You lucked out.

Never before has one our All-Stars been so completely generous with the information and help that they share with you. Read on as Kristin Moore gives the STEP BY STEP strategy that she used to get 510 leads with just 4.5 hours of work.

This leads will make Kristin’s gymnastics camp incredibly successful when it opens for the upcoming season.

Read on…

What’s the situation?

We were hosting an annual gymnastics meet at a club that I am the marketing manager for. This was a perfect time for me to give Cross Channel MOJO (CCM) a test run with the expectations of collecting a lot of emails and phone numbers in the process.

How do you usually do it?

We host this meet every year at the beginning of January with anywhere from 1,500-1,900 gymnasts competing from all over the United States and Canada. This is a very well known meet and one of the largest in the country. We also use this meet as our initial marketing effort for our annual summer gymnastics camp which takes place in June. Until this year, that marketing effort has consisted of a 6 foot table near the entrance where we display an free standing poster board containing photos and information. We place full color tri-fold brochures on the table that we hope people will pick up and take home with them.

But, once people leave the meet, with or without their brochure, we really had no way of contacting them directly. Of course, we would reach out to as many coaches as possible each year in the hopes they would recommend our camp to their gymnasts. But even then, emails change, coaches change and we have to depend on someone else to promote our camp…this worked OK but we wanted something far better.

What happened once Cross-Channel MOJO entered the Picture?

I had only just started understanding the capabilities of the system because I joined right at the end of the launch and was delayed in getting to my training. But I jumped right in with two feet and set up a campaign using the Contest Template. I decided to create the campaign with one grand prize at the end of the weekend, which was a free registration for summer camp ($350 value). I then included several smaller drawings throughout the weekend for a related gymnastics training video that we produce and sell ourselves.

Therefore, anyone who was compelled to enter the contest did so because they were interested in the gymnastics training video and/or the gymnastics summer camp. This was very beneficial because I was building a targeted list that I could market to for both products, but especially the summer camp which we want to be sure sells out as quickly as possible.

As an added bonus, when someone entered the drawing, they were given VIP status for summer camp. This means that they will be given an exclusive link to register early in order to ensure they are able to get into the session they want, or even get in at all. The owner and head coach of this gym is extremely well know and successful, so once the word gets out that camp is going to sell out early, we expect it to sell out early, due to the panic that WE are creating as a result of having direct access to all of these targeted prospects through MOJO.

For the drawing itself, I requested their name and email and used a local phone number. They received one text back from the owner of the gym, and one email with information about the contest drawing times, number of winners, etc. as well as information about our summer camp and a link to our Summer Camp website. They also received information about the video training series and a link to that website where they could learn more about it.

To publicize the drawing, I did it all at the event only. I created 3 posters in Powerpoint (I make EVERYTHING in Powerpoint.) I saved them as JPEGs and uploaded them to Costo Photo Center online to have four, 20×30 poster boards printed. They are actually a hard plastic board that they print directly onto and they turn out beautifully, even with photos on them. Anyhow, those are $25 each and they are ready for pick-up in just a couple hours. Then I ran to Staples, and picked up 2 cheap portable easels for about $30 each. These are not very sturdy, but they worked good enough for this. I just put the stands where they wouldn’t get knocked into.

Because this was a spectator event, and people would be sitting in one spot for most of their time in the building, I printed several copies of the poster on regular size paper, slid them into a page protector and cut off the 3-hole edge that you use to clip it into a 3-ring binder. This was like cheap instant laminating. I stuck those on posts, in the bathrooms, on the front doors, and placed them on various tables around the venue.

Then I made about 30 more copies, again in the page protectors, and took those to each award session. There were 9-12 events each day so 9-12 awards sessions each day (each session had about 60 athletes competing.) As they were waiting for the awards presentation to start, I announced the contest, explained what we were giving away and how to enter and then I passed several copies of the flier through the audience and asked the people to pass them around so that they could refer to the phone number and see the information in case they didn’t quite catch it when I announced it. This created the need for people to raise their hand to get a copy, or ask for a copy to be passed to them from their neighbor. This helped create a little buzz within the audience. I only had less than a minute to do this for each session. At the end of the awards, I would pick up the fliers, and save them for the next session. Of course, I lost a few each session but the fact that they were laminated indicated to most people that they should leave them behind.

I did three drawings each day for the smaller training video prize. Each time I used the random winner selector and immediately sent an announcement to the winner using the automatic notification process that Instant Customer provides. For one drawing, it actually chose me, so I just discarded that winner and asked Instant Customer to do another drawing. I did not do this publicly because I was still learning how to use the whole system myself…in fact, I completely forgot to test run the whole drawing process ahead of time but it was very simple, you literally just hit the trophy cup in the campaign and voila! The winner is…

(Instant Customer has raffles and drawings built-in!)

What else?

I also created a template email in my personal email account that I just changed the name on each time so that I could communicate with the winner in case they had left the building. I wanted to send out something more specific and personal, in addition to the automatically generated winner notification from IC.

What was the result?

When the weekend was over, I had collected a list of 510 potential customers for our summer camp as well as our training videos! About a week later, I started sending emails every few days with a reminder that they were now VIP members and would receive an exclusive link for early registration for camp. I have been sending a list of the top 10 reasons to attend our camp and building up the anticipation of the launch date for the VIP registration. I even have coaches asking me if they can use their own VIP registration link to register their entire team all at one time. So far, I have had only 15 unsubscribes from my list and we launch VIP camp registration this coming Wednesday.

Now, I am going to set a new deadline date, and tell everyone who registers by February 15th that they will be included in our VIP club as well. I am going to various local businesses soliciting donations for free services in return for promoting their business on our camp website as somewhere that the parents should visit during their stay. I am working on comped hotel rooms, subway gift cards, salon and spa gift cards, etc. Then, just before each camp session, I will do random drawings through IC to choose winners for these gifts and I will probably dangle a carrot such as a special VIP only event during the camp session to further entice people to register early. This is a ploy to get people to register early again next year because they will want to be part of the VIP group that got the special stuff during this year’s camp.

Then, I intend to follow up with those same local businesses and try to sell them a campaign of their own now that I have provided a service for them first by hopefully sending several visiting customers to their place of business as a result of using my own CCM campaign.

How much time did this all take? What did you have to do?

It took me about 4.5 to 5 hours to set up everything.

The time is a bit difficult to measure because I was learning, experimenting and implementing Mojo and Instant Customer all at the same time.

That being said, here’s a breakdown of exactly what I did:

  • Setting up the campaign took me about 90 minutes, only because I was playing with Instant Customer and discovering everything about it along the way.
  • The posters took about 2 hours to design and order. This is something that I will develop a template for and then just change the pertinent information each time.
  • Shopping for easels and picking up the posters took 45 minutes door to door.
  • Printing paper copies of the fliers and sticking them in page protectors took about 20 minutes.  Making the announcements at each awards session took 3-5 minutes each.
  • Choosing and notifying the winners throughout the weekend took less than one minute each.

Total time: about 4 ½ hours to build a database of over 500 HOT LEADS!

I’m busy following up now to convert them into customers!

What would you do differently next time?

Next time, I will make my posters much simpler. Just a really big “text to win” and the phone number and some simple information about the prize. I think my posters lost some of their effect because there was too much on them.

Also, I would like to be more interactive during the event with the people who opt-in early. “Bring this text to the awards area and raise your hand during my announcements for a free gift / treat”…

I would like to set up the winner drawing to be publicly visible and tell people exactly when and where we will be doing that, to cause a crowd to gather, which then attracts more attention.

What advice do I have for others?
Just do it!

I got this done because I had three days to make it happen once I knew it was possible. (nothing better than a deadline)

  • Take the time to self-test your campaign and actually read the text/emails you get from yourself.
  • Don’t be offended if some people don’t want to participate, some people just don’t.
  • Practice your 30-second pitch about the contest. You should be able to state what the benefits of entering are and explain how to enter clearly and concisely without overwhelming people with information.
  • Remember that some people have no clue how to send a text on their phone to a particular phone number. Offer them the option to call it in.
  • Make sure that your prize attracts people to your drawing who you want to have on your list.
  • My drawing gave away a free summer camp and it is summer camp that I am going to promote to my list.
  • Smile – Smile – Smile…it’s supposed to be fun!

Bio:
I am a widowed mother of four children, ages 11-18; one writer/artist and three competitive gymnasts. I travel three hours a day round trip to the gym for their practice which severely limits my daytime work hours. I was born and still live in Michigan. I have worked most of my life as an accountant for private small businesses. Three years ago, I ventured into real estate and I now co-own a residential real estate investment company. Real estate investing presented opportunities for education in the Internet marketing field that I absolutely love.

I have since become a website developer for many gymnastics organizations, as well as for my real estate and marketing endeavors. I co-own an on-line gymnastics marketing company. I intend to use Cross Channel Mojo to tie everything together and build a successful consulting business offering a full range of marketing services with MOJO and Instant Customer at the center. I expect to grow this into a multi-employee company and head off to Hawaii with my kids for a long vacation by the end of 2012!

For Kristin’s excellent story, she’s receiving a Disruptsaurus T-Shirt