How to Use Social Media to Enhance Promotional Marketing
Promotional Marketing consists of any advertising technique that generates new leads or entices a buyer to purchase by giving the prospect one thing for nothing. Examples embrace P for B coupons, samples of product, and contests with priceless prizes that anybody can win.
This type of advertising could be a highly effective gross sales device, however even probably the most artistic promotions is usually a combined bag on the subject of precise measurable outcomes. That is the place social media is available in to broaden a promotions attain, generate curiosity in an organization, and ship actual outcomes.
Begin a social media promo marketing campaign the identical means any promotional marketing campaign ought to be began. Have a measurable objective, whether or not it’s to generate a brand new lead listing, construct the general buyer base, attain a brand new area, or introduce a brand new product to the general public. Once the objective is established, outline who the audience is and determine on the kind of promotion based mostly on what appeals most to that demographic. For instance, coupons have confirmed to be hottest with ladies over the age of 35. For excessive finances promotions the place lots is at stake, think about using a service like Quantcast to tug demographic information from current converts. Next, arrange the promotion to focus on both extra of the identical sort of buyer or a beforehand unreached viewers. Time your promotion to precede an enormous business commerce present or the launch of a brand new firm web site function for much more influence.
Once the kind of promotion and audience is established, it’s time to market it utilizing social media. If the corporate does not have already got a Facebook fan web page, set one up and add the “Promotions” software to it.
This app works nice for coupons, however can be utilized for a lot of forms of sweepstakes and contests as properly. If the competition has a selected begin and finish time (which it ought to) add it to the occasions tab on the corporate Facebook web page. Also publish the principles and details about the promotion on the Facebook web page’s wall. Remember that posts with photographs hooked up all the time generate extra shares than textual content posts. The concept is to canvas the promotion in as many locations on Facebook as potential with every web page and tab revealing some new details about the corporate.
Twitter is one other social media software that may help in promotional advertising. The micro-running a blog platform of twitter makes it good for making promotional bulletins. First ask contestants to comply with the corporate twitter web page. Consider posting contest clues, promo codes, or different useful details about the promotion solely on twitter. This will give individuals extra incentive to comply with the corporate on each twitter and fb.
One firm who has mastered the artwork of utilizing social media for promotional advertising is Raven, an web advertising firm that makes a speciality of search engine optimisation instruments. They have run two profitable promotional scavenger hunts referred to as RavenHunt the place gamers decide up clues on Raven’s Facebook web page and thru twitter direct messages (an individual needs to be a follower to obtain a DM) to hunt for hidden letters on Raven’s webpages, blogs, and referring websites. At the top of the week, the letters may be unscrambled to type a secret message. The first individual to ship Raven the right message wins a prize (RavenHunt II’s first place winner obtained an ipad.) This promotion was sensible as a result of it not solely gained Raven lots of of latest followers on Facebook and twitter, however it educated an individual about their firm’s providers whereas the sport was being performed.
If a promotion has worthwhile prizes and an excellent idea, individuals will invite others to take part by way of twitter posts, Facebook shares, diggs, and different social media interplay. Remember that each time a promotion is shared from one individual to a different, the corporate that created it’s getting free promoting. One method to encourage mass sharing is to create a twitter-pleasant phrase concerning the promotion (lower than one hundred forty characters) that folks can “retweet” to their followers. For instance, each time somebody discovered a clue throughout RavenHunt they have been informed to tweet a message like, “@RavenTools I discovered the clue, ship me the subsequent one, I need to win a free ipad!” When different individuals noticed these messages they visited Raven’s twitter web page out of curiosity and lots of of them ended up enjoying the sport and following Raven as nicely.
It used to take weeks or months for phrase of mouth to assist a promotion’s reputation, now with social media instruments like Facebook and twitter, critical buzz could be generated in numerous hours.
As a remaining tip, ensure to incorporate some sort of “choose-in” type on the corporate’s web site as a part of the promotion. Have a easy field asking individuals if it will be okay for the corporate to tell them about future promotions and particular presents. Do the identical for brand spanking new Facebook followers by sending them a message thanking them for his or her participation and asking if it might be okay to remain in contact. With their permission, these people could be added to the corporate’s e-mail advertising listing and can doubtless stay subscribers lengthy after the promotion has ended.
