Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Float On has been known throughout the years for pulling off outlandish marketing stunts with mixed success. For example, we ran a giveaway on social media back in 2014 for a full year of free floats to our lucky winner.
Derek and Ashkahn provide a follow up on the success of that campaign and talk about the primary, secondary, and tertiary benefits that came from doing such a major giveaway.
Show Resources
Kingsumo (the WordPress plugin used to run this giveaway)
The Float On Floatillionaire Giveaway Landing Page
And here’s Graham and Ashkahn posing with Belinda Carroll, our winner with her comically large novelty gift card.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Derek: Welcome.
Ashkahn: Hey everybody.
Derek: Hi.
Ashkahn: This is Ashkahn.
Derek: This is Derek.
Ashkahn: Got the old Ashkahn-Derek crew here today.
Derek: We should come up with clever name.
Ashkahn: Yeah, Dere-kan?
Derek: Yeah, that’s not as cool as Grashkamn…
Ashkahn: Yeah, Dere-kan
Derek: Dere-kan?
Ashkahn: Ash-dere-kan, that’s pretty good?
Derek: Deresh-kan
Ashkahn: Ash-der-ashk… ash-der-akan?
Derek: Do we have a question? Deresh-kan?
Ashkahn: We do, Ash-dere-kan.
Derek: Okay.
Ashkahn: Our question for today is, “can you tell us what went into running your, ‘free floats for a year’ giveaway?
Was it worth it?”
Derek: Well, you heard about it and we did it years ago, so yes! The word is still getting out about it.
Ashkahn: We got you!
Derek: Sucker! Actually, I remember that, it was kind of a different thing. It was free floats for a year, to one lucky person and the way it kind of ran was, ran Facebook ads, ran Facebook posts and all that good stuff. And directed people towards a landing page on our website, we used WordPress and so we used a plug-in called Kingsumo and we ran a contest where people entered their email address, and then randomly one person won. And that person, there was some legal tax things we had to do; for example, if it was over, I think, 200 dollars or 600 dollars.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Derek: We thought, well of course.
Ashkahn: Free giveaway.
Derek: Free floats for a year, we basically said, how many floats do you want? Because you’re going to end up having to pay the taxes on this. I think she actually chose eight floats a month.
Ashkahn: Uh-huh.
Derek: She chose eight floats a month, we sent her a 10-99 at the end of the year on that. She, I’m assuming paid her taxes, I don’t know her life story.
Ashkahn: Well we’ll find out and put it in the show notes for you.
Derek: Oh, yeah, see if she’s evading taxes. She used all those floats, and she used them all within the year. She didn’t have too. Float-On is pretty lenient on the membership policies, but she, actually was a happy ending, in the fact that the winner of this also ran
Don’t laugh at me
Ashkahn: You’re the one that made it weird. I’m just glad it was a good
Derek: I’m getting to the end of the story.
Ashkahn: I’m just glad it wasn’t a tragic ending, you know? Then you know, one day…
Derek: She’s got scared from tanks for life.
Ashkahn: She’s floated to many times.
Derek: Turned into a primordial monkey.
She actually ran the comedy club down the road, which we did not know, but she would actually run a podcast with the comedian before they went on the show and then they would float before that, then do the podcast and then the comedian would do the show.
Ashkahn: Hey, I didn’t even know that.
Derek: I don’t want to give her a name, I mean, you could probably find her name out.
Ashkahn: That’s cool.
Derek: She used her floats for business purposes as well too.
Ashkahn: Nice.
Derek: It not only got her floating regularly, it got a whole plethora of people associated with the comedy club floating regularly. In that aspect, it worked great!
Ashkahn: Sounds like it was worth it!
Derek: Right! Rather than running a huge contest, working for one person’s case that was just happenstance in a lucky break for us, it actually worked for us in other ways. We gained about 3500 emails in that short period of time.
Ashkahn: What was the duration that we ran this?
Derek: I believe it was a month.
Ashkahn: Okay. Start to finish?
Derek: This was a few years ago, I mean, we can always go back to that post but, I believe it was a month.
Ashkahn: It was basically just a raffle?
Derek: It was not even really
Ashkahn: With peoples emails going in?
Derek: People’s emails went into this software and the software random number generator picked one person.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Derek: And that was it.
Ashkahn: It should be noted that we did make her a giant novelty Float-On gift card.
Derek: We should find that picture and put it in the show now, for sure.
Ashkahn: If someone is going to win a year of floats we should make a humongous, 3-ft, you know, poster-gift-card to hand them. Which we did, so that was hilarious.
Derek: That was great. It made great for social media afterwards to, because then we got to celebrate the winner and they got to see this great picture, so got the word of floating spread out. Even more people tuned in, ’cause who knows when we’re going to giveaway floats like that again. It got us a lot of good residual benefits.
Ashkahn: We mentioned that we had 3500 people added to our mailing list, that’s actually where the idea came from. Our goal with this wasn’t to create good social media content, or you know, obviously all these things were benefited. These were kind of a nice way of hitting all these points at once. The actual way this idea came up, was from us brainstorming ways to increase our mailing list. That was the goal that led to this idea and that was why, to enter, you’re entering our mailing list and you’re being a part of it through that purpose and at the end, we quantify that, not only because this lady who won ended up being really awesome, and that part of it lead to, kind of, random, cool, stuff that happened. Also, because we had this huge boost in our mailing list and we do, you know, we hit people through our mailing list for December, when we sell cheap gift cards.
Derek: Secret June sale.
Ashkahn: Quote and unquote, “Secret June sale” once a year, we blast out a huge sale. We do just a one-day sale, once a year. We use our mailing list as the main avenues when we do these things. To the point where we can actually sit down afterwards, and say okay, we sold this many gift cards, we have this many people on our mailing list, here’s the value of someone being on our mailing list. It’s a couple bucks, if you average it all out, we get about-
Derek: Three or four bucks a person.
Ashkahn: Something like that, per person who’s on our mailing list. So for us to increase our mailing list by 3500 people, is a very tangible thing for us.
Derek: Seven, ten, fourteen thousand extra in sales that year, that one gimmick.
Ashkahn: That’s a good way of thinking about it. Gimmick? You know, it’s a developed marketing strategy perhaps.
Derek: Campaign? Sorry. Sorry.
Strategic campaign?
Ashkahn: We did kind of a light version of this too. We had some months, where once a month we were choosing people
Derek: It doesn’t have to be a huge giveaway like that. Sometimes, we’ll just chose ten floats to giveaway, or one or ten people will win one float, or one person wins one float. These giveaways, especially if you’re able to capture their emails, if it’s something that’s a bigger prize, people are more willing to give-up their emails. If it’s a small prize, like potential to win one float, people probably aren’t going to give-up their email to win one float. Something like, win ten floats, well that’s a great deal. You have to take care of the legal ends of everything, but you know what? That person’s now going to float ten times, or share them with their friends and expose a whole bunch of new people to floating. It really does work, all around.
Ashkahn: When it gets big, it just becomes naturally more exciting.
Derek: Right.
Ashkahn: And news worthy, it’s self.
Derek: A year’s worth of floats. It’s incredible.
Ashkahn: It’s a very justified social media post, or other posts, when you’re like, hey, we are giving away a year’s worth of floats. It’s really, exciting, and it’s big enough, significant enough that it’s worth, mentioning all by itself.
Derek: I do add that, Kingsumo, WordPress plug-in gives an element where people can get extra entries for sharing with their friends. Let’s say, I entered and it says “Share your special, unique link, and for every person that signs up through your link for this contest, you’ll get three extra entries into this contest.”
It really helped incentivize the viral spreading of this contest. We did Facebook ads, we did some posts but it was really people who entered, sharing it that helped drive that.
It worked great. We probably should do it again.
Ashkahn: I guess so, yeah.
Derek: Thanks for reminding us.
Ashkahn: That’s a good a idea.
Derek: Glad somebody reminded us we had it.
Ashkahn: Alright, now, if you guys out there have other questions of things we’ve done in the past, that we kind of forgot about, that we should probably do again, you can send them to us on our website.
Derek: Floattanksolutions.com/podcast
Ashkahn: That’s right. Type it in. We’ll be here and we will answer another one of your lovely questions tomorrow.
Derek: You won’t win anything except for the satisfaction of an answer.
Ashkahn: Which truly is the greatest prize we can give.
Derek: True. Bye everybody.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Who to Trust in the Float Industry – DSP 214
The float world is a confusing place. The industry is known to disagree on construction materials, ideal float techniques or frequency, and even the benefits of using a float tank. How does anyone in the float industry know who to trust?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss why the industry often feels like it’s full of misinformation and how it compares to other industries. They also offer solid advice on how to find the best information available.
What is Chamber REST? – DSP 213
Every once in a while, during a talk that a researcher is giving, or when pouring over old data about sensory deprivation, it’s easy to come across something called “Chamber REST”. The REST part is an acronym for “Restricted Environment Stimulation Therapy”. But what is it and how does it relate to floating?
Ashkahn and Graham take the time to fill us all in on the nuances of old sensory deprivation research and how it helped influence float tank research, as well as the important differences between them.
Should People Wear Bathing Suits in Float Tank Ads? – DSP 212
Most float centers have people float naked as the day they were born, but most ads and promotional videos and stuff show floaters in bathing suits. What’s up with that? Well, obviously fully nude images on Facebook or something will probably get flagged, so how do you deal with this situation? Nude models? No?
Ashkahn and Graham break down the problem, their own frustrations with it, and how they’ve dealt with it at Float On.
Checking in on Float On’s Annual Summer Sale – DSP 211
Recently, Float On ran a big discount for the summer season. It’s become a bit of a tradition and the mailing list every year that gets this notification is really large.
In this episode, Ashkahn and Graham share the success of the sale, as well as comparing it to the previous few years. They dive into the real numbers from the shop and the impact of changing just a few words and numbers on the sale to get it to perform as best as possible.
How do Float Centers Incorporate Massage? – DSP 210
What’s the best policy for a float center that wants to add massage? Do they hire on the Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) as an employee, or do they bring them on as an independent contractor? Or what about just letting them rent a room in their business and not having to worry about it.
Dylan Calm of The Art of the Float podcast is in the studio with Ashkahn and Graham to discuss this issue, since his float center, The Float Shoppe, offers massage as well as other services, unlike Float On.
Latest Blog Posts
What Time of Year Is Ideal to Open Your Float Center?
Like most businesses, a float center will experience seasonal slumps. Be sure you’re planning to open your center at a peak time of the year. Find out the pros and cons of opening a float tank center during different times of the year.
What Happens When You Give Out 700 Free Floats?
We’re all about giving out free float sessions as a marketing strategy. However, when you give out 700 floats, there can be some concerns. Find out what happens when we set out to make Float On one of “The Top Things to do When Visiting Portland.”
Wanted… Blog Topics!
We’ve written on a large number of topics about opening / running a float tank center… BUT we want to make sure your questions are getting answered. Use this form to send us blog topics to write about.
Building a Float Business Through Blogger Outreach
Floating is great for a vast diversity of people, but it is really great for travelers. Hours sitting on a cramped plane, surrounded by stimulation, going through the dreaded airport processes, disrupted bio-clock rhythms… the list can go on. All of these things can easily be mitigated by the float experience, wiping away the tensions of travel, and leaving people energized and refreshed for the next adventure!
