"s humans, we have evolved to compete; it is in our genes, and we love to watch a competition." -- Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur
Humans have thrived because of competition and contests. It creates a sense of emergency which enables individuals to put their best foot forward, sometimes it forms strong allies and it encourages individuals to refine their skills to be the best.
Industries feed on the need for finding the best through competition. What if you could use it to win over customers?
‘Contests have a conversion rate of almost 34%, which is higher than other content types.’
You can use WhatsApp Business API as a marketing tool to conduct engaging contests that will generate leads, grow your contact list, and help you study your target audience.
So, ready to learn more about WhatsApp contests?
Why Do Individuals Enjoy Contests?
Contests are a thrilling experience. Individuals can put in their best, have nothing to lose, and top it off, they might win prizes! Contests bring people together and encourage healthy competition.
Contests also allow prospects to do the major part of the bidding for you. People enjoy talking about exciting events and your contest can be one of them.
WhatsApp for business has been associated with improved conversion rates and increased CSAT scores.
Like the automated messages on WhatsApp reduces a lot of your work, using WhatsApp to conduct contests will make it easy for you to engage the target audience. Plus, it can open up a world of new possibilities for your business.
Why are WhatsApp Contests Better than Traditional Contests?
Physical contests have taken a back seat and the reason isn’t just the pandemic.
Physical contests lost it’s glamor when companies realized the cost to outreach ratio was low.
Contests were usually an extra-financial burden that did not reach the right audience. However, WhatsApp has revolutionized the cost to outreach ratio of contests.WhatsApp Business API’s features enable you to conduct target audience based events.
Listed below are some advantages of conducting virtual competitions such as WhatsApp contests.
Low logistics cost
The logistics cost of WhatsApp contests is practically negligible if you have access to WhatsApp Business API. You will not need to appoint a big team of individuals to overlook the contest. Instead, you can use a trustworthy WhatsApp chatbot to assist your small team.
Venue renting, transportation costs are no longer a concern when using WhatsApp. Instead, you can focus your budget on advertising and afford attractive prizes.
Better out-reach
The power of virtual platforms is that they can make the world feel smaller. You can conduct WhatsApp contests across Countries at a single time if you want to. Physical contests are no match to the out-reach WhatsApp contests can provide at a single go.
‘As of 2021, WhatsApp is the most popular global mobile messenger app worldwide with approximately two billion monthly active users, outranking Facebook Messenger at 1.3 billion and WeChat at 1.2 billion users.’
Allow Participation from the comfort home
The best part about WhatsApp contests is that your participants can compete from any place with internet connectivity!
This is of great significance as it multiplies participation rates compared to physical contests.
Flexible Time-frame
Physical contests have time and labor constraints. But WhatsApp contests don’t!
With WhatsApp Chatbots, you can be available 24x7. So, your 3-day WhatsApp contest can receive responses at any hour of the day constantly for 72 hours.
Flexible time-frames encourage participants to interact with your brand when inspiration for the contest hits them. It may be midnight for night-owls or at 5 am for early-birds. Allow your contestants to participate at a time convenient for them through WhatsApp contests.
The Outcome of WhatsApp Contests for Companies
Conducting WhatsApp contests can feel like a fun experience for individuals only.
However, the truth is that your company has more to gain from a contest than contestants.
Your contestants have the opportunity to win free products and enjoy a thrilling experience. Your company, on the other hand, has the opportunity to grow in size, build a community, create brand awareness, interact with existing and new customers - all at one go!
Listed below are some big gains from conducting successful WhatsApp contests.
Bigger Customer-base
Big customer bases enable companies to multiply profits, fund new product launches, and overall bring the company to a new standard.
Analysis of the data from contests helps gain insight into prospect’s needs and expectations. What’s more fascinating is that you can take assistance from WhatsApp bots for the analysis.
Contests encourage two-way communication, presents an opportunity to establish new customer relations and fuels the growth of your contact list.
Plus, such convenient and easy-to-participate WhatsApp contests can leave a lasting impression on participants as compared to advertisements.
Increased Brand-awareness
Contests are a sure-shot method to engage prospects in your products or services. It also helps you create brand image and style.
Brand awareness is important as it eventually decreases the need for market campaigns, advertisements. Your existing customers spread the word for you.
Brand awareness is associated with product preference, customer loyalty, and it is the best strategy to beat your competition.
Improved Conversion-rates
‘Contests have a 3.7% higher conversion rate as compared to other CTAs.’
Improving conversion rates is a difficult task and a slow process. However, contests have the power to accelerate the process.
Conversion rates have multiple factors governing them. Your product or service quality is paramount but your brand style and customer interaction have weightage in the situation as well.
Most people are willing to sacrifice the best quality products for a comparatively lower quality product that comes along with positive interactions and excellent customer support.
Establishing customer-brand relations
Contests are experience-based interactions. Individuals tend to talk positively about brands that provide a joyful experience.
Customer-brand relations are also a stepping stone towards building a community of people who use all of your products or services.
Community building is important as it encourages company growth, keeps existing customers hooked, and improves the flow of incoming prospects.
How to Conduct WhatsApp Contests?
Conducting engaging WhatsApp contests is easy once you set up a WhatsApp Business API account and have a well-built plan. Listed below is a basic 5-step plan to conduct WhatsApp contests.
Step-1: Set a goal
The first step to conducting a successful WhatsApp contest is to determine the result or objective of the event. Your company may use WhatsApp contests as a medium to increase brand awareness, attract new customers, encourage customer loyalty and so on. Setting a clear goal in the initial stages is crucial as it will enable you to tailor the contest accordingly.
Step-2: Fix your target audience
Customer demographics play a crucial role in determining the type of contest one should organize to achieve the set goal. You may choose to target a specific section of your usual customer demography or plan out a contest for a general customer base.
Once you have picked your target audience for the contest, you can easily determine the kind of prizes you wish to give out to the winners.
Note: Prizes are one of the greatest attractions of a WhatsApp contest. So, ensure you reserve appropriate and appealing prizes to attract the right type of participants. You may opt to share discount coupons for registration to encourage participation.
Step-3: Gear up your team for a successful WhatsApp Contest
Organizing a contest requires planning, budgeting, and a team of employees who can oversee all of these details.
Planning a contest usually entails deciding entry-points of the contest, establishing contest details like registration dates, days of the contest, rules and regulation.
A contest can be seen as an investment by your company. Therefore, fixing a budget is important. Your budget should include not only contest expenses but additional expenses such as advertising, employing WhatsApp bots, team benefits and so on.
Step-4: Set-up WhatsApp Business API features to launch the contest
Organizing contests can feel like a hassle. However, WhatsApp business API features will assist your team to conduct a successful WhatsApp contest seamlessly.
It will ensure an exciting experience for your contestants and an easy process for your employees.
If you do not have access to WhatsApp Business API’s exclusive features, you can easily resolve this by partnering up with Konverse AI.
Listed below are tasks that can be completed effortlessly with WhatsApp Business API.
Enable Entry-points
Entry-points of a contest determine how an interested individual can enter the contest as a participant. Your team can allow contest Entry-points in the form of QR scan codes, WhatsApp links, click-to-WhatsApp button, or set up a button on the advertisement itself. These are static entry-point options.
Entry points can be made conversational with a WhatsApp chatbot. Conversational entry points are usually considered to be more engaging. However, static and conversational entry-points require you to ask for WhatsApp opt-in the right way.
You can choose pre-built conversational or static opt-in solutions that check all the requirements from your Konverse AI account.
Your opt-in message must clearly state :
- Company Name and Logo
- A message stating the kind of information or interaction users are signing up for.
- An active opt-in option. (This demands the user to complete an action such as filling up their phone number or ticking a box.)
Create WhatsApp Message Templates for the Contest
WhatsApp Business API allows you to design highly structured messages that can be used to notify individuals. These automated messages on WhatsApp make your life easier!
However, each WhatsApp template is approved by WhatsApp before they can be used. And the process takes up to several days. So, plan your WhatsApp contest dates and timing accordingly.
With Konverse AI, WhatsApp template submission can be made easy. Konverse allows easy access to features like ‘new template’ through the account dashboard. This saves time and makes the process simple.
To submit New WhatsApp templates on the Konverse platform is a super-easy process! ( Assuming you already have WhatsApp Business API and an account with us)
Step1- Sign-in to your Konverse account
Step2-Click the box with your company name on it
Step3-On your dashboard, select ‘ settings and click on ‘channels’
Step4- Opt for the ‘templates’ option under WhatsApp Messenger
Step5- Fill in the details of the Template and hit ‘submit’. Your Template will be sent for approval!
You can view the status of your New template in the channel section by default.
The best part about the WhatsApp Templates feature is that they can be automated. So, as a participant registers for the contest they can receive a notification that will kick-start their WhatsApp contest experience.
Design Conversation Flow with WhatsApp Chatbot
Building and training chatbots can feel complicated. However, With Konverse AI your chatbot building process is effortless and involves no coding!
You can create a WhatsApp bot through Konverse AI, connect your HSM to your virtual assistant, and design conversation paths using conversational blocks.
You may choose to create an NLP WhatsApp chatbot or a Story-builder chatbot depending on the type of conversation flow you want during the contest.
NLP Chatbots- NLP chatbots are intelligent, they can conduct conversations based on human inputs. This allows each conversation with the chatbot to have some level of flexibility and variance. You can train your NLP chatbot for FAQs and small talk on Konverse AI platform. Konverse platform allows Integration of chatbots with other features to conduct advanced tasks such as data collection easily.
Story-builder Chatbots- Story-builder chatbots are based on presenting multiple options to a user depending on the question. These Chatbots are easy to build and are a powerful tool when it comes to engaging individuals in conversation. Ensure the options and questions do not leave room for doubts or confusion.
Quick learning tip:
With Konverse, you can build a no-code WhatsApp chatbot that combines the power of a story-builder chatbot and an NLP chatbot.
Steps to build a no-code WhatsApp Chatbot with Konverse.
Step 1- Sign-in to your Konverse account
Step 2- Click the box with your company name on it
Step 3- Select the ‘Story-builder’ option on the 2nd section of your dashboard
Step 4- Click ‘start’. You can start designing conversation-flow paths using a variety of conversation blocks. You may include quick replies, texts, images, videos, or a transfer to the live-agent option.
Step 5- You can test your WhatsApp bot during the building process. Click the ‘Test bot’ option from the drop-down list of the 2nd option in your dashboard.
Step 6-If you wish to train your story-builder chatbot to conduct functions of an NLP chatbot. Konverse provides this option through FAQ and Entity training. The options are available in your dashboard, under the ‘story-builder’ drop-down list.
Step 7- You can make your bot live from the WhatsApp messenger category in the ‘channels’ section of the ‘settings’ option in your dashboard.
WhatsApp chatbots will automate contests, keep your participants engaged, send notifications and collect data.
Collect Contest data automatically for analysis
You can automate data collection by integrating your WhatsApp chatbot with other elements. You can use google sheets integration to store all user responses and submissions or choose to integrate Konverse with your CRM to facilitate data recording and saving automatically.
Analysis of collected data will give you an insight into the most used conversation path during the contest, you can observe the number of registrations, active participants and draw comparisons.
Konverse AI allows you to save and study the statistics of conversation flow. This will allow your team to analyze and determine whether or not the quantifiable objectives of the WhatsApp contest were achieved.
Note: Determining the kind of data collection and quantifiable objectives you wish to achieve at the initial stages is crucial. This allows you to modify and design your analyzing and tracking system accordingly.
Step-5: Follow-up on Contest Results
Following up on the contest sets the final tone for your new customers and participants. Sharing amusing interactions during the contest on social media, and announcing winners of the contest gives it a complete feeling.
Following up on WhatsApp contests will also allow you to begin a new customer-brand relation with prospects depending on the kind of information you were able to gather during the contest.
You can send new WhatsApp template notifications to your newly-earned contacts to educate them about the brand products or services.
Ideas to Help Brainstorm Your Own WhatsApp Contests
Here are some contest ideas that can be personalized according to your brand for a fun, interactive session with your audience.
1. Guess the outcome!
These types of contests encourage participants to make wild guesses about events the question may be related to. You can make this contest more fun with the help of videos, images, GIFs, and funny com-backs from your WhatsApp chatbot.
2. Click-share-win
This type of WhatsApp contest generates a chain reaction of sharing and bringing in new contacts. The winner can be decided on the most number of shares! This contest is easy to deploy and ideal to promote brand awareness.
3. ‘Name the new product’ contest
This contest can bring out the funny side of your audience. Allow your participants to decide a name for a new product that will be launched by your company. You can pick out the best suggestions and conduct a poll. The name with the highest votes wins the contest!
4. Knowledge Quest
Knowledge quests are competitive and engaging. Knowing the right answer gives participants a thrill. Your questions may be brand-related or general. These contests are the easiest to conduct with the help of a WhatsApp chatbot.
5. Chat-participation Contest
These contests are great if you wish to drive traffic to your website. Chat-participation contests can be themed-based and may ask simple questions which will enable participants to win discounts or coupons.
6. Creative Caption Contests
Thinking of the most creative caption for an image can engage a participant’s mind for hours. These contests also produce some of the funniest interactions. You can share snippets of fun interactions for your audience to enjoy.
7. Mind-boggling puzzles and riddles
Riddles and puzzles cause an itch for many.
Your participants will be hooked till the end to know the right answer. However, to keep things interesting avoid riddles and puzzles which are readily available on the internet. The final round should be intense and mind-blowing!
8. Can you fill in the blanks?
This type of contest is easy to manage and encourages quick but engaging interactions with your participants.
You can expect the most unexpected answers to complete statements. WhatsApp is the ideal platform to conduct such an exciting contest as you have the ease of communication and of course, WhatsApp chatbots for help.
Need Help Accessing WhatsApp Chatbots?
Setting up a WhatsApp chatbot requires access to WhatsApp Business API.
WhatsApp Business API is exclusive and requires companies to follow certain policies to access all of its incredible features such as WhatsApp messaging templates.
However, with Konverse AI as your partner, setting up WhatsApp Business API and WhatsApp Chatbot is effortless. Head over to our website and book a demo with our professionals today!
Additional Reads
5 Best Strategies for Gathering WhatsApp Business Opt-Ins
Can WhatsApp Bots Boost Your Lead Generation?
Ways to Use WhatsApp for Business as a Marketing Channel
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