How to prepare for your appearance on L’œil du dragon

For 11 seasons now, the show Dans l’œil du dragon created and produced by Radio-Canada has allowed entrepreneurs to present their businesses to 4 or 5 Dragons who decide whether or not to invest in their company.

Never heard of it? Stop reading here.

On a more serious note, for the past 3 years, Jean-Philippe (co-founder of Rablab) has been having fun from home doing a live review of the different pitches presented on the show. The idea here is simply to help entrepreneurs improve their visibility, get tips and tricks and get the most out of digital. (Here is the complete Youtube playlist) 

Over the years, Rablab has worked with dozens of companies that have participated in the show and that’s why we decided to share our best tips with you

Since going on the show Dans l’oeil du dragon, it requires a lot of preparation. In fact, in April 2023, the show will return for its 12th season! This is the perfect time to give yourself a boost to maximize your experience. This represents a golden opportunity for companies that appear on this show, both for their visibility and for the potential help/investment of the dragons.

In this article, we will cover several aspects (regarding your digital marketing):

• How to prepare before the show
• The night of the show
• After you appear on the show

If you only want to have a “bullet point” style summary, check out this French Google slide we prepared for you (psst: it’s free )

How to prepare for the show

As I mentioned above, it takes a lot of time and energy to prepare for the show. It is very likely that you have already been on the show (taped) for months, and you will get the good news about a week before the show airs if you make the cut and are finally allowed to say publicly that you will be on the next show.

Web site

It sounds a little obvious, but you need to work on your site before you go on the show. Make sure these elements are at their best:

• High performance loading speed (use GT Metrix to see your speed)

• Your ability to host several hundred or even thousands of users at the same time. To do this, contact your server provider to increase your capacity. You can also add a CDN to your arsenal (here is a detailed article that explains how to do this)
  

(screenshot of a client who participated in the program)

(screenshot of a company that participated in the program in 2022)

• An optimized home page. Have a clear top of page, ideally with a photo of your show run, a call to action (CTA) button located below the waterline, direct the customer to where you want them.

(screenshot of a company that participated in the program in 2022)

• Install a Pop-up. What is a pop-up? It’s very simple, a ”pop-up” that appears either by delay or by the user’s experience by displaying a button ”forcing” the subscription to the newsletter. In 2023, your ability to have a 1st party database will help you stand out by sending mass emails and help artificial intelligence to perform well for your campaigns. On the other hand, you must offer added value to the customer by subscribing to the newsletter. Find the right message to use!

(screenshot from a company that participated in 2022)

These are a few easy-to-do tips that will help you maximize your digital reach while on the show.

Products & Bundles

There are two aspects to getting the most out of your experience:

• The availability of your products

One of the biggest frustrations for potential buyers is running into unavailable / out of stock products. Make sure you have products in stock and the ability to meet demand. If your inventory is always low, a good method, would be to add a “send me a notification when the product is back in stock” feature. For Shopify sites, you can use this application that will partially remove the friction of the customer who will want to proceed to the purchase.

• The ”bundles” / promotional kit

Another good tactic that can help you perform well is to play on the FOMO (Fear of missing out) by offering a SINGLE promotional kit for a set period of time. This will play on the urgency aspect of taking action. It is not necessary to offer a discount (it depends on your marketing angle). You can offer a “discovery” kit with your best sellers or a “bundle” with a small discount. Be creative! (here is a good example from the 2022 season)

(capture d’écran d’une entreprise qui a participé en 2022)

Tracking

Before participating in the show, setting up your tracking is very important. Well, if you are already a Rablab customer, chances are that everything is already well done, but we prefer to give you a few reminders. You should have at least :

• Facebook Pixel (with API conversion)
• GA4 (universal analytics will become useless in July 2023)
• Google Tag Manager
• Google Remarketing Tag
• Floodlight (optional – if programmatic campaigns)
• Hotjar (optional – for CRO improvement)
• Not limited to any other relevant tool (but these are the most popular)

Budget & marketing actions

The killer question: what is the ideal budget?

The answer would be: it depends! (my SEO team would be proud of me)

Ideally, having a budget that is consistent with your overall annual budget will have a significant impact on the period. Ideally, you should divide your budget in 2:

• Before the show, during the official announcement of your appearance (30% of the budget – principalement sur du remarketing et parler à votre audience qui vous connaît déjà)
• During and after the show (70% of the budget – mainly on remarketing, people who abandoned their cart, time spent on the site without purchasing, etc.)

*Your entire budget can be distributed across multiple media and channels, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

**If your brand is not very visible on Google when your name is typed in (example: Rablab) you absolutely must have a SEM campaign to buy your brand name at least and direct people to the right website the night of the show.

The evening of the show

It’s the J day!

Now it’s time to see how you look on TV

Do a final check-up in the morning.

And here are 3 things to do/not do during the day:

• Make a publication to announce that it is the famous ”D-Day” and that you pass the same evening
• DO NOT PUBLISH between the morning post and your appearance on the show. The idea is to let the organic engagement on your morning post build up. If you have a new product or great news to announce, wait until the next day!
• Be ready to respond: make sure you’re ready to respond live on all channels (online chat on the site, instagram/facebook/etc. DMs, contact form on the site, etc.).

*Bonus: if you have the personality and inclination, do a live during the show on Facebook/TikTok/Instagram of you reacting to your time on the show!

After your appearance on the show

Are you satisfied with your appearance on the show? Sales are up? You have inventory glitches?

All these options are possible after your visit and are perfectly normal. Although often ”ephemeral”, the idea is to continue to feed the new potential customers you have acquired and the new email users / social subscribers. The more present and active you are, the more you will maximize your presence on the show.

Here are 3 things to consider for the “after”:

• Respond: make a post/blog post to give your comments after the show. Allow yourself a touch of humor and/or personal touch to be accessible to your customers. Tell yourself that you are potentially talking to new people who are discovering you.
• Budget: we talked about it for the ”before the show”, but as written above, you should have about 70% of your budget after your appearance on the show distributed on different platforms and advertising campaigns. Take the advice of an expert (or Rablab ) to help you target.
• Measure: Do a before/after of your time on the DLDD program. It’s very important to see the impacts of your efforts and understand the return on investment. Whether it’s money or time, it’s important to understand what makes your business grow. And going on the show is a good example.

That’s it for me!

Good luck with your appearance on the show and I look forward to critiquing you live

JP

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