The 3rd Jaftex Facebook Live Video Challenge Is A Charm!

A Shop Tour Challenge for Quilt Shop Owners

Instructions & Rules

WHO: This challenge is for quilt shop owners worldwide. Anyone selling Jaftex fabric can submit a video as long as they have meaningful fabric stuff to show and share. You must be a Jaftex direct customer or an international customer of one of our distributors.   

WHAT:  This is a challenge for you to create a video tour of your shop that you will share on your Facebook page and I will share on my Facebook page:  @JaftexPresident.                         

WHY: This will be your chance to show off your business, develop your video skills and entice new customers to visit and buy from you. It’s your chance to show off.

WHEN: August 1, 2020 to August 30, 2020. (No tours will be posted on my Facebook page until Aug. 1, 2020). The video you make must be this year’s video and not posted prior to July 29, 2020.  You can make your video sooner and have it ready to post, but all videos need to start with zero views. We will start sharing the videos we receive on August 1st. We will post the videos in the order that they are received. 

HOW:  Videotape a Facebook (FB) live tour of your shop or pre-record a video tour of your shop or online store. (Keep in mind that Facebook live videos get more attention than pre-recorded videos). Then, post it to your shop’s Facebook page! THEN (this is a new requirement so read carefully) SHARE your posted Facebook video link in an email to Jennifer@jaftex.com. After two years of experience, we have determined that this is the only way that we can fairly repost videos in the order that they were received. The sooner you get your video in, the more time you have to get the most VIEWS needed to win.  To be clear, we will only be measuring FACEBOOK views.

To WIN: Get the most total Facebook VIEWS!    

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Video Suggestions & Advice In No Particular Order

Videos should be no more than 10 minutes. Consider a timer or have someone help you to stay on track. Keep in mind that less is more sometimes.

Make sure to introduce yourself. It is important to mention your store address, phone number, website address and nearby highways or landmarks.  Do that at least once in the beginning and once at the end.  Make it easy for people to find you.  I also like to start the videos showing signage with daily hours as I enter the front door of the shop.

Try to move the camera around slowly so as not to make everyone motion sick. Consider a selfie stick or other apparatus.

Speak clearly, slowly and loud enough for everyone to hear.

Make sure your internet and Wi-Fi connections are strong in all areas where you will be taping. You do not want the video to go off in the middle. If it does go off, I suggest regrouping and starting again. You can still select not to post the video even though it was live. In either case, just stay calm as the world isn’t perfect.

Make sure you have strong lighting.

Consider setting up an event on Facebook to let people know that you are doing the video so they can comment and provide encouragement. Don’t get distracted by the live comments as you can always answer questions after the video.

Get rid of all the extraneous noise like music in the store and loud air conditioners. If you have a mic, use it.

You can consider creating the video when the store is quiet like in the early am or the evening.

Do a test run so you know where you are going to stand during the video as you move around the shop. Consider standing in strategic spots that will allow for you to show signage and other important things in the background. Keep in mind that you want to make all efforts to keep your viewers interested at all times so it’s all about constant visual stimulation.

Consider tidying up your shop or making special displays for your video. Be creative with signage as signage is effective.  Keep signage concise so it can be read quickly and remembered.

When making your video, focus on 3-5 highlights that make your shop and/or you special.  These will help to keep your video on track and focused.  Use those highlights to pace you.

Offer a special sale item, a price discount or sales event that has an expiration date, no longer than 30 days would work best.  This will help to show you that it is possible to sell by using video, but make sure that it is a legitimately enticing offer and make sure you have enough inventory to support the offer if it gets hot.  Regardless of whether you win the contest or not, you might as well try to sell some products. 

Feature your clubs, your classes, special tools or patterns you created, an event you have coming up, a book you may have written or other features that help to make your shop and you special…… because it is special and you are special. Don’t forget that!

FOR ONLINE SHOPS: You can show us your website front page, you can do a quick navigation of what products you have, you can show us your inventory, you can show us your packing process or maybe how quickly and efficiently you ship orders. 

The video will need to feature as many Jaftex Fabrics as possible (Blank Quilting, FreeSpirit Fabrics, Henry Glass Fabrics, StudioE Fabrics, 3 Wishes Fabrics or A.E. Nathan Co., Inc.)  You could also include other company fabrics and products that we distribute (Stof Fabrics Of Denmark, Oasis Fabrics, Sykel, Hotfix Adhesive or Air-lite Batting.)

After you post your video, be sure to engage with all the people that comment or respond to your post.  This is a great opportunity to answer questions and tell people more about things you may have missed or not gone into great detail about on the video.  It’s also a good time to share photos of things in your shop in detail that are asked about i.e. a recent customer wanted to see more of the cat fabrics so the shop owner took a still photo and posted that in reply. Also, since the video was live, if you misspoke, you can correct yourself in the comments.

Try to include a charitable component in your video i.e. talk about the charities that your local customers are involved with and how you facilitate charitable giving or do your own charitable giving.

HAVE FUN & DON’T STRESS!

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Winners & Prizes

The winner will be the ONE shop with the most VIEWS attained as of 8 pm eastern standard time on Monday August 30, 2020.  Therefore, it would be in your best interests to get as many of your fans and followers involved. No previous winner can win again.

Last year the winner, Stitchin’ Heaven Quilt Shop, posted their video 5 days in so they had all month to get views! Just sayin’. The year before, The Old Country Store won.

Grand prize:  Your prize is that you just awesomely promoted your shop and you also did an amazing Facebook live post that shows off your amazing and unique quilt shop….and Jaftex fabrics. 

Wait! Seriously! Did you think I wouldn’t have some good prizes?

The winner gets me….if they want me (and the Covid-19 world is safe again by my determination). Yup, me!  I will come to your shop at an agreed upon date.  When I visit, we can do another video if you wish to promote your shop even further.  I am also willing to speak at an event that you host or arrange for your customers.  I am open to anything within reason and some unreasonable things too.  And of course, there will be a fabric component where I give you a bunch of free fabric… something that you won’t be upset about…I promise.  All prizes and traveling etc. will be at my expense.

In this year’s contest I have sweetened the deal for the grand prize. I am also offering a $1250 Jaftex fabric credit.  Just in case the Covid-19 world of 2020 prohibits my travels, you will at least have some cold hard fabric credit to take to the bank…..just for taping a video! 

There will also be runner up awards of Jaftex fabric credits for future purchases:

2nd place is $1000

3rd place is $750

4th place is $500

5th place is $250.

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The fine print….

It’s year three, so I will repeat this again, but if you know me you know this: I will make all the final decisions as this is my contest.  I reserve the right to make any executive decisions needed to make this run smoothly and be finished according to the determined time frame.  If participants don’t behave like adults, they will be disqualified.  I don’t have time for nonsense or drama.  If there is a tie, there will have to be a tie-breaker that I will come up with at that time.

You must be a Jaftex direct or international customer who purchased Jaftex fabric from a direct sales rep, on one of our websites or from one of our international distributors within the last year. If you purchase our products through a domestic distributor, thank you, but you will unfortunately not be eligible for this challenge. It wouldn’t make sense to award prizes to people that don’t buy from us directly.  You must be in good financial standing with all Jaftex Companies to win….so please get those old bills cleaned up asap.

You need to make sure that you meet all the criteria from above because when I see who gets the most views, I will make sure all these criteria were met.  If all the criteria are not satisfied, I will then pick the next contestant with the most views who meets all the criteria.

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Got Questions?

All questions must be posted in the comments section of this blog, the Facebook post that this blog is posted in on my business Facebook page (@JaftexPresident) or on the Jaftex Private Retailer Facebook Group.  I will answer all questions within a day or two.  All questions will be answered in the location where they are asked so everyone can see the questions and answers. These directions are pretty concise, if you ask me, so I don’t anticipate too many questions and beg you to think long and hard before asking one. 

Do not email me or call me personally or anyone else in my organization about this contest or you will be disqualified. All aspects of the contest need to remain on Facebook as much as possible and all issues need to be addressed by me only.

Again, I need to keep this simple.

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Good Luck!

Good luck to all!  Thank you in advance for participating and being willing to try something a little different and outside of the proverbial box.  In my opinion, this will be a huge win for all of us, the industry and consumers alike. I ask you all to spread the word about the contest so we can make it bigger than ever.  I am truly excited for all of you and I can’t wait to watch the videos.  Let’s do this!  Take three! If you are a winner, we will issue a 1099 for your winning prize amounts.