Monthly Archives: November 2015

The easiest way to contact previous contestants.

emailYou’re gearing up for your next journalism, creative or PR contest and you’re drafting your communications announcing the competition.  Time to download the email addresses of last year’s participants so they can receive your Call for Entries and other announcements.  Perhaps you have a new contest admin so this is all taking a bit of time.  You find yourself saying “there must be an easier way.”

BetterBNC now has a Marketing Manager feature that allows your contest admin to easily email previous contest participants right from the admin dashboard.  You can quickly and easily send all of them an announcement about the upcoming contest.

The Marketing Manager feature allows you to create an email template or draft a new email.  You can contact contestants or judges.  It’s an easy way to reach everyone with announcements, reminders and even thank you email.

If you haven’t taken advantage of the Marketing Manager, let us know and we’ll sent you the easy guide or we can walk you through.  Remember, with BetterBNC, all of your training and support for the year is included with your renewal.

Can I use BetterBNC for my contest?

BetterBNC was created specifically for media and PR contests – print journalism, broadcast news, advertising, photography and public relations work.   But increasingly, we’re asked whether we can accomodate new and different types of contests being added by organizations.  We’re hearing more about film awards, video production, business achievement, and online awards programs and we’re excited to be adding these to our BetterBNC contest portfolio!

Contact BetterBNC to see if the platform is a good fit for your contest.  Our tech team will look at the process and way the contest operates to determine if our platform is your best way forward.  What delights us most about these inquiries, is that organizations are growing their awards programs by expanding and adding new contests.

Set up your complimentary BetterBNC demo today by contacting karen@smalltownpapers.com.

BetterBNC’s October News

In case you missed our October 2015 BetterBNC customer newsletter.  The content is available below.  Email karen@smalltownpapers.com if you would like to be added to our mailing list.

Welcome new & renewing customers!
Please turn in your contract documents at least 10 business days before your contest opens, or of the date you want to send out marketing notices from your Admin dashboard (see #2 below). We recommend you begin sending marketing messages three to four weeks ahead of your opening date, so don’t delay.
Be sure to check out the two new features added this year that are included in all standard contests:

  • Customized Homepage — you can select a template or use page builder to easily create your branded contest homepage.
  • Marketing Manager — allows you to email announcements, reminders and thank you’s to your contestants and judges right from the admin dashboard — including to last years’ contestants!

BetterBNC Website Refresh
The BetterBNC website has been totally refreshed with a new color scheme and smoother graphics and workflows. If you use screenshots in your contest instructions or other promotional material, you’ll want to capture the updated shots. If you need assistance, please contact the head of our tech team Cody France.
You may have noticed the new Admin Overview Chart available in “Entries.” Admins could always examine an overview of entries, but now you have a great new overview tool for entries made by Open Call contestants. It’s already in your Admin/Entries window — simply click to reveal.

Entry File Size Limits
In last month’s newsletter, we answered a customer question about BetterBNC’s 20mb file size limit for entries. The reason we don’t permit larger files to be uploaded is simply because it takes longer to download which creates a more cumbersome process for your judges, particularly if they have standard DSL.

Customers are encouraged to limit file sizes to 5mb or less, or opt to use an online e-publishing platform such as Issuu, VuDu or RealView. When contestants make entries using the e-publishing option, they enter the URL web address of the document rather than uploading. Judges are able to easily view and evaluate the entry.

Message from Realview
Realview_logoRealview has been serving the community newspaper industry around the world for the last 17 years. Started with a single community newspaper client, Realview has worked out ways to ensure community newspapers have the best e-editions and apps with the highest quality resolution on the market. We have been using HTML since we started, so our platform specializes in making sure each of our clients’ papers can be viewed across all devices.

Realview just completed a comprehensive update to their features and benefits, so BetterBNC users can now e-publish PDF files up to 250mb with the special free account (available only via the BetterBNC entry form). We look forward to continuing to support the community newspaper community, especially those entering BetterBNC contests. If you have any questions or need tech support, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Alexis Fedor – alexis@realviewdigital.com.

Easy Download of Winning Entries
We’ve seen a dramatic surge in the use of Entry Asset Manager. Contest admins are discovering the value in having all the attachments for winning entries downloaded in one highly organized zip file. If you retain your winning entries on your own server, or want to create a powerpoint visual presentation for your awards ceremony, Entry Asset Manager can increase your efficiency by gathering all assets on one place for instant download. If you would like to add the Entry Asset Manager module to your contest, contact us today.

BetterBNC Advisor Group
Our BetterBNC Advisor Group is comprised of ten contest administrators from across the country who review new features and enhancements, and provide invaluable feedback and suggestions. We love hearing feedback from all of our customers so please contact us anytime with your thoughts, ideas and comments you’ve received on the platform.