Link
http://www.viralsweep.com
Specifications
ViralSweep provides an app that allows clients to create, run, and manage sweepstakes and contests on their own websites, blogs, or Facebook. Features include customizable entry and data collection forms, the ability to export entrant data into a CSV file, email integration, incentivized social sharing, conversion pixel tracking, language translation, real-time analytics, and mobile platform optimization.
Cost
Monthly plans range from $49 to $399. A free version is also available.
User
Derin Oyekan, CMO at JewelScent, has been using ViralSweep for about four months.
How do you use it?
It’s very simple to operate. After you log on, an intuitive wizard guides you through the process of setting up a giveaway.
You can customize the background image and various other elements relating to the look and feel. You can also choose how many images you want to display. There are options to set up the giveaway as a full website page, a pop-up, or a widget that essentially works as a website app.
ViralSweep helped us design some background images. They’ve gone above and beyond to make sure our giveaways are successful.
Once a giveaway goes live, we check the analytics on an ongoing basis. ViralSweep gives us a near real-time feel of how a campaign is going. We can see the number of entries and visitors and track Facebook shares and tweets.
There’s also an option for users to get an additional entry for visiting our website. We worked with ViralSweep to come up with a special a promo code to put on the website, and those links have driven a lot of direct sales.
We can also customize the URL we use, which is great because custom domains help with SEO, branding, and maintaining consistency with our customers.
I have not had any issues with the platform other than trying to reset my password. ViralSweep was very helpful with that. If we did have an issue I would first check the knowledge base on the site. If that didn’t resolve the issue, I would reach out to my contacts at ViralSweep.
How does it serve your business needs?
Our products are very heavily shared on social media channels. To keep our customers excited, we promote our products through contests, giveaways, and the occasional promotion. We needed a solution that would help us with contests and giveaways so we don’t have to build them from scratch.
We went with ViralSweep because the platform was easy to use and the personal customer service we get from the founders is great.
We’re always looking for marketing programs that help us sell products. Giveaways and contests drive revenue for us and also help us with our list building goals – both for email and social media fans on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Our last giveaway was tied to St. Patrick’s Day when we gave away four products to four winners. The product cost was $100, and the giveaway generated more than $15,000 from direct revenue. Obviously, that’s a tremendously high return.
How does it integrate with your existing infrastructure from an IT standpoint?
It’s all Web-based. Our IT guys love it because we just send them the HTML code ViralSweep gives us and tell them what domain to create. They have it up and running in five minutes.
We use Mailchimp, and ViralSweep has an integration agreement with Mailchimp so we just have to log on with our Mailchimp credentials to tie it all together.
What are the main benefits?
It’s very easy to use and it offers a lot of flexibility in terms of customization and execution. Also, it’s affordable.
What are the main drawbacks?
The primary drawback for us has to do with tracking individual sources. For example, if we’re promoting a sweepstakes via email and media buys we can’t tell which channel is responsible for what because ViralSweep doesn’t have functionality to differentiate between sources. We’ve been a little hesitant to throw a lot of media dollars behind a sweepstakes because we can’t measure the efficacy.
What would you like to see improved/added?
Nothing. I’m sure we’ll have additional needs as our business grows, but ViralSweep continues to add features and build apps with other platforms.
Competitors
Rafflecopter: a Web app for creating and launching sweepstakes and other promotions across websites, blogs, and Facebook.
Woobox: provides social marketing apps for sweepstakes, polls, contests, coupons, and more.
