Promotions & Games to Build your Brand with XposureHUB

If you’ve been following us on Social Media you may have seen a couple of tweets and Facebook posts about The Apprentice (BBC1) Game. It’s a game we play in the office every year and over the past 5 or 6 years, we like to think we’ve perfected it.

Last year was the first time we put it online and opened it to others outside the office to join in. This year we have gone even further, with participants up 150%. We even have 1 of the current contestants signed up to play!

So how did we do it?

Putting XposureHUB automation at the heart of this process made it easy. With a bit of planning and forethought, we used it to send out pre-register invites to everyone we thought might be interested and scheduled social media posts through our various channels, and fan groups for the Apprentice Programme.

We built a landing page on our website to take the names and email addresses of anyone interested in playing, using assets from the show’s publicity to help. When the candidates were announced, we made sure we were ready, tweeting out all the juicy details for people to look at, and kept an eye out for clips and any other news we could share to drum up interest.

Then, the week before the first episode, we announced the game was ready and people could pick who they thought would be fired first, and who would win the series overall.

Using our clever marketing automation tools within XposureHUB, the players would fill in the form on our landing page, which would automatically store their choices in a Google sheet, and send a quick email out to them to confirm their choices. Players would also get a last reminder email the morning before the programme, to pick their candidate, but people had to get their favourites in before 8:00 pm – an hour before the programme aired, our website would lock down the entry form to prevent any foul play!

After the program, the scores would be totalled up in the spreadsheet and sent back through Zapier to XposureHUB against the player’s profile, so their performance could be automatically included in our little write-up email about the results. Players would get a few points for getting the losing team right and more for getting the fired candidate right, with the promise of a game-changing 25 bonus points at the end if they had also predicted the overall winner.

With the scores recorded and sent out to the players, the website, emails and social media schedule was then reset and continued the following week – with a few tweaks to how the game is played for the interviews episode and final episode. We continued to share clips and clues we found over social media and encouraged the players to follow our various channels to always have the best chance of winning the game – along with registering new players who joined in as the game was in progress.

The end of the Game

We announced the winners after the broadcast of the final episode this week, and how everybody had performed in the league table. We’d love to offer a prize, but unfortunately, Nigel keeps winning every year – somebody needs to dethrone him next year! But it’s a bit of fun that makes watching a programme that has been on TV for a long time more competitive, and it helps us keep our digital marketing skills razor-sharp.

What this means for you

Using our knowledge, experience and specialist digital marketing tools we ran a campaign for 14 weeks to promote and run our little game – all for fun.

We engaged with a particular niche of our audience and widened it to similar people to attract new people and widen our brand and appeal. In total, we have increased our email list, engaged with others on social media and created stronger bonds with existing customers. It’s a great example of how a little creative thinking and digital know-how can make a difference to a company’s brand.

XposureHUB turns a job that usually takes a few hours into a few minutes, it really is a helpful assistant (sorry Alexa – you’re fired!) Without XposureHUB we couldn’t have done this, it helps our business every single day, imagine what it can do for yours. If this sparks any ideas for your company, please let us know. We are here to help and have the experience to turn your ideas into creative digital interactions with your audience.