The 5 Marketing Benefits of Sponsoring a Contest

Sponsoring a Contest is an Investment with Huge ROI Potential -- and It's Up to You to Help Your Advertisers Understand That 

What do advertisers want? They want to see action. They want hot leads, foot traffic, more sales, a bigger email database, and more fans. They spend their marketing budget to achieve these goals, and they want ROI.

You can help them reach all of these goals with a contest!

Contests are the activation layer of any marketing plan. 

When you are selling contests, remember that what you are really offering is not only sponsorships -- it's the ability to activate potential customers. Contests provide an incentive for customers to engage with a brand on a deeper level in ways that traditional advertising alone often can’t duplicate -- AND most importantly, they are the best vehicle for capturing customer data.

So how do you explain the benefits of sponsoring a contest to a potential advertiser? 

While it all comes back to activation, here are 5 talking points to get you started:

1. Contests increase brand awareness and engagement. Advertising can take two forms. The first is branding, or setting customers' expectations for a product or service and differentiating it from others. The second is activation, which motivates customers to take a specific action, such as enter a contest, Like a Page on Facebook, purchase a deal, or print out a coupon. Traditional advertising is great for awareness, while promotions like contests and ballots supercharge your advertising, making it more effective by getting people involved in your site and encourage social sharing.

2. Contests grow social, email, and mobile databases. Whether your advertiser is hoping to grow their social media following, or even their mobile database, a contest can help. This is one of the absolute best ways to reach the marketing holy grail -- capturing data on customers! Add an email or mobile opt-in (or both!) to the registration page, or put the contest behind a Like-gate on Facebook.

3. Contests drive foot traffic. By including a coupon or offer on the contest thank-you page, advertisers have the power to direct foot traffic to their physical location (or website). You can also generate even more foot traffic by incorporating the online contest with an on-site event at the advertiser's location.

4. Contests reach the audience you want. Whether your advertiser wants to reach as many people as possible or only a highly targeted niche, there's a contest for that. Sweepstakes are easy to enter and appealing to everyone, while something like an "Ugliest Yard Makeover" photo submission contest attracts a more targeted (and equally valuable) audience. The key is to understand what your advertiser's objectives are and to then select the right contest type to achieve their goals. Here's a quick overview of the strengths of some of the most popular contest types:

• Sweepstakes: Low barrier to entry, drive entries, generates email opt-ins, drives Facebook Likes
• UGS (Photo, Video, MP3): High barrier to entry, drives engagement, drives website traffic, drives social shares

5. Contests generate qualified leads. If you add survey questions to a contest registration page, you have the power to deliver hot, qualified leads to your advertiser after the contest. For example, when a Ford dealer asked on a contest registration page if people were considering a new vehicle purchase, 12% of contest entrants indicated they were planning to buy a new car in the next 6 months! 

Sales Tip: You Are Always on Stage

What habits do you have that could potentially create a negative perception of you with your customers and prospects?

It could be your style of dress, a dirty or bent business card, disorganized samples, typos and grammar mistakes in written communication, your table manners at business dinners, a cluttered car, talking too much, or any of a myriad list of behaviors that your prospects and customers observe. Think hard, and be honest with yourself. Then begin the process of changing these behaviors.

You see, in sales you are always on stage. Everyone from the guys in the guard shacks, to the receptionists, to the decision makers are watching you and based on their perceptions, deciding if they like you or not.

If you want to close more business and earn more commissions, it is imperative that you work tirelessly to influence these perceptions. Being likable won't necessarily guarantee you get the deal done, but being unlikable will almost certainly guarantee that you won't get the sale.

How Google's Search Changes Affect Small Businesses

Google recently switched to something known as secure search, limiting the data that can be seen using its analytics.
This means Web site owners and managers can no longer see the string of words used by an individual to find their site in a search, which could have a profound effect on marketing efforts. Knowing how customers found them helps business owners optimize their sites so that they rank higher in search results.

Web site managers who use Google's Webmaster Tools, which are free, can see some data for the top 2,000 search queries in a selected period of time. The information is not sent in real time, but is available in a secure dashboard that managers log can in to. The goal of the change, according to a Google spokesman, is to stop hackers from gaining access to the data, but it also means that business owners will have a tougher time piecing together the moment in time someone found them and the browser they used to get there.

We asked Louis Gagnon, chief product and marketing officer at Yodle, which helps small businesses with online marketing, including search engine optimization, to help us make sense of the changes. Based in Manhattan, Yodle, serves about 35,000 small businesses in 400 industry segments, had 2012 revenue of $132 million and has been growing about 40 percent a year.

Q: What exactly did Google change? 

A: First, you need to understand the way search works. When you search for something on Google, at the top and on the right of the page are paid advertisements. Results on other areas of the page are called organic or the S.E.O. results.

In 2011, Google decided that for organic results, they would no longer make available the search terms a person used to get to that page if they searched while logged into a Google account like Gmail or another Google Web property. Before that point in 2011, if I had a Web site I could see the search words any individual who came to my site used to find me. Thirty percent of all global searches were made by people logged into a Google account. That meant if I was the owner of a business Web site, I lost information for about 30 percent of those who come to my site. I can't see the terms they used to get to me. Last week Google changed that again and expanded what they started in 2011, by applying it not just to those logged into a Google account but to most users -- not yet all users but likely 100 percent soon.

Q: Is there any way for business owners to get that information now? 

A: Yes -- you have to pay for it. You will have to create a Google AdWords account and an ad campaign. Paying for AdWords allows you to access that string of search words, but it's related to the number of people who click on your ad. If no one clicks on the ad, you won't see any information. That means there is an incentive to spend more and for a longer period of time, to test keywords.

Q: Is there any other way? 

A: I would suggest trying to get your hands on ranking data -- generally gotten by using an external vendor, who will tell you where your organic results are ranking and what keywords are connecting to you. Then combine that with several different reporting sources and look at the relationships between them. Those sources could include Google Webmaster Tools, Google Places for Business and Google Keyword Planner. Use those with Web site logs -- the database that records everything that people do while on your Web site, so you understand which page is actually getting traffic and what visitors do on these pages. You have to put together ranking data, impressions data, click data, etc., and none of these reports will bring them all together, so you may also need an expert to interpret the data.

Q: Do you really think small-business owners are going to do that? 

A: Most of them won't. The average business owner is working 12 hours a day, and then they come home and have to deal with the rest of their life. There are only a few hours a night to do their other business chores, and most of them lack the background and expertise to do that. Even for those that do have the expertise and understanding, it's not the best investment of their time. It's better for them to get someone else to do it.

Q: Do you think this is cause for them to panic? 

A: No. When you don't know what you don't know, it doesn't hurt. A lot of business owners weren't using this information before. Their level of understanding and sophistication is such that they just don't know this has changed. I'm convinced it's less than one percent that have this on the radar screen.

Q: Is it too early to know how much of an impact this will have and how businesses are reacting? 

A: It's early, but I think it will have a big impact on people who are managing their own sites. Maybe 20 to 30 percent of small businesses are doing this themselves and for those people, this change will hurt. They will have to pay for AdWords, or they will have to absorb the complexity in some way and do something with it. It's not easy. They have to work harder. There's no doubt it will require more time. The other 70 percent of small businesses have already outsourced this. There are different types of service providers that would help with solving the problem -- they are bigger technology companies, like ours, that are not affected. But if you've outsourced digital marketing and S.E.O. to your cousin, now your cousin has the problem. He's likely to come back with higher fees, because he has to spend more time on this, or he'll suggest you spend a little bit on AdWords.

Q: What do you think most business owners will do? 

A: Most people who really care about digital marketing and really understand it will reconsider what they're doing from an organic search standpoint and ask themselves if they should outsource this to a technology company.

(Source: Eilene Zimmerman, The New York Times, 10/09/13) 

Sales Tip: Preparing for the Sales Call

Sales representatives can improve their preparedness by asking and answering for themselves questions such as:

1. What data might help me engage and intrigue my prospect?

2. What is the main objective of my meeting with this prospect?

3. What possible issues might be influencing my prospect’s buying decision?

4. How can I create desire for my product in my prospect?

5. What questions might my prospect ask me and how will I answer?

6. What hurdles can I anticipate between where the sale is now and finalizing the sale?

7. How will my presentation help my prospect understand the value I offer?

The Top 10 Tried and True Ways to Waste Your Digital Budget

It is planning season -- or it should be. As the summer wanes and back-to-school ads start to turn your head to fall, you can see the coming year looming just over the horizon of holiday glitter. You are starting to think about 2014.

A lot of marketers seem intent on looking for ways to waste their budgets, so as a public service we put together some time-tested ways to reliably ensure that you are wasting your time and money, including:

1. Plan blindly and quickly. Don't consult your site stats or your previous campaign or performance history. What could prior results possibly tell you about the current state? Be sure to condense the planning schedule so that you can't possibly execute anything effectively.
2. Work the wrong metrics. Or no metrics at all if you never agreed on goals or placed and tested the technology to track your success. Consider using multiple, conflicting analytics platforms to measure performance or rely heavily on an individual source of data without scrutinizing the data source or confirming it -- your choice. While you are at it, you should collect a bunch of data that you will never use or can't use.
3. Plan in organizational silos. Don't consult the people who deal directly with your customers because if they are not in your department then they don't know anything. Worse yet, they might have information or opinions! If you have multiple teams with access or impact in a given channel let them all play as they see fit. No need to coordinate.
4. Set it and forget it. Make a plan at the beginning of the year and have confidence that the world will stop spinning, technology advances will stand still, and that competitors and customers are in a permanent stasis. Don't optimize your landing pages, test anything new, monitor customer response, rotate creative, or even read or respond to results - it's a waste of time. At least we think it is, but without data, who really knows?
5. Copy your competitors. Whatever they did last year must have worked great and would work really great for your customers, business model, scale, territories, and budgets. Trying to outspend your competitors as a matter of pride and principle is always a good idea.
6. Be trendy. Come on -- digital marketing is a meme-filled, viral hotbed of new, new, new. Regardless of your audience, history, budget, or goals, pick the hottest trend or channel and throw a ton of money at it.
7. Integration is overrated. Just because your customers are exposed to massive amounts of expensive media across channels doesn't mean you should try to leverage that exposure to more interactive and actionable behaviors and modes.
8. Focus solely on conversions. The rest of the funnel or future conversions are of no consequence. That longer term thinking makes our heads hurt and no one cares about the leads that may turn into conversions down the line when you have already been promoted or changed jobs. Likewise, building remarketing channels or integrating into CRM systems should not be your priority. Let someone else worry about that. (FYI -- it's probably the same poor soul who insists on market or customer research. Let her have at it. You can ignore it later.)
9. Pretend digital is the same as other channels. We heartily endorse using your print ad as an email. While you are at it you should repurpose it to a landing page and maybe an expandable banner ad as well. Just one version -- remember, we're not wasting time to test anything.
10. Ignore lead or customer quality. The quality of customers is theoretical anyway. So what if some customers spend more, talk more, come back more, and have more influence on their friends? If we ignore this we can give our business to the nice vendor who brings those great muffins and generally shortcut our way to those big numbers we are always chasing.

So you see, planning to waste your 2014 digital budget is really not so hard. It takes just a bit of attention to the fundamentals and a commitment to following through on a couple of key principles. If you keep our head down you could have it buried in the sand in no time at all. 

How are you planning to fail this year?

(Source: Robin Neifield, ClickZ, 08/07/13) 

Vine and the Six-Second Video Ad

Twitter's Video Sharing Service, Vine, is Drawing Marketers Looking for an Ad Format That's Catchier Than an Image but Pithier Than a 30-Second Video 

As the number of advertising platforms continues to grow, the attention span of consumers continues to shrink. To keep up, marketers have moved from billboards to online pop-ups to YouTube video messages, experimenting with formats to find the right medium for ad content that holds consumers' attention. Brands have begun asking, "What's catchier than an image but pithier than a 30-second video?" 

A possible answer lies in Twitter's newest investment, Vine. Launched in October 2012 and bought by the social media giant this past January, Vine initially set out to be a mini-video sharing application for everyday users. But it has gained major popularity among advertisers for content marketing and brand promotion, having garnered a total of 13 million users across the globe. 

The app lets you shoot up to six seconds of looping video footage using a smartphone that can be cut up into a handful of short clips, or two to three larger chunks -- just touch the screen to record, and lift your finger to stop. These videos can then be uploaded either directly onto Vine, or onto Twitter as a link, where your followers will be able to see them as expandable links. Some brands have understood the value of departing from the obtrusive 30-second video ad spot, and have condensed their content to suit a more time-sensitive consumer base, giving customers the choice to opt in to watch their ads. Michael Litman, a co-founder of BRANDS ON VINE -- a website that monitors more than 50,000 brands on the platform -- describes Vine ads as "brand blips"; he considers them a strong medium for content marketing because they "(don't) need to be 'watched' to be seen -- there's no decision-making process by the user." 

Publishing house Simon & Schuster -- which didn't have much of a presence in the video ad domain -- took to Vine to give its customers a six-second slideshow of books they could be reading. Burberry spliced together six seconds worth of backstage footage and highlights from a 15-minute fashion show. And Bacardi U.K. produced a series of six-second cocktail-mixing lessons for the platform. 

Vines like these are tweeted on the company's official Twitter page and are then often re-tweeted by fans and followers, creating a snowballing effect. Michael Lebowtiz -- CEO and Founder of digital ad agency Big Spaceship -- calls this the "propagation value" of the app, and says it's a major reason brands adopt Vine. Case in point: Toyota Spain. A couple of months ago, the Spanish division of the giant automaker released a simple stop-motion video of a paper-cut-out car driving off a tablet and up its user's sleeve. The post became widely popular among the brand's 80,000-customer strong social media community. 

Lebowitz acknowledges that not everything will be a blockbuster. "With so much social content, you can't expect everything to get noticed," he says. But while social media's short lifespan may seem like a strike against Vine marketing, it's actually a selling point for brands that see the platform as a safe and cheap space to exercise creative freedom and test new ideas. "Video is another opportunity for brands to define their own social behaviors," says Lebowitz. Rebeca Guillen, a social media manager at Toyota Spain, agrees, noting that the platform provides a "perfect opportunity to test (marketing) speed and agility" and generate original content. Brands like ASOS and Nintendo of America, for example, have published rather simple videos that essentially show staff unboxing their products in order to bridge the gap between online shopping and in-store shopping -- both brands aiming to exhibit how gratifying it can be to open a box. 

A major reason why brands have gravitated toward the mini-video platform is because of the community it has generated around itself. Kevin Sigliano, a partner at Spain's leading social media marketing firm, Territorio Creativo, calls it an "ecosystem where brands and consumers talk directly." Brands have taken things a step further by hiring individual Vine-artists -- as opposed to big ad agencies -- to work with them on their six-second marketing content. Khoa Phan, a 23-year-old Vine artist, has worked with MTV, the (RED) campaign, Livestrong, and most recently Snapple. Specializing in stop-motion Vines, Phan describes the mini-video as having the ability to "pack (in) a lot of visual information," doing a lot with a little. 

Artists from other fields, like English singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding, further demonstrated the strength of this mini-video community when she enlisted fans to upload Twitter Vines inspired by her newest record "Burn" under the #ellieburnvine hashtag. The best of these fan-made Vines were compiled into a long-form collage uploaded on Youtube, making the marketing and art-making process collaborative. 

In this way, Vine ad content is gradually helping consumers back into the marketing equation, making the ad experience what it should be -- quick and easy. The platform probably won't be the last of its kind, but it is, for now, teaching marketers the value of crisp and unobtrusive content.

(Source: Varun Nayar, CNN Money, 07/29/13)

Sales Tip: Identifying the Real Objection

When customers say they want to "think over" their buying decision, it's often safe to assume that they have an objection they're not sharing.

Asking "What do you want to think over?" can seem intimidating, and probably won't help you uncover the real problem. Instead, ask, "Is it a question of price?" Then quietly wait for a response.

By guessing a specific objection, you'll encourage prospects to correct you by stating their true concern. If your suggestion is correct, you probably found out what's making your buyer hesitate. You might be surprised at how much this strategy improves your closing ratio.