The success of your social media marketing can give you an upper hand on your competitors. If you are familiar with how social networking websites work, you must understand that these platforms are not for selling but for having a healthy relationship with your customers. Big companies would use professional social media marketing teams to come up with creative ways to engage with their audience and create a brand identity. Contests are an excellent way to not only get attention from your existing customers but to invite potential leads to do business with you too. However, it requires reasonable efforts to make a contest worth participating in for your clients. Here’s how you can do that.
- Choose the Right Type of Contest
The first thing you have to do is sift through the different kinds of contests and pick the one that you think will be most appealing to your audience. There are many different types of contests. A giveaway contest rewards customers with one of your or sponsored products. You can ask your customers to simply comment on your YouTube video or enter their email addresses on your website. You can even run a referral scheme where you reward the customer for referring another customer. Of course, you will have to reward the other customer for doing business with you too.
- Choose a Reward That Matters
In addition to running an exciting contest, you also have to reward your customers with the right item. First, you want to keep the item relevant to your industry. If you sell sports items, you might want to give away a racket or bat with a famous player’s signatures on it. Now, one important thing to know here is that your goal defines the type of item you will reward your customers. If you want your contest to contribute to your brand’s promotion, you would want to give away something that has your branding on it.
Maybe you could have special t-shirts printed with your brand’s logo for the reward. You will have to come up with a creative idea to make the t-shirts attractive because people won’t be willing to wear a t-shirt with just your company’s logo on it.
- Create Urgency
One of the things that make people go for a contest is the sense of urgency. You want to make it clear to them that your contest is going to run only for a few days. In fact, you can start a countdown timer right on the page or your mobile application that tells your customers when the contest is about to come to an end. However, you also want to keep things simple for the customers. Do not ask for too much. Let them be a part of the contest with easy steps, e.g., by commenting or leaving a like on your video, etc.
- Show What Your Prize Looks Like
You might not realize, but a picture of the prize can make a huge difference. For example, if you are rewarding the customers with the latest smartphone, it would be best to show the picture of that smartphone. In fact, if you are running the contest through a video, showcase the prize and entice people to get it. Sometimes, it is not your words but the picture of the prize that can make people take part in the contest. To take your marketing to the next level, ask your customers to provide you with their names and email addresses right underneath the picture of the prize. You will be surprised at the elevated conversion rate using this tactic.