Organization of online broadcast of the prize draw

Hello! In my previous articles on family business in IT, I talked about how long and stubbornly we went to launching our own service. Now we are actively developing Energoslon, and in this article I want to talk about how our first PR campaign was organized.




After starting the service and my article on Habré, we received the first customers and a large dose of positive. However, it was necessary to move on. The service is still very young and little known. Therefore, we were faced with the task: to increase the recognition of Energoslon.
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There is a playground, need an idea

There is a fairly large community of website promotion specialists (SEOs) on the Internet, which are the core of our target audience. There are two main forums where SEOs hang out: searchengines.guru and maultalk.com. At the same time, the attendance of the first forum is higher and amounts to 35-40 thousand users per day.

Actually, we repelled from this information, choosing a platform for our PR action. It so happened that the traditional and already familiar scheme of “outputting a seo service to people” is as follows:

1. The forum is buying a corporate account.
2. The theme “Meet the new service” is created, all sorts of buns are offered to users: a free period, bonuses and discounts.
3. Paid for fastening topics higher.

Well, then the forum users look, study, criticize, praise. Over time, the branch turns into a kind of customer feedback channel.

The method is good, proven. But somehow he became boring. We would like to present Energoslon more original, to show that we are positive, cool and customer-oriented. That was the way the idea was born to hold some kind of competition, it only remained to think of which one.

And let's draw a lottery?

Since we decided to hold a contest on the forum, it was important to collect as many comments as possible. After all, the more actively the topic is commented, the higher it is kept in the rating, the more users see it, the more actively it is commented on ... Well, you understand.

And then I came across an article on Habré “How to make a contest so that more than 2 people participated in it” . In this article, Milfgard talks about the seemingly obvious reason for the non-participation of people in various competitions. And the reason for this is laziness. The rules of the competition should be so simple, and the prizes are attractive, so that even for the laziest person, the desire to receive a prize is stronger than the unwillingness to do something for it.

And what could be easier lottery? You get a ticket and you wait, if you’re lucky — if you’re unlucky. Having learned about the lottery from Mail.ru, in which at that time more than 20 thousand people took part, I realized that laziness can be won!

Calculations, logic and combinatorics

Many people in childhood probably watched the program “Russian Lotto”, we decided to take just such a principle as a basis for the draw. Each member receives a ticket.

Then the barrels of numbers are pulled out of the bag in the air, the participants cross out the numbers in their lottery ticket, the one who has the “combination” has won.

Such a scheme perfectly fit into the format of the draw on the forum. After all, in the comments, users will ask for tickets, and we will issue these tickets in the comments. Thus, the topic will always rise in the ranking.

In a traditional lotto there can be several winners, and the prize fund is divided into all. We played prizes, not money. Therefore, each ticket had to be unique.

Besides, I really did not want to win a ticket that was not distributed.

So, we solve a simple math problem

It is given: in the ticket 5 numbers. The combination of numbers in each ticket is unique. The order does not matter. In the bag 90 barrels.
Question: how many tickets?

Decision.
The rules of combinatorics tell us that the number of combinations without repeating n different elements with respect to m is calculated using the formula:



Those. the number of possible combinations is 90! / (5! 85!) = 86 * 87 * 88 * 89 * 90/120.
Too much! Accordingly, in order to reduce the number of tickets, you must either reduce the number of numbers in the ticket, or the number of barrels.

Of course, we hoped for the maximum effect, but we understood that it would hardly be possible to distribute more than 500 tickets. Therefore, we decided to play it safe and add barrels as needed. Those. First, we distribute all the tickets that combine 10 numbers of 5. Then add the 11th keg. When all possible combinations of 11 numbers are distributed, add the 12th barrel and so on.

At the same time, we announced to users that no more than 3003 tickets would be distributed. Those. the maximum number of barrels would be 15. The limit on the number of tickets pushed users to be more active and hurry to pick up their ticket.

As it turned out, the scheme was chosen correctly. In total, we distributed 316 tickets, so there were 11 barrels in the bag. In this case, for 13 days the message on the forum was viewed almost 20,000 times. Seoshniki learned about Energloslon, which means that everything went according to plan.

Choose themes and prizes

Outside the middle of October, the people around are gloomy and dull. As it was in the office, everyone took turns getting sick, from friends and acquaintances I increasingly heard conversations in the spirit of “how everything got sick!”. In general, the ambient atmosphere prompted me to carry out a rally under the auspices of "Down with the autumn depression!". And as prizes, choose soft, warm and positive things. We determined the total prize fund of 50 thousand rubles, 18 prizes were drawn.



Part of the prizes I paid in advance to be sure of their availability. I agreed to delay delivery with online stores, as I could provide the addresses of the winners only after the draw. I did not buy the iPad in advance, assuming that I would later select an online store that delivers to the region where the winner lives.

By the way, it was the right decision. The main winner was a resident of Ukraine, so it was much easier to buy an iPad in the Ukrainian store. Already 3 days after the draw, the winner received his long-awaited gift.

How to organize an online broadcast

The next issue that needed to be resolved was to conduct an online broadcast. This is where Google and its Hangouts helped us. Hangouts has the ability to broadcast live on youtube. Moreover, the number of simultaneous viewers broadcast is not limited. This is exactly what we needed.

Video filming needed to be organized in such a way that viewers could see:

• first leading;
• secondly, the bag, which should always be in the frame;
• thirdly, the numbers on the barrels.

It became clear that you need to shoot with two cameras. In Hangouts, we decided to organize a meeting between two users, and switch cameras at the right time. We also needed a microphone to be heard well. And a bluetooth headset to let me know in my ear the names of the winners and other information.

So, 4 laptops, two cameras, two microphones, a bluetooth headset were simultaneously involved in the online broadcast. None of us had any experience in holding such events, but it seems to me that we did very well.

Here is a diagram of how everything was organized:


The task of the operator was to switch between cameras and display the numbers of barrels pulled out of the bag.
The director entered the number of barrels in the database, determined the names of the winners and informed them to me. The observer viewed the live broadcast on youtube and chatted with users in the chat.

Here is a fragment of the draw:


And this is how it looked “from behind the scenes”. I apologize for the quality of the photo, the camera was successfully forgotten at home.

Results

The draw took place on Friday, November 7th. Prizes have not yet reached all participants, since many winners do not live in Russia. However, the iPad has already found its hero.



I know that the main question that is spinning in your head is “What economic effect did the rally give?”. But it is too early to draw conclusions.

I will give a full report on the figures in the next article from the cycle “Family Business in IT”, which, as I promised earlier, will be released next year (now 11 months). Now I do not want to disclose any figures in order not to injure competitors. What can I say with confidence: the main task of the rally - to raise awareness of the Energy Glider - has been successfully completed.



And lastly, we prepared cutting cadres mainly from rehearsals so that you understand how we prepared for the broadcast. All positive and good mood!