Viral Recruiting Contest - Stage 2
Hi, Everyone...
Just a quick update on the viral recruiting campaign we are creating to hire 2 people for Thailand and line up more potential employees for the Philippines, China, and Central Europe.
We will go live Monday morning Germany time using Facebook, Twitter, and other social platform posts as well as having a landing page published that describes the contest.
With viral posts like this, you have to stoke the fire to get things moving. So a vital part of the entire planning was how to do that and ways to get a strong initial push of participants. More at the end of this update on just how we have planned for this...
Here is where we are right now with 2 days to go until we are live:
Steps To Launching A Viral Campaign
For ease of explaining and understanding as we drill down on the steps, I have broken them into two general areas: The Back End and The Front End.
I define the 'back end' as everything that goes into the planning and setting up of the contest, while the 'front end' is what prospects see when they read about the contest and what they see as they go through the contest funnel.
The Back End.
(1) Goals.
a. Gather CVs/resumes from qualified people that want to join our team.
b. We will hire 2 full-time employees in November for Thailand, and
c. Have a stable of people ready to bring on in the Philippines as our VA service kicks off and our own needs grow...
d. Lastly, we will have yet more potential employees for Germany/Austria/Switzerland and China as we implement the same prize contests as we will have in Thailand.**
** Remember we will run regular contests for 2 people winning paid flights for a week stay in Bangkok initially, and we will add more locations such as Phuket, Pattaya, etc. later.
e. Other benefits include increasing brand awareness, increased sales, gaining knowledge of how to run viral contests, and getting the word out about our companies and stores.
(2) Prizes.
a. We have played around with the prizes quite a bit and done some brain-storming on what the best approach is. We want everyone to win something.
b. Here is what we have settled on:
- Four levels of prizes from one for entering to one for having a referral or yourself being selected to work with us.
- We wanted the prizes to be incremental in nature. By this I mean the more you share and convince others to participate, the more you will be rewarded.
- Some of the prizes are tied into our stores. Our businesses are registered in Thailand and Germany at the moment, so we needed to associate the prizes with the stores that are operated from Thailand to avoid conflict and also legal issues. Later we will open the prizes to use in ALL our stores (more brand recognition and more sales we think) incrementally.
(3) Dates Of The Contest.
a. We have decided to run the contest for 3 weeks. Initially we wanted a full month, but travel and other considerations meant it made sense to go for the shorter period.
b. Start date will be Monday next week (16 October), and the end date will be 5 November. This coincides when my business partner will be in Thailand so we can interview and on-board the new employees.
c. The general participant cash prize winner will be announced on 12 November and a week later two additional recipients for the hire prizes will be awarded.
(4) Set Up Of The Contest.
a. We are using an internet based software that allows us to automate much of the mechanics of our viral contest. It will track entrants, track their referrals, send them notifications direct to their browser when they get referrals, etc.
b. That same tool will provide us a running total list of all participants with the number of entries they have secured over the contest period. We can use that list to select a random winner at the end of the contest.
c. There will be follow-on prizes as well, as part of the CV submission process is that the person applying has to include the person who referred them. If they are selected as a team member, we will then award a prize to the referrer, and there is no end date on this.
d. For handling of sending out the emails for the contest, we need an autoresponder. We can use MailChimp, but do have the option of using another front-end tool we have that works with an SMTP service - it has a much higher capacity for handling entrants and associated messages and emails and comes at a cheaper price for us. TBD at this point.
e. I am using yet another tool to builld and host the landing page and other pages that are required to be included. 5 other pages we will need: (1) Terms & Conditions, (2) Contest Rules, (3) Cookie Policy, (4) Privacy Policy, and (5) Facebook Disclaimer.
f. To ensure that we use a fair and impartial method to select prize winners, we are employing a third party service and also are running this through our legal advisors. We want to stay within the requirements of German law ideally, the standard is high (even though the contest is running through our Thailand business).
So there you have it. The above covers the general steps, but does not detail the copy we are creating to promote the contest.
The 'Front End' Of The Contest.
There are three main areas plus a series of notifications and emails where people will see the front end of the contest, and after we have addressed the back end as above we will shift more focus to these elements.
a. Social Posts. They will see the Facebook post and one we publish on our websites via a blog posts, Twitter, Blog dot com, etc. These all will have a strong CTA to our one landing page.
b. Landing Page. This is where we will spell out the offer, terms and conditions in general terms and etc. It will also have a form to collect entrants name and email.
c. Correspondance. Confirmation email, thank you email, and update notifications via their browser and through the contest tool and the autoresponder.
d. CV/resume Submission Form. The third main component is the page they get sent to if they want to submit a CV/resume...
e. Other required pages. These will generally not be viewed by most people, but they have to be there to comply with legal requirements. Most are standard with the exception of the contest rules, which will be unique for each contest.
So our process here has been to write copy first, THEN design the pages around what we want to say. This is being done with intent.
You can get tied up in design and fail to address the meat of what people need to know if you design a page and then try to fit copy into it.
I will not go into detail on ALL the pages, that would be too much for this venue. Instead, I will add in the latest draft of our landing page (minus some sensitive data that is not allowed to be posted here)...
Here it is:
"Join Us NOW In Our Recruiting Contest! (H1)
Win A Cool $100 PLUS Other Instant Prizes (H2)
Four Ways To Win! (H2)
Recruiting Contest Details (H2)
- We are looking for new team members to join us for Thailand, The Philippines, and Central Europe.
- To get the word out, we have created a contest to collect CVs/Resumes from qualified people.
- ALL participants are winners.
- There is a grand prize of $100 also for one lucky person entering the contest.
- That winner will be randomly selected from the total number entrants we have received over the contest period.
- The contest runs from 16 October 2017 through 5 November 2017.
- Participants can increase their chances of winning by sharing and having interested people enter the contest and also submit their CV/resume to us.
- Announcement of winners will be publicized on our store and on our Facebook Business page on 12 November 2017.
You can enter and be eligible for the prizes simply by completing the following steps: (H2)
Steps To Enter Contest
(1) Complete the form below and confirm the opt-in confirmation email you receive immediately from us.
(2) You will then receive a second email thanking you for entering the contest and there will be other options as well.
Opton 1 - You can submit your CV/Resume via a link if you are interested in working with us.
Option 2 - You can share the link to this page using the provided social sharing buttons with your friends and instantly win plus have more chances to win the one of the two $100 prizes.
Here’s How You Can Win FOUR Ways
Win 1 - When your friends sign up, YOU get extra entries in the contest as follows
One Subscribed Referral + 1 Entries
Three Subscribed Referrals + 5 Entries
Ten Subscribed Referrals + 15 Entries
Win 2 - 'Instant Winner" prizes
One Subscribed Referral 10% Off Your Next Purchase From Our Store
Three Subscribed Referrals 15% Off Your Next Purchase From Our Store
Ten Subscribed Referrals 25% Off Your Next Purchase From Our Store
Win 3 - Grand Prize Drawing
One person from all entrants will be selected randomly to receive a prize of $100
Win 4 – Selected Team Members
We will be asking for the referrer name as a part of people submitting CVs/Resumes. If they are selected to work with us you will also get $100 as the one that referred them! This is a lifetime cookie, so you can win this anytime one of your referrals is selected, even after a year or more!
Get started now and share this to get as many referrals as you can to increase your chances to win one or more of these valuable prizes! (H2)"
Okay...
Other forms NOT included here but being created today will be the Facebook post, the Twitter post, the CV/resume page, the legal pages, and contest rules page.
Of them all, the Facebook viral post may be of most interest to you, so once I have it drafted, I will add that as well (minus senstive information not allowed to be posted here, of course).
What you now have is a complete (to this point) over the shoulder view of what actually is the process for planning for and setting up a viral campaign. There are so many ways to leverage the power of this method to get more business, attention, and grow your brand.
Seeding The Contest
To get the ball rolling with viral campaigns, you need to have a set of people that will enter and then share the contest with others. These action takers can get your campaign rolling quickly and who know how big it can grow...
In our case, I have selected a group of 20 friends in various fields from various parts of the world, and having various ages. They will sign up and share with 10 of their friends for me.
Starting out the gate with the contest we have set the stage for a huge potential reach from many parts of the world and the people reached will have widely varied backgrounds, skill sets, and experiences.
Note my friends are not doing this seeding for the money (although they will be entered to win the $100 and possibly more, and also will get the prizes as mentioned above, most do not need the $100!).
They are doing it to help out. I am very grateful for this. It will help kick this off and the contest should take on a life of its own. THAT is the beauty of viral contests. No ads needed (we hope)...
Bottom Line:
This may seem like a LOT of work, but just as with creating content, the work is mostly done on the front end.
When you look at the cost of getting new subscribers, new employees, more business, and establishing and growing your brand, it is a good investment.
More to follow as we progress, as you can see, we have been busy!
If you have any questions as to the process or comments as to what we are doing, please add them below.
This is how we all learn and get better!
I believe in ALL of you!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Recent Comments
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Thanks, Mike...It is a work in progress...I am sure there will be changes throughout the weekend as we get ready for launch! Cheers! Dave : )
Fascinating - thanks for the insight! Did you have to do much research into labour laws or advertising laws for the respective countries you were interested in recruiting from before designing your campaign?
Yes, we have some legal advisers for Germany (the laws there are more strict than in Thailand), but also are having some people in Thailand look at what we are building too! Thanks for the question, that is a good one! Cheers! Dave : )
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Creating your own contest is a GREAT way to get leads Dave!
Yes, Mike...I so totally agree. I am already thinking ahead on this one...How many ways can I use the same concept for the affiliate marketing portion of the business...
Plus it is just fun to watch this thing come together. I have no doubt that there will be lessons learned from this initial foray into the viral marketing world!
Cheers!
Dave : )