The clock is ticking - What would you do? Startup Marketing

[evgeney]

I have joined a startup as a marketing consulting which has been working on a competition to promote their upcoming retail brand 2 weeks before the competition launch date.

Within 3 days I have overhauled their website and launched their social media streams from the ground up, the competition is a fashion competition and within 4 weeks time we need to acquire 500 applicants to compete in this contest of creating their own fashion ideas.

The competition is open to fashion students across the United States and I have been extensively targeting these using these parameters, generally this is something you would launch after building and maintaining a brand but in this case, everything was from the ground up with the tightest clock imaginable.

I have structured the website in the form of a funnel and am looking at hiring fashion influencers across Instagram. The prize contest money is set to 10k but even so, is not attracting too much attention from our targeted audience.

The registration period ends in 4 weeks and so far we are 10% in the applicant pool.

Given this tight period, we truly need some form of explosive growth to succeed.
What would you do?

 

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[RazorCut]

IG influencers can be hugely expensive so you must have a strong advertising budget. Therefore paid advertising in the form of YouTube ads and Facebook.

Supplement that with subscribing to relevant forums, subreddits and FB groups and either use subtle tactics or contact the admins to see if they would support the competition.

I take it you have sent out posters/media packs to all relevant colleges already and spoken directly with the teaching staff to get them onboard in order for them to encouraging their students to participate? Maybe see if you can get a secondary prize authorised that goes to the college for materials etc. if one of their students wins?

 

[KushShah9492]

I have joined a startup as a marketing consulting which has been working on a competition to promote their upcoming retail brand 2 weeks before the competition launch date.

Within 3 days I have overhauled their website and launched their social media streams from the ground up, the competition is a fashion competition and within 4 weeks time we need to acquire 500 applicants to compete in this contest of creating their own fashion ideas.

The competition is open to fashion students across the United States and I have been extensively targeting these using these parameters, generally this is something you would launch after building and maintaining a brand but in this case, everything was from the ground up with the tightest clock imaginable.

I have structured the website in the form of a funnel and am looking at hiring fashion influencers across Instagram. The prize contest money is set to 10k but even so, is not attracting too much attention from our targeted audience.

The registration period ends in 4 weeks and so far we are 10% in the applicant pool.

Given this tight period, we truly need some form of explosive growth to succeed.
What would you do?

My response might be out of date but I suppose hiring an up and coming influencer(with a fewer than 2-3 thousand followers) would be cheaper and might work in the short term, just to get your contest going.