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With over 3.2 billions of users, social media have become one of the most efficient ways to connect with new and existing customers, increase your traffic and exposure, and ultimately driving your sales leads. An integral part of many businesses’ marketing efforts, social media allows your brand to interact with its customers and you to build a loyal and engaged audience.
But here’s the catch though, having a big social media audience is not the same as having an engaged audience. This is where contests and giveaways come to the rescue. They thrill the followers of a brand, trigger sharing and stimulate the audience to talk about the giveaway, inciting the much-needed mouth-to-mouth marketing aspect.
The basics of a giveaway are simple. Something of value is given to the brand’s followers, and in return, their engagement with that brands rises, whatever the social media platform in question is. In the end, attracting sharing, links, and attention from the target audience are all important for any good SEO effort.
The right budget and goals
Before trying to raise likes with a contest, develop S.M.A.R.T goals for the KPIs involved. That is, the goal’s nature needs to be: Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Relevant and Time-Restricted. There are different types of goals you can achieve with a contest:
- User feedback gathering
- Converting follows into leads
- Converting leads into sales
- Raising brand awareness
- Boosting engagement
- New product or service promotion
- Collection of user-generated content
- Collection of user feedback
- Better knowledge about customers through surveys
Having multiple goals is great, but focusing on one or two will achieve better results. If your contest is too detailed and not simple to enter, the engagement will be low. When talking about the budget, take into account the cost of promotion, the prize and the services required. Think in terms of ROI and brand awareness, and whether they are worth the cost.
The right audience
Today’s customers are a doubtful, tech-savvy bunch. Developing your marketing strategy involves understanding your buyers’ persona. Half of the people on social media interact with brands on a monthly basis, but the audience prefers brands that have something of value to offer.
As such, it is crucial to watch out for the characteristics of your target audience and keep your posts relevant to their behaviors and interests. With a clear concept of what your buyers’ persona is, your giveaways can offer more relevance to them.
Ask yourself these questions when defining your target audience. What is their educational and professional background? What challenges and problems do they face in their everyday life? What demographics are involved? What is their age, income and living conditions? What goals drive them? What are their hobbies, interests, and goals? What are their biggest fears?
The right prize
Using a prize that is relevant to your brand and resonates with your audience is a basic premise of a successful giveaway. The price must also be of value and use to the modern consumers. For example, giving away personalized note pads with your brand logo on them offers something that the audience can benefit from while simultaneously increasing your brand exposure. Or try offering your own products and services as a prize to better showcase them in the future.
Offering something out of the ordinary that represents your brand flair will attract your target audience and create a great customer experience. Remember, exciting prizes create exciting giveaways.
The right promotion
Use the platform you have chosen to start your contest. Let it be thrilling. The description needs to be short and needs to talk about the luxury or rarity of the prize offered. Keep the contest simple so the customers won’t have a hard time understanding the contest, on the whole, the requirements for entering, the terms and conditions and the prizes involved.
Although it is possible for entries to increase the scope of the campaign organically, paid promotions can help here since they can increase conversion rates cheaply. Every new entry to the contest is a possible new customer. When there is one person engaged, there is always the potential for more engagement.
People will enter the contest and even share it with others. This way, you’ll receive a lot of new followers and an audience interested in what you have to offer. In the end, the giveaway can not only increase your leads list and number of followers but also increase the engagement with your brand across social media platforms. Just be sure to interact with people who have entered your giveaway or have submitted their own content and have shared it on your platforms.
The task to increase engagement requires constant efforts. Understanding your audience and interacting with them need to be done on a daily basis. Ultimately, remember to analyze the results of your giveaway. Did you generate and communicate the right ROI? Have you achieved the results you were hoping for? If not, why didn’t you achieve them? Analyze everything and use this knowledge when planning your future contests and giveaways.
