How to run online competitions in the hospitality sector
Scrolling through social media on any given day, it’s highly likely that you will see some sort of giveaway or competition. They are one of the simplest methods to drive increased social media engagement or lead generation
Why should you listen to us?
We manage the social media channels for Fitz Wine, (delicious sparkling wine made in England) and during lockdown we ran an online social media prize draw called #PerfectDayOutIn. WE took the opportunity while all venues Fitz would have been served through were closed to build partnerships, relationships and extend our reach outside of our existing fanbase. In two months, we organically increased their following by more than 2,400. That is the ‘why’ you are looking for.
Social media competitions; the ‘like/tag/share’ approach.
These are built around a leading social media post that entrants ‘like’, ‘share’ or ‘tag’ (or all three)
All these actions boosts your posts’ organic engagement
Tagging a friend in the comments (Good for engagement algorithms & gets your brand in front of new audiences)
Sharing the post on their (Good for increasing audience & a big boost to organic reach)
Sharing the post to their stories (Good for engagement algorithms & gets your brand in front of new audiences)
Stipulate that entrants are required to follow/like your page in addition to the above as well as any partner pages.
Online lead generation competitions; the ‘sign up to enter’ approach
Typically hosted on a dedicated page on your website
A lead form a consumer will complete to gain entry into the draw or competition
Also an opportunity to ask for more information on the customer for either market research or tailored marketing later
How to actually set up the prize draw / competition
Pick your platform
Confirm your main objective; what do you want to get from the competition
Increased followers
Shared post on more pages
Feedback from customers
Increased use of your own #Tag
Your objective will determine your mechanism for entry, for example:
Increased followers & engagement:
Like the post, tag someone in the comments & follow the page
#Tag exposure
Retweet and tell us ___ using #ThisWinningHashTag
Terms and conditions need to be linked on your competition post, the end date must be clear (we suggest always saying 23:59 as opposed to midnight or just the end date without the clear time to avoid any confusion.
Want to capture email data? Try this:
Create a landing page with the lead capture form with relevant fields.
How you create this form is dependent on what platform your website is built on so go look at your back end to see if you have a ‘lead form’ you can add to a page from your backend.
You can also look at setting up lead capture forms with your email service provider. If you use Mailchimp or Omnisend they will have all the relevant GDPR opt-ins linked to your forms as standard.
Your form wants to include all relevant information for your business. Use this opportunity to get information that you can use in the future to customise your messaging to that customer, or to help steer future marketing
Terms and conditions need to be accessible from this page
Entry into the competition could trigger a confirmation email to confirm entry as well as re-connect your business to the consumer. A simple one is fine, one with links to strong content is better.
Prizes, partnerships and parameters
Outline the logistics ahead of time, not just in case there’s a hiccup from a usually reliable supplier, but also consider how speedy the delivery will need to be for perishable goods. Limiting the entrants to your country of operation sounds obvious but should be factored in.
Are you offering the chance to win a voucher or discount of some kind? If so decide any conditions on redeeming and time limits.
Both these details should appear in the terms and conditions.
Timings
How long do you run the promotion for?
A week is a common period of time but a month is not unheard of. The value of the prize will influence this. The chance to win a bottle of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti “Romanee-Conti” is worthy of a month-long promotion and the opportunity to win a free at-home burger kit will work well with a shorter lead time.
When you do it?
Consider what else is happening in the cultural calendar for your audience. Be it Black Friday, half term or Ramadan, these things will affect the amount of free time your audience has and how much competition there is for their attention.
Frequency
Regular promotions could become a successful cornerstone of your approach but they could also slowly erode perception of your brand value, so this is one for you to test and learn from with each competition you run.
Competition Terms & Conditions - very important!
Even with the most straightforward of competitions, prize draws or giveaways it’s important you have everything clearly set up ahead of time and you have written your T&Cs. The Terms and Conditions should be published somewhere online ahead of the promotion starting.
If you don’t have a website to host your T&Cs you can use the ‘notes’ function on your Facebook page. Even if you’re running your campaign on Twitter or Instagram only.
If you’re running your competition on Instagram you must put your T&Cs in your bio link and mention this is any competition posts. On Twitter the link to the T&Cs must also be included in any tweet - so you have to be clever with your character count, be sure to bitly or shorten your link to make life easier.
Choose Your Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Lead gen competitions/prize draws:
Your website back-end or email CRM should track entries if using a form onsite
Export the list as a CSV file and open in Excel/GSheets to have them in a numerically assigned list
Once entry has closed, find an online random number generator, add the total number of entries to the generator, and then you’ll have your winner
Contact your winner within the timeframe you have stipulated in the terms & conditions
Announce your winner either on your social media channels or on your site
Social media competitions/prize draws:
All entries will be clear as a comment, like or share on your competition post
To draw a winner take the total number of entrants, put that number in a random number generator
The number generated is your winner
Once the winner has been selected, double check they fulfil the entry requirements before contacting them to let them know they’ve won
Contact your winner within the timeframe you have stipulated in the terms & conditions
Announce your winner either on your social media channels or on your site
Bonus Content Ideas
Don’t forget to follow up with your winner. This is a good opportunity to collect some UGC, either visual or written quotes.
We suggest running one basic competition to get a feel for how it works for that account and channel and to see the response it has. It’s also a good opportunity for you to get a feel of how much time you need to allocate to it and the way you manage it. Was it enough to monitor it once a day or did it require more from you?
Once you’ve got the hang of the process, we strongly recommend partnering with an external brand or influencer to increase your audience reach. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other hospitality brands that compliment your offering.
