
I would make the contest more engaging, send emails out to the current list saying you are doubling entries for the next 48 hours for referrals.
Also add images of what they are winning, even though it’s a membership, show them images of what they can expect, nice greens, clubhouse, free perks etc.
nice info
Thanks!
Great ! Excellent project
Thanks Marciel!
Hi Jack. My URL http://www.artmosfera.com.ec
You will need to decide if you want to target people associated with a work office or home office in your giveaway.
I would personally go for the home office audience as that is more beneficial to the person who enters as opposed to someone signing up to win their office a makeover.
So the prize breakdown I would suggest.
1st place (most entries) – home office setup (valued xxxx)
2nd place – Office chair
Random winner – office chair & desk
1000 entries – 20% off any office fit out
500 entries – office essentials checklist
200 entries – free guide on how to adjust your office chair correctly
Once the contest is over, send everyone an email saying they won the runner-up prize of $50 store credit when they spend over $300.
Of course, you can change these numbers to whatever you like, these are just examples.
Hope that helps 🙂
Hi Jack Great Write up. My URL http://www.vangovagon.com. suggest something.
You have a bunch of products so you can give those away as the prizes.
The other thing is to maybe feature your best selling products in the contest when promoting it.
e.g.
1st place (most entries) – home makeover $1500 in artwork of your choice
2nd place – Surprise pack $500 of our most popular artwork
Random winner – home makeover $1000 in artwork of your choice
1000 entries – 50% off our canvas prints
500 entries – $10 off anything in our store
200 entries – free guide on how to match artwork to your room
Something like that would keep everyone engaged.
Great ! Simple, but effective ! I like it !
Thanks Twin!
This is really awesome. Digital Marketing Newbies will find it much easier to compete with their Guru partners
Awesome, glad you liked in June!
nice one!
Thanks chrismb 🙂
I love how Vyper Makes the little things lots of Fun & Exciting. It makes we wanna do things Ive passed on, But now I do cause it adds points 😛
Yes, the gamification is a great way to engage people and I think it will get more and more popular with all the tools we use online.
This is Awesomeee! I really like their contest!
Thanks Jurica 🙂
Great article about marketing. Thanks 🙂
Np Jignesh, glad you liked it 🙂
Thank you Jack. I found the project really great, it helped me understand more. I think with the direction and the roadmap as well as the idea of the project, the project will be truly successful.
Thanks Hoàng Văn Mạnh, appreciate the kind words 🙂
Wow! So comprehensive and filled with vital info!
Awesome, glad you got some value out of the post 🙂
Wow! Great read i must say. More fire power for the knowledge base Thanks!
Glad you liked it Terry!
Gold!
Thanks Felix!
Thanks for sharing!
wow this was amazing!
Glad you liked it 🙂
Thanks a lot for the great article. I find it very useful
this article was very insightful
Fantastic, glad you liked it 🙂
Thanks for sharing great content, it’s super useful for businesses looking to improve their reach.
Awesome, glad you got something out of it Will 🙂
Good blog post 👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks Marko 🙂
Some sound advice – I’m new to the viral marketing game, so had some good insight from seeing the software I never action and readding the post
Glad you got a few take aways Nish 🙂
Really solid advice. Good article.
Thanks Matej 🙂
Great great great post.
I have been using a different tool to run my raffles, but it allows me to set ONE action to be mandatory, while all the others have to be optional.
Can I set multiple mandatory actions with VYPER?
Thanks,
Marcos.
Thanks Marcos,
We do not force any actions but that is a good idea. The only thing you need to be careful of is T&C’s from the platform you are forcing the action on.
For example, it’s against Facebook T&C’s forcing someone to like a page to participate in a contest. So the page like has to be optional.
But we can add this feature to our request list, I can see how it adds value to the business running the contest.
Great great great post.
I have been using a different tool to run my raffles, but it allows me to set ONE action to be mandatory, while all the others have to be optional.
Can I set multiple mandatory actions with VYPER?
Thanks,
Marcos.
Can’t wait to learn about building a viral contest
There’s a lot of pointers in the post but we’re also running a live Q&A session in the Foundr Facebook group if you want to join that as well.
You will have to join the group before you can attend the event – https://www.facebook.com/events/274690736611753/permalink/278331846247642/
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You would have to join the Foundr Facebook group first – https://www.facebook.com/groups/startandscale
Just a heads up that the session is for Start & Scale members only and is taking place in that private FB group. Sorry for the confusion here!
Leaderboard contests seem like they drive users to work harder to win. I need to try this method out.
Yep, if you have a prize that people really want they will go to the moon and back to refer others to your contest.
Hi my site is http://musicisourforte.co.uk I’ve run a couple of competitions but they haven’t been great. Many thanks Jayne
Hi Jayne,
I for your contests, what sort of prizes have you been giving away?
I would suggest you may need to increase the value of the prizes to get more engagement.
E.g. what do your pupils really want? why do they take your course? what’s their end goal?
If you can offer a prize that helps them get to that end goal faster, you will have a higher perceived value.
Prize ideas
– your course
– free lessons
– opportunity to meet producers or people who could hire them for singing
– microphone to help with recordings
– gift cards to a music store
– etc
hope this helps 🙂
brokenriders.com – great post, thanks for the tips.
Hey Tom, you also have a good product for giving away. I would also partner up with a bike company so you could have prizes like
1st place – bike worth = $1500
Random winner = $500 apparel from you
500 entries = how to perfectly tune your bike video course
1000 entries = 30% off any apparel
If you can team up with a company willing to offer the bike you may have to split the list with them or give them “bonus actions” in the contest like follow your page and then follow their page.
Hope this helps!
http://www.calirae.co excited to run a contest!
You’re in a great space for contests as you have an easy B2C product.
A few things you should do if you plan to run a contest.
– Make the most of your creativity as it’s really good and will grab peoples attention (e.g. use them on your contest page, in the contest share images etc.)
– Make bonus entries for your contest Instagram related, (e.g. re-gram for 100 entries, post to IG and tag us for 100 entries)
– You have a great brand to work with influencers, offer them free product to promote the contest. Also, mention that if they refer lots of people they might even win the contest. Aim for the 20-50k follower range.
Prizes
– new wardrobe (product)
– gift cards (easy as you do not have ship any product)
– travel trip (you seem to have a lifestyle brand going on)
– complimentary products (sunglasses, beach towels)
– you could partner with other brands and do a joint contest (hotels, products above etc).
Make sure you offer discount codes for people who reach 500 entries, do this in the form of $5 off and as a “gift card” it has a higher perceived value.
Awesome post. Any ideas for sunday-morning.com?
You also have a great B2C product so a lot of the same stuff that I mentioned in the above comment applies.
For Prizes
– new wardrobe (product)
– gift cards (easy as you do not have ship any product)
– travel trip (you seem to have a lifestyle brand going on)
– complimentary products (sunglasses, beach towels)
– you could partner with other brands and do a joint contest (hotels, products above etc).
Make sure you offer discount codes for people who reach 500 entries, do this in the form of $5 off and as a “gift card” it has a higher perceived value.
Make sure you are also making the most of bonus entry actions
– get people following on all channels
– have an email drip ready to send everyone after the contest is over, you can do a lot of upselling as you have bed, bath etc (people need all these things)
Thanks!
Great article! Looking forward to implementing some of these tips!!
Awesome, glad you liked it Chris 🙂
Hi Jack! Thank you for the info!
Which tools/ website would you recommend for running a contest? My product is http://www.yerkabikes.com/eu
Best!
Hi Andrés,
Great product, I know first hand getting bikes stolen sucks hahah
I’m obviously going to recommend VYPER as the contest platform as that is the service used in this post. But there are definitely a few out there so I would suggest you take a look around.
You have a very easy product to use in a giveaway. You can give away a bike and I would also maybe partner up with another company to contribute helmets, bike lights, backpacks etc.
The reason you want to partner up is that you can get all your partners to help you promote your contest with you. Here’s an example case study – http://vyper.io/blog/case-study-using-viral-leaderboard-contests/
It’s a different niche but the principle is the same.
Hey! Amazing article. I’m actually trying Vyper out with a contest for my father´s NLP courses and workshops and have seen some interesting engagement. This is going to help out a ton in taking it to the next level. Thank you!
Just a heads up, the title in the browser tab is missing the H in “How”. 🙂
Thanks Daniel, I’ll let the guys/gals at founder know 🙂
Great article, solid actionable tips. Thank you.
Thanks 🙂
I like what these guys do. It’s very wonderful.
Thanks Yuriy!
Hi Jack, thank you for sharing.
I took part in the Foundr contest. Really interesting!
Currently setting up my site: raiseyourbrands.com
I could give away 1:1 sessions, a brand or website audit, entire branding done for them. But if you have other ideas, please let me know.
Kind regards,
Frank
Hi Frank, for B2B or business niche contests, books, free courses, free guides or discounts/lifetime deals on software work really well.
Think about what your target customer would really want.
Very informative and straight-forward. Will reference going forward. Cheers!
Thanks, glad you liked it. The Facebook video tutorial is not just for contest ads, can be applied to any promotion you are running!
Thank you!! http://www.highvibemommy.co would love your contest ideas <3
Hi Sabrina, who is your target market for this? Mommy business owners, moms in general or moms trying to become business owners?
Fantastic article and great timing for us!
We are an online sports nutrition service (Sports Dietitians) – http://www.compeatnutrition.com
Would love any of your insight on possible effective giveaways!
Hey Alicia, since you have a product, that’s a great place to start.
Giving away something like
1st place – 12 months of Specific plans
2nd place – Fitbit + 12 months to Knowledge Hub
Random Winner – 12 months of Specific plans
Collect 500 entries – 4-week shopping list
Collect 1000 entries – 30-day access to knowledge hub
Of course, you can mix and match these but having your own product to give away is a huge bonus.
If you do not want to do that you could give away
– nutrition plans
– 6 months of supplements
– fitness video course
– 12-month gym membership
– nutrition apps, guides or books
Hope this helps 🙂
Nice article Jack! Our business url is cgpm.co.nz
I’d love to hear what ideas you may have 🙂
If you’re just focused on collecting leads in Auckland prizes could be:
– access to meetups for landlords
– early access to listings or open houses
– free appraisal (or a service above this)
– early access to listings for tenants
– gift cards to home furnishing brands
– tickets to events in your niche
– free 6-month access to renting apps/websites
You will want to have some entry milestone rewards as well, some examples would be:
– collect 500 entries = landlord guide
– collect 1000 entries = average house evaluation by suburb
Hope this helped 🙂
Hi Jack, great info here! I work as a mortgage and insurance broker and am wondering if this type of thing is suitable for my industry. It’s not the most exciting industry for a lot of people so getting engagement can be tough. Would love to hear your thoughts…
Hey Shaun, your customers still have interests, wants and needs so you can still incentivize them. The prizes just have to be more thought out.
For example, what’s something someone would need to make a good decision on a mortgage or insurance plan?
Prizes could be
– guide on how to choose the right mortgage or insurance
– free renters insurance for a year
– gift card for home decor store (if they are applying for a mortgage they might need help furnishing their new house)
– free security setup for your new house
– etc
This industry is a lot harder than B2C but can definitely be done.
Thanks, Great article.
Thanks Ezriel!
Great overview. Very informative. You also mentioned that you run a platform for contests. I’d be interested in using that. Actually, I’d be far more interested if you had a “Done It For You” option, even if it would understandably cost more for that.
We actually just released it a few days ago hahahah
This was the case study from the first beta client – https://vyper.io/blog/the-extremely-viral-ecommerce-giveaway/
Thaks Jack. Great article… forced me to do a lot of research. I run a small marketing agency and it’s always great to get some updates and tips. Gracias x
Always good to share ideas 🙂
These are the results from the campaign we set up as a case study for this post (the video above). http://link.paxtonprojects.com/srdi
Super cheap way to collect leads $0.55 at the moment.
Great article.. haven’t considered building leads using a competition. My page is https://go.clarkism.com/get – selling a sales letter creation system. (I’m a copywriter to trade)
I know I could give away my system as a prize, plus my 2nd product (the upsell) which is a VSL creation system.
Apart from that, I’m not too sure what else I could offer as prizes. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Hey Alan,
You are in a great space for this, you could also offer these prizes
– access to copywriting courses
– email drip overhaul
– 1:1 homepage copywriting consultation
– copywriting books
– 12 months of Grammarly
– any other copywriting tools you use
If you do not want to front the cost on these, you could always pitch that you run the contest and they contribute the prizes. It’s added exposure for them and you get free prizes to use in your contest.
If they say it’s not worth it, you can say you will include a follow their page, retweet or share their social post in the “bonus entry” options.
Example “https://vyper.io/c/199” – you can see how we use the retweet this tweet, this could be for any brand or partner though.
Cheers,
Really good article, thanks. Very straight forward framework for thinking through the process and not something I had considered.
What would you suggest as a prize for a mental health (self-education) related business? Some books on self-improvement and mindfulness might work, any other thoughts?
Thanks Jay! Books work really well, the other thing you might want to consider is meditation products or memberships to communities or courses.