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Begin by establishing goals and objectives for your campaign. The subsequent decisions you make will be based on them. Consider the following:
Consider the various campaign options and which ones will best help you meet your goals and objectives. ShortStack campaigns generally fall into the following categories:
Pro: Contests allow for customer engagement through entry and voting. Plus, word-of-mouth marketing occurs when folks share their entries to help drum up votes.
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Make it more effective: Always require folks to submit their email address in order to vote so you’re able to collect leads.
Pro: Ease of entry allows you to build your email marketing lists quickly.
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Make it more effective: Enable autoresponders and other email marketing features so you can interact with entrants during the course of your campaign.
Pro: Promote customer engagement and word-of-mouth marketing through sharing of outcomes.
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Make it more effective: Collect an email address before you reveal quiz results.
Pro: Promote engagement through the creation of UGC (photos, videos, stories).
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Make it more effective: Obtain rights to use the UGC for marketing.
Pro: Build segmented lists based on your special offers and events.
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Make it more effective: Interact with your customers after the campaign by sending emails with relevant content.
Pro: Increase top-of-mind awareness of your products by making them front and center on your campaign.
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Make it more effective: Include a link on each product to drive traffic back to your website.
You can customize your campaigns in many ways. As you create your plan, ask yourself which of the following options should be enabled or included:
Two options exist for publishing your campaign. These options are:
Overall, we encourage either using the standalone landing page or website embed options. Why? You open up entry to everyone rather than just people who use Facebook; Facebook has control over who sees your posts on Timelines and in ads.
You can learn more about the pros and cons of publishing to different platforms in our blog post, Facebook, Landing Page or Website? Picking the Best Platform for Your Marketing Campaigns.
Several elements will determine the date your campaign can go live, including:
Finalize contest concept
Campaign set-up
Campaign Testing
Final approval by EOD
Create promotion plan by EOD
Publish campaign by EOD
Campaign start date/time
Publish first posts on social media
Send list an email announcing contest
Analyze ad and social posting promotion efforts at least twice between these dates. Refine as needed.
Send email reminding people the contest entry period is coming to an end
End Date/Time
Select random winner
Contact winner via email
Contact non-winners via email
Winner announced
ShortStack makes it easy to collect information from participants, such as an email address, name or birthday. The forms you build can also make it easy to collect user-generated content, such as photos or reviews.
When collecting data, we recommend you set up forms with a small number of fields and collect only the most essential information. Most forms request:
However, you can add fields to request (or require) any information you want, such as a photo or someone’s age. You can also offer open-ended fields or make it easier for people to complete your form by using multiple-choice dropdown selections or radio buttons.
Below are some goals you might have, in addition to lead generation, and the form fields you should consider implementing if you have these goals:
Radio field(s)
Allow people to choose a single answer from several options
Dropdown field(s)
Give entrants the option to choose one or more answers from a dropdown list
Text field(s)
Create a free-form text box to allow a written answer
Radio field(s)
Create a scale for people to rate your product or service
Dropdown field(s)
Let respondents choose from a set of answers
Text field(s)
Create a free-form text box to allow a written answer
Textarea field(s)
Allow for larger amounts of text to be written; good for collecting written reviews or feedback
Radio field(s)
Create a scale for people to rate your product or service
Dropdown field(s)
Let respondents choose from a set of answers
Photo field
Collect photo submissions
Video URL field
Collect video submissions via links from Vimeo, YouTube or Instagram
Entry Description
Allows entrants to describe their entry
Entry Title
Asks entrants to provide a title for their entry
Textarea field
Allow individuals to write details, without the limits of a smaller text field.
Dropdown field
Require users to choose a category for their reason for contacting your team.
ShortStack enables you to send participants autoresponders, follow-up emails and scheduled emails. We also offer additional marketing automation functions, like form integrations and automatic content display after form submission. As such, a part of your campaign planning should address questions such as:
You may have services and platforms already in place for marketing and social media. Many of them will work seamlessly with ShortStack because the platform is already integrated with the following:
Beyond form data, such as contact information, you may have additional KPIs you want to track. Be sure you know what these are before you launch your campaign so you have the appropriate tracking methods in place. Your KPIs might include:
After establishing your KPIs, determine how you will track the information. On our Agency Plan and higher plans, you’ll have access to ShortStack’s Advanced Analytics, which include:
When using ShortStack to send emails, each email you send includes email-specific analytics, such as:
If you collect information via a form, you’ll be able to view and export those entries. You can also implement Google Analytics and/or Facebook-tracking pixels, or other tracking methods to meet your tracking goals.
Ensure your campaign reflects your brand. ShortStack allows you to customize the appearance of your campaign using our Style Panel.
Do you have a brand style guide you’ll want to adhere to?
Will you add links to other marketing properties?
Have you seen promotions from other companies that feature elements you’d like to include?
Are there specific images that must be used?
How will you identify your company within the campaign, and where will you add your company’s logo?
Will you use a specific hashtag for your promotion?
Will you send autoresponders and/or scheduled emails?
Will you create a gallery of user-generated content?
When building a contest or giveaway for your brand, you’ll need to create a set of rules that abide by the regulations in your state/country.
If you plan to publish the campaign to Facebook and promote it on other social networks, things to consider may include:
ShortStack offers a useful shortcut for you. Here’s a template you can use as a guide for writing your campaign rules.
Testing a campaign before it’s published will ensure that the campaign functions and appears as expected. It’s also an opportunity to address unexpected issues.
*Tip: Our team is happy to review your campaign before it goes live; just send an email to theteam@shortstacklab.com.
In most cases, you will make this decision sooner in your online campaign design process. See Determine where you want the campaign to “live” earlier in this guide.
ShortStack will host your campaign. It’s up to you to determine where you want it to display. Options include:
When your campaign is ready to be published you can customize your subdomain or choose from one of five domain options offered on ShortStack’s servers.
Do you know how you’ll promote your contest, giveaway, quiz or campaign?
The launch and promotion of your campaign may include:
Looking for promotion ideas? Check out our post 40 Ways to Get the Word Out About Your Campaign.
As a result of running a ShortStack campaign, you’ll likely collect data and have the ability to track your promotion in real time via our analytics dashboard. We recommend:
Analyzing your campaign to see if you meet your KPIs will help you to measure the success of the campaign. It also helps to inform future campaigns. You can learn what went well with the campaign and where you can improve or update future marketing efforts to better reach your goals.
This helpful Getting Started Guide will show you exactly what you need to do to set up your campaign.
Prefer videos? We’ve got those, too.
If you still aren’t sure how to get started, please get in touch with the ShortStack customer support team.
We are available seven days a week to answer your questions and facilitate the creation of your promotions.
ShortStack also offers custom services. Our team of experts can guide you every step of the way and even build your campaign for you or your client.