“The promotion’s full circle, in that it’s a social networking opportunity, but it’s also getting traffic into our restaurant, which is, of course, one of our main objectives in all of our marketing promotions,” Smith says.
Ted’s saw 3,000 contest entries within the first week of the March 2-31 campaign; half of these participants opted in to receive e-mail promotions. Contestants received confirmation e-mails informing them they would receive another e-mail within seven to 10 days that contained a certificate for their free bison burgers. Smith says incentive choice was easy—burgers are the foundation of Ted’s business, so it makes sense they would lay the foundation for ongoing customer communication.
So, during March, contestants who submitted their stories could then learn about those of their peers via Ted’s Facebook page and YouTube. Ted’s also updated contestants via text message, e-mail and the restaurant chain’s site. The contest and its entries also went viral, partly due to Ted’s e-mail “share” button.
Clearly, the sweepstakes built up multichannel user-generated content that benefited Ted’s search engine optimization efforts, Smith says. “All of it’s really tied together very, very nicely.”
Going forward, Smith says Ted’s will add the nearly 3,500 e-mail and 394 mobile opt-ins to its database and send promotions to them monthly, at least. The 1,996 Facebook fans will see incentive-based trivia contests. And both groups will be asked to participate in surveys about their restaurant experiences, as well as new products.
“Direct marketing is the largest percentage of our marketing [mix],” Smith says. “Right now, our main focus for the entire system is e-mail, Facebook and then now the mobile test.”
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