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HELP needed ASAP! Business Started! Almost zero Customers! Time critical Where to Focus?

Muzzler

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Hi Guys,
Its been years since I last posted and its been a slow and painful journey to get to this point! I have been grinding away ever since my first post although some might say floundering, theres been trials and errors, hustling that looked like a good idea but actually turned out to be a hinderance now that the results are to be seen, I've lost my way a few times and should of returned to the forum sooner, It sounds stupid but its easy to slip back to older habits yet a listen to MJ's book does a hell of a job of snapping you back!

Anyway to my problem/s.

I have built my own online prize competition company and I have released it to the world, after many hurdles and problems to overcome as well as learning everything from scratch. The site is currently live and has very little interest! which I guess is to be expected.

I am trying to learn Facebook ads by testing trying to hone in on my audience but am blasting through cash and have no results to show. I have done very little in the way of marketing (OK sorry I've done no marketing!) as I focused all my time on building my website, I am now where I am and trying to make my company visible.

I have made a few sales but believe until people see others purchasing tickets, that they will most likely hang fire?

I think my website could be improved but I just had to get launched as time is now critical.

I'm sure that the numbers I am reaching with my ads are no where near high enough but again I have not seen any conversions yet so cannot do a look alike audience. Im targeting Facebook Conversions, focused on sales. I did Traffic first and yes managed to send people to my site but have had no real interactions.

I am going to launch our best prize which is a car and use that for the marketing and ads as it looks well in images and I have put together some promo vids.

I need to get sales and quickly, what should be my main focus to aid this outcome?

What should my expectations be with Facebook ads I.e how much should I be spending to yield results? does anyone have any insights?

Does anyone know any useful threads that may help?

I have little time and am asking for help as I cant afford to waste any more time, I need to make sure my efforts are focused on the correct areas to aid the generation of sales.

I have looked at current available normal jobs, during this uncertain time and may be able to work a delivery job etc but do feel as I spend all my time working on my business that it would have a detrimental impact? We are again selling all unnecessary items on Ebay to free up any cash we can.

I feel we have enough ingredients to be successful? At this time I believe its a case of finding enough people to all get involved at the same time to get the ball rolling, provide social proof and history, reviews etc to aid conversions in the future and to build trust.

Im not sure if its the right thing to post my website here for viewing/ evaluating so I won't for now. as i'm not trying to plug my website. Just looking for advice.

Thanks in advance guys any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
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Pink Sheep

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Are you running lotteries?
Think about where side-walkers gather and reach them there.
 

Muzzler

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Are you running lotteries?
Think about where side-walkers gather and reach them there.
It's not strictly a lottery but is very similar. My competition is a skill based prize draw. People purchase tickets, answer skill question then are entered into a number draw.

Do you mean where they gather as in target? competitions, prize draw, gambling etc with Facebook Ads? Or do you mean search for forums relating to competitions?

Thank you for your input
 

Pink Sheep

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It's not strictly a lottery but is very similar. My competition is a skill based prize draw. People purchase tickets, answer skill question then are entered into a number draw.

Do you mean where they gather as in target? competitions, prize draw, gambling etc with Facebook Ads? Or do you mean search for forums relating to competitions?

Thank you for your input
OK I see!
I thought for a few minutes..How about letting anyone enter for free, and give them additional entries for buying in. You can even do different alternatives such as donating to charity (free tax write-off too) or local organisations in the area you're targeting. Multi-tier options? Seeing who benefits (or could) from their money increases likelyhood of spending. Even if it's their own family etc.
Letting them enter for free increases likelyhood for sharing, which can also be rewarded of course.
 
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Noo

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It's not strictly a lottery but is very similar. My competition is a skill based prize draw. People purchase tickets, answer skill question then are entered into a number draw.

Do you mean where they gather as in target? competitions, prize draw, gambling etc with Facebook Ads? Or do you mean search for forums relating to competitions?

Thank you for your input

Do you think your target audiences are nerds or people with a type-A personality who are very competitive? How would you describe your target audience?
 

Muzzler

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OK I see!
I thought for a few minutes..How about letting anyone enter for free, and give them additional entries for buying in. You can even do different alternatives such as donating to charity (free tax write-off too) or local organisations in the area you're targeting. Multi-tier options? Seeing who benefits (or could) from their money increases likelihood of spending. Even if it's their own family etc.
Letting them enter for free increases likelihood for sharing, which can also be rewarded of course.
Thank you for the advice,

I have mentioned on my site that we will donate to charity once we are established and have every intention of doing so, I'll definitely look at doing something now and see if I could put a promotion together for charity. do you think the return on investment would be better donating to charity or spending on adds? Obviously personally I would rather give to charity but am not sure where the money is best spent from a business point of view.

Free entry is something that I could implement although I've spent allot of time making my site paid only. In the UK the law says something along the lines of...that you are classed as an illegal lottery unless you have free entry or there is a reasonable amount of skill involved to enter a competition. Most comps and my competitors run comps with free entry to work within the law but most free entrants never get a chance to enter as the draws fill so quick. I've seen allot of complaints about this issue so developed a spot the difference skill challenge to work within the law and to not have to provide free entry. Obviously this does not help the people that want to enter for free but it does eradicate the issue of promising something then not delivering I.e offering free entry that people never get the chance to use.

I could, possibly run one of my competitions with free entry to generate business but it would be very difficult to implement the gifting of additional tickets i.e buy one get one free with the software I am using.

I have thought about ending a competition before it is full. i.e post a draw date within a day or two and say, 'the draw will take place regardless of whether or not it is full or not' . which would massively increase the odds of winning and hopefully create urgency?

I have also put out a Facebook post stating the first 100 entrants will be entered into a unique draw to win £100 as well as the chance to win what ever competition they have entered. so far only a few takers!

Our lowest cost entry fee is around the £1.20 mark.

I have had very little interaction on Facebook, I have more content to post today. I think we have around 60 followers so am working to increase this.

Thanks again for your response.
 

Muzzler

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Do you think your target audiences are nerds or people with a type-A personality who are very competitive? How would you describe your target audience?
I have not looked at this from this angle. ie personality traits, i was just aiming for generally speaking, working class people from 18 - 60, more so blue collar jobs. I will look deeper into personality types, how would this translate into finding that specific type?

Thank you for your input
 
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Noo

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I have not looked at this from this angle. ie personality traits, i was just aiming for generally speaking, working class people from 18 - 60, more so blue collar jobs. I will look deeper into personality types, how would this translate into finding that specific type?

Thank you for your input

I was thinking in something that is probably very naive, but...

we need people who like to gamble, and people who like quizzes (usually the second ones tend also to be smart and to be in some kind of engineering or IT stuff, or maybe medicine, because they're addicted to trivia questions - I am talking exclusively of the top performers).

I was thinking in something like this:

finding a very competitive environment, with people with a big ego and who talk a lot of shit, who happens to also like a little gamble (people who perform in sports bet of 20€ per week must be enough).
So, basically high school, college and people who think they know a lot, but they only think that because they get good grades (and some of them they don't even get good grades).
But also teachers. How more of a theoretical the person, the better.

I can't help with older people, because I don't know anyone who I think might be into bets.

So, I thought again:
let's suppose we have a very competitive group from finance who wants to enter. 4 people. They are always doing that with each other daily anyway. Do trivia only with questions about finance, and the rest is business as usual. It's an extension on what they already do in the office.
But the question is...how to find that group of people?
So I'm basically lost and just dwelling on this.

But basically my idea was: instead of trying to find people in general and trying to "educate" some of them, there is already one group of people "in this world" who might be interested. The competitive type who likes to brag about being the smartest in the room and who lost every sport bet in the last 5 weeks.
 

kkompoti

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Did you have facebook pixel on your site?
Retarget your ads with a second set of strong ads to the people actually visiting your site
 

Peal

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Could you recruit friends and family to get the ball rolling? Ask them to try it out so you have real examples of how it works and stories of winnings.

From an advertising standpoint, you need stories. Person A did this and this and as a result they got this...
 
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peterb0yd

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How much time have you spent studying copywriting?

Which books have you used for your studies?
 

alexkuzmov

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Hi Guys,
Its been years since I last posted and its been a slow and painful journey to get to this point! I have been grinding away ever since my first post although some might say floundering, theres been trials and errors, hustling that looked like a good idea but actually turned out to be a hinderance now that the results are to be seen, I've lost my way a few times and should of returned to the forum sooner, It sounds stupid but its easy to slip back to older habits yet a listen to MJ's book does a hell of a job of snapping you back!

Anyway to my problem/s.

I have built my own online prize competition company and I have released it to the world, after many hurdles and problems to overcome as well as learning everything from scratch. The site is currently live and has very little interest! which I guess is to be expected.

I am trying to learn Facebook ads by testing trying to hone in on my audience but am blasting through cash and have no results to show. I have done very little in the way of marketing (OK sorry I've done no marketing!) as I focused all my time on building my website, I am now where I am and trying to make my company visible.

I have made a few sales but believe until people see others purchasing tickets, that they will most likely hang fire?

I think my website could be improved but I just had to get launched as time is now critical.

I'm sure that the numbers I am reaching with my ads are no where near high enough but again I have not seen any conversions yet so cannot do a look alike audience. Im targeting Facebook Conversions, focused on sales. I did Traffic first and yes managed to send people to my site but have had no real interactions.

I am going to launch our best prize which is a car and use that for the marketing and ads as it looks well in images and I have put together some promo vids.

I need to get sales and quickly, what should be my main focus to aid this outcome?

What should my expectations be with Facebook ads I.e how much should I be spending to yield results? does anyone have any insights?

Does anyone know any useful threads that may help?

I have little time and am asking for help as I cant afford to waste any more time, I need to make sure my efforts are focused on the correct areas to aid the generation of sales.

I have looked at current available normal jobs, during this uncertain time and may be able to work a delivery job etc but do feel as I spend all my time working on my business that it would have a detrimental impact? We are again selling all unnecessary items on Ebay to free up any cash we can.

I feel we have enough ingredients to be successful? At this time I believe its a case of finding enough people to all get involved at the same time to get the ball rolling, provide social proof and history, reviews etc to aid conversions in the future and to build trust.

Im not sure if its the right thing to post my website here for viewing/ evaluating so I won't for now. as i'm not trying to plug my website. Just looking for advice.

Thanks in advance guys any help would be greatly appreciated!

Why should I give you money?
How does your business help me?
Whats in it for me?
 

Muzzler

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Did you have Facebook pixel on your site?
Re target your ads with a second set of strong ads to the people actually visiting your site
Hi yes I have pixel, although do not think it was working so have adjusted and believe it is now OK?. I am going to be setting up adds for conversions with the pixel set to purchase actions. i.e sales. then like has been said am looking to re target. unfortunately I do not have any data to target yet. just a bunch of adds in a net cast to wide which yielded page views but no results. my lookalike audience area is currently empty.

Thank you for helping
 
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Muzzler

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How much time have you spent studying copywriting?

Which books have you used for your studies?
Hi,
I may have read one book or two a very long time ago, Would you or anyone happen to have any suggestions?

So far I have been trialling different copy on my adds, but It's something that requires attention. It's definitely something I could and should do better, have just been muddling through!

Thank you
 

Muzzler

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Why should I give you money?
How does your business help me?
Whats in it for me?
Hello,

I have to admit when I first started building my business I had a clear Idea that we would differentiate by aiming our competitions at family prizes, and whilst we have not really moved away from that there is probably less focus on what is our unique selling point. It's not a great plan but at this point I was hoping to listen to the market, respond and hopefully find where we sit.

I have done things differently to my competitors in relation to how my draw is structured and the way in that we draw our numbers and feel that we are well positioned to grow with a solid foundation with respect to the gambling laws in the UK. How ever these are small things. I have also placed allot of emphasis on making sure im doing all possible to be operating all above board. what I mean by that is that I have all my cookie policies, privacy policy and all related security measure etc in place and have not taken short cuts. My whole site is based on honesty and I believe that my prizes for example when we are talking about cars etc. will be in most cases better quality than competitors because I like things to be right and want customers to be very happy. this is normally to my own detriment but I would not release a prize unless it is 100% for example. Our first car had two plastic screw covers missing just two penny sized plastic covers. they were £30 for the pair!! and yes i'm probably an idiot, but I purchased them, as I wanted the car to be as good as it can be. so that the winner is happy and will hopefully come back etc..

Sorry I think I started rambling to summarise, my thoughts but please chime in!

Why should I give you money - Better customer service and the little details

How does business help me - Provides opportunity to win prizes for a fraction of their normal price

Whats in it for me - similar to above and hopefully a pleasant transaction.

There is a lot of competitions now and there are some doing very well and large enough to cater well to their audience. I did look at some of there complaints and pain points and have tried to alleviate them however your points are very valid. apart from my customer service and honest approach I am yet to find what really sets us apart with regard to USP.

Thank you for your help
 

Muzzler

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Could you recruit friends and family to get the ball rolling? Ask them to try it out so you have real examples of how it works and stories of winnings.

From an advertising standpoint, you need stories. Person A did this and this and as a result they got this...
Unfortunately we are very short on help, this is compounded by the fact that I have not been on Facebook in the last decade. Now Ironically it seems to be one of the most important elements to the marketing of my business.

I'm thinking on the same lines I need social proof / history. I am hoping to add urgency to one of my draws and end it early to hopefully run a live draw, present the winner with prize and get some confirmation that we will do what we say we will.

Thank you for your input
 
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Muzzler

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I was thinking in something that is probably very naive, but...

we need people who like to gamble, and people who like quizzes (usually the second ones tend also to be smart and to be in some kind of engineering or IT stuff, or maybe medicine, because they're addicted to trivia questions - I am talking exclusively of the top performers).

I was thinking in something like this:

finding a very competitive environment, with people with a big ego and who talk a lot of shit, who happens to also like a little gamble (people who perform in sports bet of 20€ per week must be enough).
So, basically high school, college and people who think they know a lot, but they only think that because they get good grades (and some of them they don't even get good grades).
But also teachers. How more of a theoretical the person, the better.

I can't help with older people, because I don't know anyone who I think might be into bets.

So, I thought again:
let's suppose we have a very competitive group from finance who wants to enter. 4 people. They are always doing that with each other daily anyway. Do trivia only with questions about finance, and the rest is business as usual. It's an extension on what they already do in the office.
But the question is...how to find that group of people?
So I'm basically lost and just dwelling on this.

But basically my idea was: instead of trying to find people in general and trying to "educate" some of them, there is already one group of people "in this world" who might be interested. The competitive type who likes to brag about being the smartest in the room and who lost every sport bet in the last 5 weeks.

I have been trying to hone in on my target audience but am struggling with the Facebook audience selection as my prize competition has a broad range of items and honing in on a tech item for example does not mean that the person who likes that tech plays competitions.

My next area to target is a set of adds, only changing one variable and aiming toward people that like to gamble and do online gaming so I guess as you were saying to find the people that already display the sort of traits that would be likey to participate in a competition.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, many thanks
 

AgainstAllOdds

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Lotteries are illegal, and it sounds like your business classifies as a lottery.

"Lotteries, unless state-run, are illegal in every state and could subject your business to civil and criminal penalties and fines. In addition, you may get unwelcomed attention from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)."

I'd quit on the idea and work on something that has long-term potential. This idea should've been killed in the due diligence phase.
 

minivanman

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Lotteries are illegal, and it sounds like your business classifies as a lottery.

"Lotteries, unless state-run, are illegal in every state and could subject your business to civil and criminal penalties and fines. In addition, you may get unwelcomed attention from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)."

I'd quit on the idea and work on something that has long-term potential. This idea should've been killed in the due diligence phase.

While I personally agree about it should have been killed, I think in the UK you can buy a license to run a local lottery.

Have you bought a lottery license or can one be bought?
 
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Sanj Modha

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While I personally agree about it should have been killed, I think in the UK you can buy a license to run a local lottery.

Have you bought a lottery license or can one be bought?

Have you tried running paid ads to a lottery? I think you're in for a surprise.
 

Muzzler

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Lotteries are illegal, and it sounds like your business classifies as a lottery.

"Lotteries, unless state-run, are illegal in every state and could subject your business to civil and criminal penalties and fines. In addition, you may get unwelcomed attention from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)."

I'd quit on the idea and work on something that has long-term potential. This idea should've been killed in the due diligence phase.
Hi,

My business is not an illegal lottery. It is based in the UK only. there are many competitions ran here all legal. There are rules for it not to be classed as an illegal lottery. The gambling commission states rules regarding running competitions and prize draws all of them which I adhere to.

With regards to a licence, no licence is required.

Im at the point where I have spent allot of time money and effort to keep moving forward even though there are many road blocks. I feel that my business has the potential to make money with which I can move forward onto other ventures.

Thank you for your input
 

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