A few years ago, when Voto co-founders Ange Paye and Kajal Dattani attended a concert in Vancouver, the artist didn’t play Paye’s favourite song.
Paye and Dattani thought there must be a way to allow fans to engage and participate in the events they attend, especially given what they paid for tickets and to get to the venue.
That’s when they launched the first version of an app – at that time called Concervo – that would allow attendees to contribute to the makeup of the show. Then Covid hit.
“There were no concerts, so we decided to do a bit of a business pivot and accommodate any type of business,” said Dattani.
“We understood it to be pretty industry agnostic, and so we tried to test it out in different verticals and that’s how we ended up with Voto.”
Voto is a platform that supports customer engagement for social good. Dattani said they’ve taken the idea of voting for a favourite Doritos flavour and combined it with the social good of TOMS shoes, to come up with a new way to keep clients engaged and doing good in their city.
Dattani said the different calls to action help guide a client through their customer journey while incentivizing them with charitable giving along the way.
“The best part is that after your user completes the vote, you can also then attach a different call to action, like if you want them to join your newsletter, or if you want them to pre-order a packaged good, or if you want them to book a call back,” she said.
From business profile to campaign
Once a client signs up and creates a business profile, they’ll have access to a dashboard that allows them to build and track their campaigns.
According to Dattani, they can ask any question they want, they can assign a charity and how much they want to donate, and even how many people they want to engage with.
“Eventually, we have plans to become omni-channel and so they can directly post that onto their social media or email campaigns as well,” said Dattani.
Dattani said that after the first 11 campaigns they’d run the year prior they’ve averaged a conversion rate of 25 per cent.
“The average conversion rates in the industry is three-to-five per cent, specifically with contact forms,” she said.
Dattani said the Voto option is a great way for audiences and local businesses to give back.
“One thing that I personally believe in is that businesses do have a responsibility to give back to the communities that they operate in,” she said.
“We give them an opportunity to do that in a really collaborative and fun way that still has an impact on their bottom line.”
Tons of questions
Dattani has worked in sales, human resources and employee relations. She’s also spent time in developing channel partnerships, and in stakeholder relations.
The Alberta Catalyzer – Velocity program has helped solidify the business side of Voto.
Dattani said that she’s had a ton of questions on basic business-building things – everything from creating and investor pitch to creating systems that allow you to scale up.
“It’s just endless, the amount of support and resources that they have to offer,” she said.
“As someone who is very unfamiliar with this arena, it’s just, it’s like a blessing.”
Big picture, Dattani said they’d like to see every piece of interaction or engagement on the internet come with a charitable trigger. They’d like to see those donation triggers on their clients’ website, in their apps and on their media feeds.
Instead of being solely app based, Dattani said they’d like to “white label” the idea so their clients can have autonomy to create their own campaigns.
They just track how everything rolls out.
“We’re still holding them accountable, and almost that validation process to make sure that the donations are being processed and they’re actually participating and giving back to their community and those types of things,” Dattani said.
Right now they’re still in beta with their self-serve app.
