Featured Startup Pitch: Snaapiq’s visual contest platform is built to create better social engagement between brands and their customers

By Jacob Perler, Snaapiq co-founder and CEO

ELEVATOR PITCH

Snaapiq is the ultimate visual contest platform. For brands, we offer one seamless tool that uses native engagement to creatively connect with consumers, generate rich social content, and drive instant ROI. For consumers, we convert every day pictures into real prizes from their favorite brands. It is a win-win for both parties.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

Snaapiq is the first web and mobile platform to offer brands one seamless tool to engage consumers through visual contests and track ROI in real-time.

FOUNDERS’ STORY

Ryo (my co-founder) and I met through CoFoundersLab.com, which is a founder dating site for entrepreneurs. I had the business/strategy mindset and Ryo had the computer engineering background. After a few coffee shop meetings, Snaapiq was born. We really saw an opportunity to reward people for their every day social actions, like sharing experiences with social media.

We knew that with the incredible number of photos uploaded daily, and the value of this content for brands, we could build a platform that provided value to brands and consumers. Thus, it was our mission to create an app that rewards consumers, while building a business that drives value and engagement for brands.

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

We take multiple approaches both online and offline to gain users.

Online:

Social Media

For user acquisition, we are extremely active on social media. We regularly post our contests on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in order to encourage the broader public to download the app and participate in the contests.

Strategically Targeted Contests

Our current users are generally millennials ages 18-to-35. In order to reach this audience we have chosen contests that cater to the following segments: College students, young professionals, sports fans, fashionistas, young moms, pet owners, fitness fanatics, etc. For example, we recently partnered with a mom blog and the popular jewelry brand Alex and Ani by asking users to submit photos to 14 contests, each with a different theme, like ‘furry pets’ or ‘mother nature.’ Winners were chosen from the highest-ranked pictures in the app, as well as those that most emulated the contest description. Winners each won a free Alex and Ani bracelet. Throughout the campaign, we received over 1,500 photo submissions, with over 20,000 photo views and ratings for images submitted.

Offline:

Campus Ambassadors

Since we aren’t too far out of college and are very connected alumni/college sport enthusiasts, we know that tapping into the college and millennial audience is critical for Snaapiq’s success. In order to hit that market, we’ve created a ‘campus ambassador’ program at colleges across the U.S. These ambassadors attend sporting events, Greek life charity events and they set up various campaigns around campus. We are also working on partnering with university sports teams and other university departments to run promotions and increase fan engagement around games.

Young Entrepreneur Involvement

We are entrenched in the boom of young entrepreneur community involvement around DC and throughout the U.S. We make sure to attend young entrepreneur conferences and are members of several entrepreneurial organizations.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

We are creating a huge opportunity for brands to engage consumers and tap into the 1.8 billion photos that are uploaded daily to social platforms. Snaapiq is an app and platform that integrates visual contests and social media awareness into one tool with an already willing audience. By using our platform we remove the legal work for the brands and grant them access to real-time data, including contest analytics, behavioral trends, and customer engagement. We also distribute rewards to consumers through the app, which lead to direct sales leads. For consumers, we are simply rewarding them for an action they already take, while connecting them to their favorite brands.

DIFFERENTIATORS VS. THE COMPETITION

To our knowledge, we are the only company who has this comprehensive of a platform for visual contests, which includes both a consumer mobile app and a back-end management tool with real-time analytics surrounding contests. Other visual contest platforms include OfferPop, Wishpond, and Iconosquare, but none of these incorporate a fully-baked mobile app, and they are mostly social activity aggregators. We also post multiple contests every day that peak user interests. Not all contests need to be brand-sponsored and our users tend to love our fun contests like ‘#FashionFriday,’ ‘Smiling Selfie’ or ‘Show your sports pride.’ Our platform is completely end-to-end from strategizing overall campaign concepts and contest creation to sales lead generation and follow-up engagement. We don’t just provide our customers a plug-and-play tool, but rather we partner with them to deliver expansive campaign reach and volumes of social ROI across all platforms.

BUSINESS MODEL

Snaapiq’s business model centers around our client’s success. We reach out to brands on a monthly basis, anything from a new clothing company or popular social media business to aprofessional sports team or famous music artist. Our contests can span every vertical and we execute across numerous popular areas. Some of these brands have used our platform in beta testing and seen the major improvements we’ve made. In fact, we update our mobile app and platform based on feedback we receive from both brands and consumers.

We charge brands between $1,000 and $20,000 per campaign, based on how wide their target reach is, how successful the campaign does, and how long it runs for. We aren’t interested in one-time campaigns, but rather we look to partner with brands to integrate visual contests into their overall advertising strategy in the long-term. Our long-term goals are focused on brands using our platform regularly, which will drive significant ROI in terms of dollar spend from consumers, content creation, and social media impressions.

CURRENT NEEDS

At the moment we are not looking to hire new employees, but will begin looking at the start of the New Year. As we grow our team, we are looking for highly-motivated and talented individuals who are eager to join the startup world.

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HEADQUARTERS: Washington, DC