How customer feedback can get the leads you want with your marketing campaigns

Josh:
Hi, I'm Joshua Ledgard and this is the On Growth podcast with KickoffLabs. KickoffLabs makes it ridiculously easy to spin up a contest for any B2B or B2C brand. Today's guest is someone who's actually done both. Marcin Kowalik has run contests on KickoffLabs for the insurance industry and the fashion brand. I personally I couldn't imagine two more separate audiences to run a contest for but you'll be amazed how similar the path to success for both contests were.

Josh:
If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the On Growth podcast and give us a five star rating. Enjoy the show.

Josh:
I am talking to Marcin Kowalik, I hope I got that right.

Marcin:
Yup.

Josh:
Today, Marcin is a marketing and sales consultant who works with SaaS and other startups primarily in the Polish region. Is that correct?

Marcin:
That's correct. Hi. Yeah.

Josh:
Thanks for being here today.

Marcin:
It's a pleasure.

Josh:
Yeah. And Marcin use KickoffLabs for a couple of contests and we're going to get into that. But before we get into how he found KickoffLabs and the type of contests he was using, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. Whether you came from a marketing background, an engineering background, how did you get to the point where you are today?

Marcin:
Okay. Okay. Thank you for having me. It's an honor and it's a pleasure. I'm a fan of your tool. Basically, I am divided between content marketing and performance marketing. These two topics were always on my mind. I am coming from a performance marketing agency and I have some five or six years of background of driving the marketing activities for a hosting company in Poland which is like the leader of the sector in the region. And as part of my side projects, I'm helping insurance companies and insurance agents in lead generation and in marketing. Yeah, that's basically the background.

Marcin:
As I have told you, I'm divided between content marketing and the desire to the performance marketing. And honestly, this led me to the research of gamification tool which could help me raising leads or newsletter subscribers in a good way, in a non-obstructive way, in a way in which I am giving something to the end user, to the audience, and the audience is giving something back. That's the way that I have went to find KickoffLabs.

Marcin:
I was testing also some other solutions like Gleam.io. In the end, I think that if I will be doing some other contests in the future I will be using KickoffLabs. I have tested you guys for a couple of months for two contests which are... This is funny, which are targeting completely different target groups but I think that we will get to this in a moment.

Josh:
Absolutely. That's a great introduction. So you found, to summarize, you found KickoffLabs because you were looking for a solution to gamify the lead generation a bit but I think more importantly to that, you used the word kind of getting the leads engaged so that they were an active part of the campaign as opposed to just a passive entity joining the campaign which is-

Marcin:
Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think that some of our listeners can confirm that basically, it is not hard to obtain a lead or a newsletter subscriber. It is hard to obtain a lead or a newsletter subscriber which is active, which is a high quality of a lead, and I was looking for a solution which is also can be connected to managing for example, and so on. And so, that was the approach.

Josh:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's really hard to find those engaged individuals and there's benefits to doing it in terms of the open rate, long term, finding people who become influencers for your brand or the company as well. And that's absolutely one of the key reasons why we run KickoffLabs, is that belief that the engaged audience is a more fruitful audience for people who are looking to get more subscribers. They're not just a subscriber, they can become advocates for your brand.

Marcin:
Correct.

Josh:
So let's dive into... I think we talked a little bit earlier, the first audience you were targeting and the first contest you tested KickoffLabs with was a B2B audience. Is that correct?

Marcin:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a couple of thoughts that I would like to share but let's give some perspective first, some context. Let's focus first on those insurance agents. Basically, since couple of years, I am running my own podcast which is created, targeted, or desired for insurance agents in Poland or for the insurance industry in Poland in general. And there, I'm describing how to do proper marketing, proper sales, generate insurance leads, and so on. And basically, the target audience are insurance agents, insurance agency owners, and insurance companies in Poland. I have a lot of different lead magnets, these are PDF files, eBooks, free consultations, free subscriptions, and so on. One of those leads magnets that I was testing was basically a contest, a prize, a giveaway, you name it, of a book which was written by my friend.

Marcin:
This book written by an insurance agent is basically something between a handbook for upcoming agents, how to sell insurance. He is a very known, let us say, persona in the insurance world of Poland. We were thinking, "How can we promote this book and promote his business and how can I build my audience, build my subscription audience, build my newsletter audience further with this cooperation?" So we have decided that each month, we will give away one book to the person who basically gets the most points and that was the whole approach to this contest-

Josh:
Just to quickly recap what I heard there. So you, in the insurance space, you knew this person who was well recognized, who had his own brand, and wrote a book that the potential leads or customers that you were after having on your newsletter list would be interested in.

Marcin:
Exactly.

I think it's crucial and it's extremely important that prize, the lead offer contest prize, however you name it, is strictly connected to the problem or to the solution to the problem for which our target audience is having.

Josh:
So when you talk about choosing a contest prize, because this is a challenge that our audience frequently comes in is how do they choose a contest prize? You went to the direction of saying, the reward for the person with the most points each month is going to be this downloadable book which has some perceived value-

Marcin:
It's a physical book.

Josh:
A physical book. Okay.

Marcin:
Yeah.

Josh:
A physical copy of the book so it has more perceived value yeah to the audience that you're trying to get.

Marcin:
Yes.

Josh:
And not only that, it doesn't just have value, but it's directly related to the type of product that you were ultimately selling them. So you weren't giving them the complete Harry Potter series for an insurance, you were giving them something that helps them solve their problem anyway. Is that correct?

Marcin:
Yeah. I think it's crucial and it's extremely important that prize, the lead offer contest prize, however you name it, is strictly connected to the problem or to the solution to the problem for which our target audience is having. It's very important, I think.

Josh:
Absolutely. So you chose the contest prize.

Marcin:
Yeah.

Josh:
And when you set up the contest, can you describe the pitch for people to enter and what you are asking them to do to earn more points in the contest?

Marcin:
Sure. So luckily for me, I have some screenshots of this campaign and what I'm seeing currently is basically this share message which is shared by a user when he is sharing the message about the contests in his social media. I will describe it for you because it's in Polish and not all of your audience understands Polish, yet. So basically, the message is that's a picture of the outer of the book, holding this book, and it's a header of, "In March, you can get your copy of How to Sell Insurance worth $59 as a gift," yeah? That was... I think it was also important that we were naming the value of the prize.

We are leveraging the personal brand of the author, we are leveraging the value of the prize, so this was this first contact point, let us say, in which many people have contacted the contest.

Josh:
Yup.

Marcin:
And then we were saying, "You can get this as a gift in a contest." In the description, I can read that it was written, "Every month, we are giving away as a prize, as a present, one copy of book of Paweł Skopinski," and so on. We are leveraging the personal brand of the author, we are leveraging the value of the prize, so this was this first contact point, let us say, in which many people have contacted the contest.

Marcin:
And then as I recall, the first and foremost step to be taken is to opt-in or to be specific double opt-in with your email because we are very strict with double opt-ins and GDRP topics in Poland and in EU and I would like to always have a clean database of emails. And then, once the user has done the double opt-in, then the other activities were, let us say, unlocked for him. When I am thinking about how many points you can get for each action, it was always, for me, clear that the biggest amount of points I would be giving to a person for successfully referring the contest to another person.

Marcin:
This was like the top of the ladder when it comes to setting up number of points. Then, a bit lower was the basic function of just sharing the contest on your social media. Then... And I have really used all the possible options. Then, I was rewarding people for basically, watching a video. I was rewarding people for liking a post and parallel of course, on Facebook and same goes for Instagram. And yeah, I think that those people, the insurance agents, they are either using their time and watching topics and content on Facebook or on Instagram. So basically... Okay, I have used also the YouTube feature so you could also get points for watching a YouTube video or for subscribing to the YouTube channel.

I was trying to make it as easy as possible for them to get more points and basically to know that they can get more points and I have used the thank you page to do this.

Marcin:
First, the email address, double opt-in with the Mailchimp integration, then the biggest number of points you could get was for referring the contest to a friend, then for sharing on social media, and then a lot of lower number of points you could get for just liking a content or watching a content. That's the topic of setting the points.

Marcin:
What I'm now also seeing is... And this was, I think, very important. On the thank you page, once the person has made this first step of opting in with the email and of course, double opting in, then there was this thank you page. I have played with it and I have basically written on this thank you page, "Do you want more points? Then, do this," and I have used specific call to action buttons. For example, like our front page to gain two points, follow us on Instagram to gain two points, and so on. I was trying to make it as easy as possible for them to get more points and basically to know that they can get more points and I have used the thank you page to do this.

Josh:
Absolutely. I think that's something I want to call out as a best practice. Because even if the most important thing for you is to get the referrals coming through, it's also important to make sure that in any contest, you've got something for everybody in terms of, I may not have people that I could refer, especially into a more niche audience like a B2B pitch like you were doing with this contest in the insurance space but certainly can learn more information by watching the YouTube video, I could share on my social networks, or I could like a social media post.

I have set up a very easy to understand URL which was redirecting the user to the landing page of the campaign.

Josh:
Those are things that anybody could do. And so, having those options that anybody could do to earn points is always the best practice. What I want to do is... I want to thank you for that really detailed description of how the contest was being run and what you were encouraging people to do. But how were you driving people to the contest in the first place? How did people hear about the contest to enter?

Marcin:
I think what is important here is that I have set up a very easy to understand URL which was redirecting the user to the landing page of the campaign. It was basically, my domain/one word. Like for example, marcinkowalik.online/book, yeah? This has given me the opportunity to promote the contest on my podcast which is oriented to the target group, to the insurance agents, and the same was done in many like, three or four YouTube videos and Facebook videos and stories. And just for you and for the audience to understand, I was not making any special video setup. I just took what I had and I had my iPhone and I have just recorded two or three minute long videos in which I was holding the book and I was talking how this book can help you in your insurance business. And I'm always a fan of using what the tools that I have and not spending a lot of money on expensive equipment.

The foremost important thing, I guess, for me, is the positive feedback from the community. Basically, my goal was to be more closer to my community, to give something to them, and to gain more newsletter subscribers and I'm happy with the result.

Marcin:
So getting back to the sources of the traffic, the biggest and the best source of the traffic was my newsletter database, 3000 and plus insurance agents. And with average click rate of 20%, open rate of 20%, and click through rate of 5% or 6%, you can imagine how big the traffic was. The newsletter database first, then the podcast, and then the videos on Facebook and on YouTube. What is very interesting is that my personal profile on Facebook was also a huge source of very good traffic to the contest. It is probably connected to the fact that I have a lot of contacts on my personal profile from people that are from the insurance agency industry. I have tested some paid campaigns but I don't think that they were playing a much big role in this contest.

Josh:
So now let's talk... We talked about the source of people. We talked about what they were doing during the contest. How would you describe the results of this first contest for you?

Marcin:
First, the bigger win for, let us say, my business or for my, I should say, community. Because I have told you that I have a newsletter database, a podcast, also a group on Facebook, I think it's becoming more of a community behind the things that I'm doing than less a business. These are connected of course, but it's a question of approach. The foremost important thing, I guess, for me, is the positive feedback from the community because the product is interesting, the product... By the product, I mean the book of the author. The book on insurance selling was needed and the author is widely known. The people from my community have welcomed the idea of winning this prize very good. They were basically happy that I am providing this contest for them. That was, I think it could be something silly, but in the end, this was the biggest win of all.

If I could do something better, then I think I should give more time and optimize the campaign more because what is a very good point of optimization in KickoffLabs is that you can really see the impact of each email for each reward level that has been sent on the activity of the user.

Marcin:
And then I have gathered, I think more than 170 email addresses along from this action and they are still with me because I'm controlling this and I'm monitoring this. So basically, I have added a tag in Mailchimp to the users that came from this contest and I can see that they are still following me, that they are still subscribed, and they are still responding to my content. This is the answer to the question, if I have or did I have reached the correct audience? Yes, I did. The product, the prize was optimized for the target group, in the end, because you could buy the book because we have told about the price and this contest has also driven sales of this product, of this book, but this was not the target, this was not our goal.

Marcin:
Basically, my goal was to be more closer to my community, to give something to them, and to gain more newsletter subscribers and I'm happy with the result. If I could do something better, then I think I should give more time and optimize the campaign more because what is a very good point of optimization in KickoffLabs is that you can really see the impact of each email for each reward level that has been sent on the activity of the user. So basically, I was really watching which email for which reward level is performing better and I was optimizing those emails on the basis of those results. You can really get more results when you are really playing with the tool and optimizing it and looking for the leverage.

Josh:
So you were looking at what... You've set up a series of reward level emails, which for context, are emails that go out to people that are engaged in the contest when they achieve certain point levels. So you could have a reward level email go out as soon as somebody took their first action by getting any more than the base level of points. You could have it go out at 10, 20, 30, just any number, and you set up a series of those emails to go out at these points where people were joining and you were looking to see which emails were getting some good engagement.

Basically, my approach is, in marketing, you should test all the time, all of the things.

Josh:
Let's shift gears. So this is a great description of the contest for a B2B contest. It sounds like from our conversation, you also ran a B2C contest. Can you describe the business that was for and talk about the differences between the two because these are... We get this question all the time like, "What's the difference between the B2B and B2C audience?" And so, I'd love to hear your explanation there.

Marcin:
Yeah, Josh. Basically, my approach is, in marketing, you should test all the time, all of the things. In order for me to get some knowledge about how to promote an apparel brand, a fashion brand, and also for other reasons, I have started my own apparel brand. Basically, you can order a sweat shirt with any marking on it, with any sign on it. So for example, if you are a patriot and you are living in Poland, you can order a sweatshirt with the sign Poland on it and so on. What I was eager to test is how KickoffLabs would be working on an apparel brand, on a clothing brand. So basically, I have done this... That I have said and I have promoted this contest to the followers of my brand on Instagram, on Facebook, and so on.

Marcin:
The basic message was, every, I think, week we will give away one piece of our clothing with your signage and with your name of your city or of your district or of your country, whatever you wish. It's a highly personalized item and you can get it one of a kind, for example. We will give every week one of this item and it's worth of 300PLN so I guess, it's like $75 for the person which has the most points.

Give value and then, the sales will also appear in some time.

Marcin:
Almost the same approach as with the B2B, however, there are some differences. The target audience of this apparel brand is basically a woman, 35, 45 of age, which does care her own and does fitness and likes to have a good look and so on. Basically, the target group was different and also the most important, let us say, contact points of this target group were completely different because this target group, I guess I can say it, they were completely ignoring the email communication.

Marcin:
Of course, the first reward was made after double opting in with Mailchimp. However, the email communication was ignored and was not so appreciated as it was for Instagram communication. So with this in mind, I have totally changed the approach versus the B2B contest. You should double opt in, you should enter with your email, but the biggest number of points you could get was basically for doing activities connected to Instagram with visual graphic content and with Facebook.

Marcin:
So here, the leverage was with the usage of social media mechanisms connected to the Instagram platform and with Facebook. So for each like or for the each share of the contest, I was giving a lot of points and I have seen that the contest was appreciated. I have seen referrals and so on, but with this target group, I had some topic of fraud prevention and I had to check up at least two or three potential contest winners before I was choosing a winner.

Marcin:
So yeah, just to have this thought in a nutshell, the B2C contest is more dangerous when it comes to potential frauds and cheaters, let us say. When it comes to B2B contests, I have not seen this problem. Well, probably because the B2B guys are more professional, serious, and so on. But then on the other hand, we were talking about a B2C price of a higher value, perceived value, and $75 versus $15, maybe that was the source of more fraudulent behavior I'd say.

Josh:
Well, I think you also had a more generally desirable... Not that the book isn't desirable, it's desirable [crosstalk 00:24:42] audience but the shirt, from the description of it, sounds like something, I could imagine this similar thing in the States of people saying like having a shirt that says Seattle or Washington and that would have an appeal to a broader audience. But then, you get that broader audience attempting to win it, to get it, and when you have something of value, there's always going to be some amount of fraud of people going after it.

Marcin:
Yeah. Sure.

What has worked very well when it comes to this apparel B2C brand contest was basically a research done on social media groups.

Josh:
How would you describe the results of the B2C contest? Actually... Sorry, before we get to the results, did you promote it in the same way with yourself and doing videos and a newsletter?

Marcin:
No.

Josh:
How did you promote the B2C contest more?

Marcin:
The approach to the promotion of the B2C contest was different because I don't have the need of standing with my personal brand or with my face as a person behind this apparel brand. What has worked very well when it comes to this apparel B2C brand contest was basically a research done on social media groups. I'm sure that you can find those also in English for the American market or for English speaking market.

Marcin:
Basically, I have found a group on Facebook which is gathering influencers or let us say, wannabe influencers or potential influencers. And I have asked openly, "Hey, I am looking for people in my target group, women, 35, 45, who have some following and I would like you guys to have a sweatshirt with your city name on it in exchange for you guys sharing the info about the contest." This has worked very well. Without spending a dime like paying the influencers, just by offering them merch, personalized merch for them but still mech, I could drive really good traffic. By good traffic, I mean, not traffic which is buying the product. By traffic for this marketing action, I am talking about good traffic which is converting to contest entries.

Josh:
How did you go about... Because people have this question and that's a really popular strategy from marketing a B2C contest is to work with a series of influencers. Did you find the influencers through the Facebook groups that you mentioned earlier, through the online communities? Is that how you found this potential influencers to reach out to?

Marcin:
Yes.

Josh:
And how did you know they were... I'm going to drill in here for a second. So how did you know that they would be influential to the audience?

The optimal approach is to find brand ambassadors that also do fit your target audience which have a bigger following.

Marcin:
First, the issue was, "Are they really fitting the target group?" If it was like an 18 year old girl, it was not a good fit. If it was like 35, stay at home mom, she was a good fit. Because the closer the influencer is to your target group, the better. Then if she has some following, it's better. I was not targeting those five star, very known celebrities, no. I was targeting mid-level influencers and as I have told you, wannabe influencers.

Marcin:
Here, I should make a disclaimer. Once again, I was targeting potential influencer, brand ambassadors for the contest. Already, I have made some lessons learned and I already know that the optimal approach is to find brand ambassadors that also do fit your target audience which have a bigger following. But when I was starting back in the days, just to get decent traffic for the contest, just to build brand awareness, you could easily start with those kinds of wannabe ambassadors. It's not a polite word I would gate in a topic of potential influencers.

Josh:
And so, you just had a really simple approach. Once you identified them, you kind of verified they fit the target audience you were going after and you just would reach out to them and say, "Hey, if I offered you this personalized shirt, would you be willing to promote-"

Marcin:
Exactly.

Josh:
[inaudible 00:29:02] contest to your audience?

Marcin:
Yeah. Rinse and repeat. One influencer, one week, and one week was one campaign, one contest. And then, you get a pretty good feeling who is working well and who is working not well and who is driving traffic and who is not. If I were 100% full time apparel company, I would be focusing on this and then re-market and then a paid campaign to the lookalikes and so on. But it's a completely different topic for another session, I guess.

the contest has made money for itself and I think that I have reached people I would not be able to reach without the contest.

Josh:
Yup. Yup. How would you describe... To go back to the question I started to ask, which was, how would you describe the success of this campaign in your words?

Marcin:
The success of this B2C apparel clothing merch campaign, I would describe as 300 newsletter subscribers. And again, they are not so eager to subscribe and this target group is not very newsletter friendly. More than 300 followers on Instagram which are still with me and which are still active and they are commenting, I got some sales of the product. Basically, the contest has made money for itself and I think that I have reached people I would not be able to reach without the contest.

Marcin:
You should think about this in this way. Each winner, every week of the contest is a potential future content for your Instagram feed. Because when you think about it, the person receives free merch as a contest winner. They are an active Instagram user. So it's like, you just have to ask them, "Hey, can I kindly ask you just to do one photo in our merch of yourself and just send it to us and we will post this on our feed," and 99% of them do reply, "Okay, no problem. You will have it tomorrow."

Marcin:
You could build a perpetuum mobulae, if you know the meaning. Like this endless machine of content creation based on contest winners and I think, especially when it comes to apparel brands and B2C brands and brands which find themselves very well on Instagram, I think this user generated content is vital. If I had more time, I would be doing this all over and like rinse and repeat.

Each winner, every week of the contest is a potential future content for your Instagram feed.

Josh:
Absolutely. To go a little bit full circle, so using KickoffLabs for these contests, was it simple to set up for you? Was it easy to get the contest up and running?

Marcin:
Yeah, sure. I think that once I had an idea of a landing page which is simple but still is delivering the goals... And the first goal is always just to have email of the person and to have the person just use it for the contest, then I'll find a way so that was pretty simple.

Before you start the contest, understand your target audience as best as you can.

Josh:
Now, we've talked about both of the types of contests, the differences in marketing to each of the different contest audiences, what advice that we haven't talked about would you give to someone considering running one of these two types of contests? It could be either one, it could be both, just sort of general advice. But somebody's thinking about running this type of engagement contest campaign, what advice would you give them?

Don't be afraid of testing, right? It's like, you can find awesome leverages and awesome techniques if you leave your trenches and test a lot of stuff and that's how I came to KickoffLabs and I have grown my audience.

Marcin:
Before you start the contest, understand your target audience as best as you can. It's like a buying persona. You just have to have some image, some idea of the buying persona. Give value as much as you can and over deliver, if you can. Think about your audience in the long term, I guess. Do not focus on monetizing them today or tomorrow. This example of user generated content, I guess, is the best example. Give value and then, the sales will also appear in some time.

Josh:
That's great advice. Anything else? Anything else you want to tell our audience? How can people get in touch with you if they've got questions or want reach out or they want your help in growing their brand?

Marcin:
Yeah. The last thought, don't be afraid of testing, right? It's like, you can find awesome leverages and awesome techniques if you leave your trenches and test a lot of stuff and that's how I came to KickoffLabs and I have grown my audience. If anyone has any thoughts or any questions, go to marcinkowalik.online and that's it, you'll find me with a photo and with some contact details.

Think about your audience in the long term, I guess do not focus on monetizing them today or tomorrow.

Josh:
I want to thank you for being on today. I think this was an excellent, very detailed description of two very different audiences and two very different contests to run with. But you can see the similarities in the approach between having to understand the audience, thinking about what you need to deliver to them, over delivering so you didn't just give away one book or one shirt you're giving away multiple things, and thinking about long term where you want your audience to be. Is it part of this community? Is it connected with you on Instagram? And then, just... We didn't even talk about some of the stuff you did for testing. You were testing the reward level emails, we didn't get into you were AB testing the contest pages where I can see, you must have been testing some large differences because you could see one was doing really well and the other one wasn't.

Marcin:
Exactly.

Josh:
You were just always looking for opportunities to optimize the campaign that you were doing and I'm sure if you were running future campaigns for both of these things, you then have a baseline, a starting point, to go from of knowing what worked and then let's try some radical changes against those things to see if you can beat the previous results.

Marcin:
Exactly, exactly. It was a pleasure so I hope that you guys, listeners, have some value.

Josh:
Absolutely. This was great. When this is ready, we'll send it out and people can look at the page and the show notes here for some of the images from the campaign, some of the results that we'll share directly. Whether or not you speak Polish, I can tell you, looking at some of the stuff, I understood what you're getting at in terms of the personal brand so go ahead and look at the images and see how it relates to your business but-

Marcin:
Perfect.

Josh:
Thank you very much.

Marcin:
Thank you, Josh.