Florist Marketing Tip of the Week:
Create a Facebook Contest to Fill Your Lead Funnel
By Gina Kellogg
Building your list of email addresses gives you more customers to contact and, thus, more opportunities to make a sale to them. You can promote special Valentine’s Day discounts for pre-Feb. 14 deliveries, free bouts when a bride signs a wedding contract and all kinds of other special offerings.
One of the best ways to increase your leads and collect contact details is through a contest. Lots of third-party developers offer contest apps for Facebook, so they make that part easy. (Plus, Facebook requires third-party apps if you want to run a contest.) But you should take some additional steps to ensure your contest is successful. Here are eight tips to help:
1. Identify your goals. Do you want more email addresses to build your list? Do you have a different goal, such as to attract more fans to your Facebook page? Define your goal and then you can ensure your contest will help you achieve it.
2. Never break Facebook’s promotional guideline rules. Read the rules, but a big one is to make sure you acknowledge that your contest is not connected to Facebook in any way.
3. Offer a great prize—but also a targeted prize. What does this mean? Don’t offer something that everyone and their mother would want to win—like an iPad. Offer something that is relevant to the customers you want to attract. So, if you want more brides, then offer a free bridal bouquet or altar arrangements. (Refer back to No. 1 to help you determine your prize.)
4. Create an easy-to-enter contest. Don’t require too many steps or actions. Drawings are easiest and only require that the entrant provide name and email address—and many third-party apps will handle the drawing for you to keep it honest.
5. Make your contest shareable. Once folks enter the contest, make sure your thank-you page provides links so they can let others know they participated. Allow them to post on their Facebook walls, send a tweet or add a comment. You can even offer incentives that increase the odds of winning if the contestant shares. That helps spread the word even faster.
6. Set a quick deadline. Don’t set the end date for your contest too far into the future—for example, two weeks. It’s too hard to maintain excitement for a longer period.
7. Amp up the anticipation! Get everyone psyched to win by promoting your competition wherever and whenever you can.
8. Keep track of the stats. You can’t measure the success of your contest unless you keep track of it. And if you want to run another competition in the future, you want to know in what areas you can improve it.
Have you run a competition? Share your details. Or share why you wouldn’t want to run a contest. We want to know your thoughts!
About the author: Gina Kellogg is the community/social media manager for Flower Chat. She is also a floral journalist who specializes in helping florists with their communications needs. Contact her at [email protected]. Or visit her websites at www.HottCornflakes.com or www.SuccessStoryPro.com.
Create a Facebook Contest to Fill Your Lead Funnel
By Gina Kellogg
One of the best ways to increase your leads and collect contact details is through a contest. Lots of third-party developers offer contest apps for Facebook, so they make that part easy. (Plus, Facebook requires third-party apps if you want to run a contest.) But you should take some additional steps to ensure your contest is successful. Here are eight tips to help:
1. Identify your goals. Do you want more email addresses to build your list? Do you have a different goal, such as to attract more fans to your Facebook page? Define your goal and then you can ensure your contest will help you achieve it.
2. Never break Facebook’s promotional guideline rules. Read the rules, but a big one is to make sure you acknowledge that your contest is not connected to Facebook in any way.
3. Offer a great prize—but also a targeted prize. What does this mean? Don’t offer something that everyone and their mother would want to win—like an iPad. Offer something that is relevant to the customers you want to attract. So, if you want more brides, then offer a free bridal bouquet or altar arrangements. (Refer back to No. 1 to help you determine your prize.)
4. Create an easy-to-enter contest. Don’t require too many steps or actions. Drawings are easiest and only require that the entrant provide name and email address—and many third-party apps will handle the drawing for you to keep it honest.
5. Make your contest shareable. Once folks enter the contest, make sure your thank-you page provides links so they can let others know they participated. Allow them to post on their Facebook walls, send a tweet or add a comment. You can even offer incentives that increase the odds of winning if the contestant shares. That helps spread the word even faster.
6. Set a quick deadline. Don’t set the end date for your contest too far into the future—for example, two weeks. It’s too hard to maintain excitement for a longer period.
7. Amp up the anticipation! Get everyone psyched to win by promoting your competition wherever and whenever you can.
8. Keep track of the stats. You can’t measure the success of your contest unless you keep track of it. And if you want to run another competition in the future, you want to know in what areas you can improve it.
Have you run a competition? Share your details. Or share why you wouldn’t want to run a contest. We want to know your thoughts!
About the author: Gina Kellogg is the community/social media manager for Flower Chat. She is also a floral journalist who specializes in helping florists with their communications needs. Contact her at [email protected]. Or visit her websites at www.HottCornflakes.com or www.SuccessStoryPro.com.