And on top of that… It sells stuff!!!

I’m excited to share with you this simple technique that can grow your brand message, promote a product, AND get people into your store or onto your site – ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

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In this example below, you will see how this technique works with a physical location to bring in more foot traffic to a store .  At the end of the post, I’ll make a brief mention on how you can replicate this with a virtual/or online store.

* Quick Note:  Cape Surf was an actual social client of mine, so this is both a “case study” and “how to” type post…

THE RAFFLE TECHNIQUE

How I did it:

The surfboard in the image below COST the surf shop somewhere around $80.  As you can see in the Facebook post below, I told our audience “This Board Can Be Yours for ONLY $10“  -  I didn’t use the word “ONLY” but I should have…

10 dollars for a surf board that would retail around 250 dollars is a REALLY high perceived value and a big motivator for the consumer to join the raffle game.

It works great for Sales too because as the retail store, we only had to sell about 8 raffle tickets to break even.  Anything above that magic number was profit!

Here are some points I made sure to hit that made this work:

• Posted on FB during high traffic times.  – For us this was around noon on a Saturday
• Engage with the audience to hype it up – Notice I said in the comments “…the more tickets that are yours, the more chance you have in winning…”
• I sold the ticket INSIDE the shop so they HAD to come in and see the rest of the merchandise!

The outcome: I remember a pregnant lady won the board for her husbands birthday.  She only bought one ticket, so you can imagine how stoked she was to have a $250.00 surf board to give as a gift for ONLY $10.00.

Take it Even Further

Go Viral With It:

If I was to do this again – especially for an online store/offer – instead of selling physical “raffle tickets” I would make the participant make a donation and SHARE a status on facebook about the contest.  Also, make sure that the status post has the @TAG to make sure you get notified of it.  Then you can simply choose a notification at random to win.

That strategy would help add more people to your fan base AND the raffle game at the same time.

Make $$$ With Info Products:

To break even with the surf board we had to sell about 8 tickets, but what if you were selling an info product that costs next to NOTHING to distribute?

If you had an info product that was priced around $97.00, how excited would your audience be to see that they could win it for only a $3.oo virtual raffle ticket!?!

You can even WOW your customers some more by saying that $1.00 for every raffle ticket was going to benefit a charity.  This way they can feel even better about purchasing a ticket that could win them your product at a GREAT price!

To Take Away

It’s all about perceived value with this technique.  Obviously if you are a retail store then you have to cover your costs.  If that is the case, you just have to know how many tickets it would take to break even and if you are confident in hitting that number.

Entice the audience to purchase more tickets by saying “the more you get the better your chances,” and even donate some of that money to charity to help your customers feel better about purchasing them.

Hope you enjoyed this post, if so… please use those share-buttons on the left side. It’s how the good stuff spreads

Stay in Touch!

Are you a Facebook Fan yet, or would you rather tweet us to say what’s up?

Enter socioclean.com! A creative programmer named Priyanshu Harshavat started this site to help job seekers get their social profiles cleaned up before it got them a rejection letter. Socioclean is a program that spiders your profiles searching for over 5,000 words an phrases that are potential job killers.

Once you have given the program permission to access your account, the program issues a letter grade and a list of inappropriate content found with links to each item. You can easily run through the list quickly and eliminate those potentially offensive items that can turn off potential employers.

You may be surprised to find how much potentially negative items you have. Don’t forget that it’s not just what you have posted, but what everybody else that posts to your profile as well. Have you joined any groups that could be considered “extremist”? These small things that you have overlooked are the same things that can “jump” of the page to a prospective employer.

So if your in the job market today, don’t just get your resume in order. Take a second look at that public profile to make sure it doesn’t cost you that dream job!

And with sites like Facebook and Twitter, where the messages you send to your community are both short and sweet, headlines become ever more vital.

The better your headline…

• The better your chances of driving your readers back to your website.
• The better your chances of having others in your community spread the word about you and your school.
• The better your chances of attracting new students to you school.

If you need help writing great headlines, then I’ve got a special gift for you today. My friend Chris Garrett has just released a free report containing 102 killer headlines for use in social media.

Writing headlines is one of the parts about social media many people struggle with. So, to help you with the dreaded “blank screen of doom” here are 102 tried and tested social media headline templates thanks to Chris Garrett!

He published the 102 headlines for free, you can download the pdf for it here, or read on!

Get What You Want (Health, Wealth, Relationships, Time and Lifestyle)

1.  10 Money/Time Saving Tips for ______
2.  The Secret of Getting the Best Price for Your _______
3.  How to Find the Best _____ Deals on the Web
4.  Top Gadgets for _____
5.  Are _____ Worth the Money?
6.  Everything You Need to Know About Getting Cheaper _____
7.  Top 10 Tips For Hassle Free ______
8.  Best ____ For Under [Price]
9.  Unusual but Achievable ____
10. 5 Ways to Boost Your ____ Without Spending More _____
11.  Ways to ____ on a Budget
12.  5 Ways to _____ and Profit!
13.  21 Audacious and Creative _____ Ideas
14.  Who Else Wants to ____?
15.  Now You Can ____ for Free!
16.  How to Get _____ in Half the Time
17.  10 Stars and their ____
18.  _____ Life Styles of the Rich and Famous
19.  How to Look and Act ________
20. Now You Can Have Get More and Better ____ With Less Effort
21.  ______ like a Movie Star
22. 9 Ways You Can ____ Better Than You Deserve
23. How to ____ in 10 Seconds
24. Have a ____ You Can Be Proud Of
25. 21 _____ Conversation Tips
26. Finding Your Perfect _______
27. Plan a Perfect ______
28. What ____ Really Want
29. 7 Signs You Are/Can _______
30. Get ____ Now

Crystal Ball and History

31. The History of _______
32. How _____ Will Impact _____ in [Year]
33. _____ Then and Now
34. 40 Predictions on the Future of ____
35. The Modern Rules of ______
36. ___ Lessons from History
37. The _____ Story

Problems and Fears

38. Are _____ a Dying Breed?
39. How to Beat the Fear of _____
40. 10 ____ Scams and How to Avoid Them
41.  How Secure Are Your _____?
42. 7 Most Frightening ____
43. Top 10 Scary _____ Facts
44. Outrageous _____ and How they Could Impact You
45. Get Rid of Your _____ Once and For All
46. Could Your ______ be a ________?
47. What Your ____ is Not Telling You About _______
48. Beware ______ and How to Spot them
49. 10 Good Ways NOT to ______
50. How to Safely _______
51. The Unseen/Biggest Dangers of _____
52. ______ Do’s and Don’ts
53. 21 Ways to Screw Up _____
54. 10 Reasons Not to _____
55. 7 _____ Danger Signs
56. 7 things _____ Should Never Do

Fact, Fiction, Secrets, Truth and Lies

57.  What Everyone Ought to Know about ______
58. ____ Personality Test: What Your ____ Says About You
59.  _____ Lies and How to Spot them
60. _____ Facts and Myths
61.  The Real Truth About ______
62. 21 Secrets the _____ Experts Don’t Want You to Know
63. 101 Most Popular _____ Myths
64. 10 ______ Facts You Need to Know
65.  The Secret of Successful _____
66. Little Known Ways to _____
67. Truth and Lies in _____
68. All You Need to Know about _______
69. 10 Lies We Tell Our _______
70. 101 things Not to tell _______
71.  Revealed: Why _____
72. How to Spot a Fake ______

How-To Tricks of the Trade

73.  When is it Smarter to ____ or ____?
74.  Little Known Ways to ________
75.  10 Reasons it’s Better to ______
76.  How to Plan the Ultimate _____
77.  How to _____ Like a _____
78.  ____ Jobs You Can Do Yourself
79.  Here is a Method That is Helping _____ to _____
80. Here’s a Quick Way to _______
81. 7 Creative Ways to ______
82. How to be a _______
83. 9 Surprising Things You Can _____
84. _____ Like an Expert in 10 Easy Steps
85. 21 Expert ____ Tips
86. 5 Reasons You Should ______

Best and Worst

87. Top 10 Worlds Cheapest/Best/Most Expensive _____
88. The Worlds Best _____ You Can Actually Afford to Buy
89. The Worlds Worst Ever _____
90. The World’s Most Unusual _____
91.  Funniest ______ Stories
92. Sexiest _______ in the World
93. The Top 10 Best and Worst _____ in the World
94. Top 19 Most ____ Friendly ____
95. 100 Useful or Beautiful ____
96. 5 Reasons _____ is Better than ______
97. The Worlds Top 10 Most Important ______
98. Top 20 Clips About _____ in Films and Television
99. 10 ____ We Don’t Want to See ____
100. 21 Most Hilarious _____
101.  The Worlds Worst _____ Advice
102. 10 Reasons ____ is the Worst _____