EP. 68- SECRETS to Boost Contest & Giveaway ROI!! Ask Us ANYTHING

Foreign welcome back to Ask Us Anything. This is our short episode during the week where we get questions in all week long. We get work questions in and we get in ridiculous questions.

We try to tackle one of each. And if you actually want to submit a question, it's real easy to you.

Go to jschwettleson.com podcast and there's a button right there that says Ask us anything. And you could put in any work related or any crazy ridiculous question. We'll try to tackle it.

So don't forget we also have our longer episode at the end of the week. It's 10 minutes long where we do over new tips and tactics and stuff. But anyway, let's jump into this week.

The question, the work question we got in is from Aubrey. Aubrey's from Boise, Idaho. I've been to Boise, Idaho many, many times. I remember going through the airport there. This is no joke.

And they have a french fry vending machine. This is tremendous. The only problem was it was disgusting. Yes, I did try it. Of course I tried it.

How do you not try a french fry vending machine anyway? Gross. Don't do it. Moving on. Aubry, what is your question this week? Here's the question for marketing.

Do contests and giveaways work in marketing or at an event? Oh, no brainer. Among the best ways to grow your database. Among the best ways to get engagement to fill up pipeline.

But there's things about contests and giveaways that marketers really don't do, right? So let's talk through a few of those right now.

So the thing that will dictate the quality of the leads and the opportunities coming out of your contest or your giveaway and you might be doing a contest or giveaway online, maybe you're doing one at a trade show booth, maybe you're doing one via a source social media posts. But what you are giving away will have a direct impact on the quality of the leads and the people that you're following up with afterwards.

Among the best things that you can give away, which I do not think marketers do enough of, are interactions with human beings. Rather than just giving away an Amazon gift card or something like that. What do I mean?

If you could win a 30 minute one on one zoom with Mark Cuban for him to review your business idea and it was a giveaway, you'd be like, oh man, where do I submit? I want to enter into that contest. Because that would be amazing. Now maybe you can't get Mark Cuban to jump in and do a giveaway for you.

Like that, but the CEO of your company, especially if that CEO is known in your industry, that is super valuable to a lot of people to get one on one time. Not so that CEO can sell something to the winner, but to share and review the person who won their information. What are they working on?

The CEO can give input with no agenda, not trying to sell anything. Maybe it's not the CEO.

Maybe you're a software company and you can have your lead software engineer and you could win 30 minutes where this software engineer is going to review your marketing tech stack or whatever it is.

But giving away human interactions is incredible because the quality of the people that sign up for that, they're not just looking at for that freebie, they're looking for something to better their career, their lives, their business. And on the consumer side, it's amazing. You can do the exact same thing.

If I told you you could win a 10 minute facetime with Gwyneth Paltrow and she is going to share with you the latest fashion line that she's coming out with and give you some tips about whatever you'd sign up.

Now maybe you don't have Gwyneth Paltrow who can be a part of your contest, but you might have your lead clothing designer if you are a direct to consumer clothing brand.

Or maybe you have some sort of skin care line and you have your lead physician who helped come out with that skincare line and they can do a one on one with you and take you through products and things that you should and should not avoid. You would get a tremendous number of people registering for that contest.

So giving away human interactions is something I think is super underutilized for marketers now. Doesn't matter what I say. The, the over. The easiest thing to do is give away stuff. Give away stuff, no brainer.

So there is a huge mistake that marketers make and business owners make when they're doing contests and giveaways. And the mistake that they make is that they give away one of something.

And the reason that makes no sense, do this and you'll be entered in to win an iPad Pro. One iPad Pro. The problem there is that people don't feel that they really have a chance to win. Like, ah, I'm not going to win.

They give away one of it.

And whether they say it out loud or in their mind or subconsciously, they don't enter, they don't participate because they feel like they're just giving away one. Right. The secret sauce number is 25 winners. So we ran a bunch of Tests, all different categories. And here's what we found.

We did a head to head thing. Running contests where you have one winner or giveaways or whatever, one winner versus basically the same contest, but you have 25 winners.

When you have 25 winners versus one winner, it led to over a 400% increase in entries. And all of a sudden you're filling up your pipeline, you're filling up your leads, you're growing, you're database. Why?

Because people feel that they have a chance to win. So a giveaway can't just be for that one person.

The other thing that you could think about with a giveaway or a contest or whatever is doing something based on speed, which works so, so well. It gets people really energized and excited.

Where you send out a promotion, you post something on social, you get the word out there and you say in the subject line right there in the lead of your social post everywhere, and you say, the first 100 people to do this, get whatever. The first 100 people to do this will be entered in to win whatever.

When you tell people the first 100 of whatever, right, immediately they jump on board. They're like, oh my God, I'm a race, I'm going to do it now. It will drive a tremendous response rate.

What you want to factor in though is what happens to the 101st person all the way to the 500th person that they didn't get in. They're going to be upset.

So what you want to do is have your program set up, an email actually set up saying, hey, you didn't get in, you didn't make the first 100. But that's okay. Here's the good news. Here's a special discount code just for trying to participate.

Here's a special, you know, downloadable guide just so you can be a part of it, that we're only giving to people that tried to enter. You're letting people feel like they won even though they didn't win.

So contests and giveaways are among the best ways to drive engagement, to drive database growth. But think about what you're giving away. Think about how much you're giving away and think about if you could tie in speed.

All right, before we get into the ridiculous question, which is always just over the top makes no sense. Got something new to share with you all. So, as many of you know, this podcast is exclusively presented by a company called Marigold.

And for those of you that don't know, Marigold is one of the best platforms on the planet for email sending, for loyalty marketing, and they do this incredible trends index every year, which I rely on for so much information. I'll give you an example of some of the data points that I love in there.

Did you know that 50% of consumers have made a purchase from an email in the last year, which is actually higher than social media advertisements and higher than social posts and higher than sms. There's all these amazing data points in there that really can give you kind of that back information.

So when you're in that meeting, you can reference something.

I love la. It's just far from Florida. I never know where I am, though. I'm in la. I'll be like somewhere. I'm like, am I in la?

I don't even know what that means, but that's always the way I feel. But I totally dig L. A. And you always feel you're going to see a celebrity somewhere.

You go, the last time I was there, which was just a few months ago, I went out for breakfast. Table next to me, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nice guy. Hello. How you doing? I'll be back. Great guy. Anyway, what is the question that you have?

Oh, this is definitely a ridiculous question. Here it is. You can only pick one.

Jay, would you rather walk the red carpet with Leonardo DiCaprio or go on stage and be there when Meryl Streep wins an Oscar? Okay, that's a ridiculous question. A few things. First of all, Leonardo DiCaprio is great, makes great movies. I love Meryl Streep. She cracks me up.

I mean, I don't even know what would I pick? Probably Meryl Streep. But you know what this makes me think about because there's always award shows. Right now, I have to say I don't.

The red carpet is the weirdest thing. You're talking about walking the red carpet. Leonardo DiCaprio.

I watch those red carpet, you know, before the Oscars or the Grammys or whatever other awards show. And it's bizarre because what happens is the reporter person brings over a celebrity.

The celebrity walks over and the reporter person goes, oh, my goodness, I love your outfit. Who are you wearing? And the person will say, oh, I'm. I'm wearing, you know, Dior, vintage, whatever, who cares?

And the person just goes, this is the most amazing outfit. You look amazing. Meanwhile, I'm watching the tv. I'm like, this person looks ridiculous. This outfit's horrendous. I mean, they look horrible.

And the reason you cannot believe the reporter person is never, not once after a billion years of watching all this, has the reporter person ever been like, you know what your outfit, I don't know, it doesn't do it for me. It's, you know, it's okay. It's great. It's fine. I mean, whatever.

Do you know how amazing that would be if they just were like, honest and be like, your outfit kind of sucks. I'm saying it. What do you want me to do? Everybody would watch and then people like me would actually believe what they're saying.

You can't say every outfit looks great, especially when 90 of them look like it's a costume party and it's embarrassing. Like, come on, let's get honest here. Enough. Enough of the nonsense.

So don't let me be a reporter for the red carpet because it's not going to end well. It just isn't. Anyway, so appreciate you being here. Don't forget we have our longer episode at the end of the week. 10 minutes or so.

We latest tactics, tips, whatever. Please leave this podcast a five star review if it wasn't terrible.

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