Each week Essence in Altrincham run a Facebook competition that reaches over 10,000 people, regularly gets 5-600 entries each week and wins over new customers

It’s the most popular weekly competition in a town with a population of 50,000 and ensures that everyone in the town knows their name.

And importantly it’s something that people will talk about in social circles in pubs and bars around the town – like the best elements of social media it’s a real conversation starter

Amin from Essence says

“We first started thinking back in June 2016 during the Euro France how can we can get more likes on Facebook.

We had nearly 3000 followers on Twitter, but only had over 100 Facebook likes, so started thinking how we can get more likes.

As most of our customer base are football supporters we started this competition.

Since we started this competition it’s had a snowball effect. Nothing but phenomenal, as its raised our restaurant profile so much and most people talk about the competition in Altrincham now”

In this weeks blog we look in detail at why it’s such a huge success and what you can learn from it

1. BASE THE COMPETITION AROUND YOUR CUSTOMERS INTERESTS
Curry and football – they go together like cheese and crackers or fish and chips

The post match curry is a tradition and for Essence this is no different

Essence is a well established business and it attracts families from around the area, works nights out and lads nights out

In fact the reputation they’ve built online over the past 5+ years means they now attract customers from 10+ miles to the restaurant

One thing a lot of the customers have in common is a love of sports and particular football and on the edge of Manchester with 2 of the biggest teams in the world it makes perfect sense

Tip: Base any competition around both your business and your customers interests

2. MAKE IT EASY TO ENTER
Remember This Morning when the phone in competitions used to be so easy that anyone could enter

Make your competitions so easy that anyone can enter then to get the maximum engagement possible

Essence’s competition is easy – guess the minute that the 1st goal is scored

Now there are some entrants that are hardcore football fans who will enter a different entry every week based on educated guesses about which teams are playing

And there are others go for the same minute every week

The key though is that people can enter regardless of how much knowledge they have of football – it’s simply a number between 1 and 90

Tip: Don’t make people jump through hoops unless the prize is a once in a lifetime prize

3. TWEAK THE COMPETITION BASED ON DATA
Data is your friend and everything can be improved

With competitions it’s easy to forget the data because the competitions naturally perform better than the average organic post

The Essence competitions have used different images, different lead in times, different times of day to post and all of those factors have a massive impact on the reach of the post

However there was one leading factor that impacted the reach of the post over 2 years of data – featuring the business owner trumped every other combination of variants

After 2 years, we are still looking at data each week to further improve performance

Tip: Never ignore the data and look at it as much even when posts perform well as when they don’t

4. ALWAYS HERO THE WINNERS AND BE OPEN AND TRANSPARENT
Every week we show off both the competition draw and then show off the competition winner when they come to collect their prize

People are sceptical about competitions and either think

A) No one wins the prize

Or

B) It goes to a friend

Showing off the draw and competition winners is total transparency.

Tip: Hero your customers and show off your competition winners – people love people

5. ORGANIC POSTS BETWEEN COMPETITIONS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
The biggest mistake businesses make about competitions is thinking they’re a substitute for quality posts inbetween

The biggest mistake businesses make about paid social is thinking they’re a substitute for quality posts inbetween

You see the theme there

You need to take time and care about the posts throughout the week to win over those new fans and new engagers on the competitions each week

Humour, Social Proof (i.e testimonials / reviews) and ultimately interesting posts are what are going to convert a competition entrant to a raving fan

Tip: The competition is the icing on the cake – make sure your organic posts are 100% quality

ENTER THIS WEEK
Go over to http://www.facebook.com/essencecheshire and look for the pinned post to enter this week

NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
Chat to about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 400+ LinkedIn testimonials and is ranked number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.