“And the winner is…” – Check out how this T-shirt brand expanded its online community and grew its email list! [Thursdays: FYO!]
With nearly 3 billion active monthly users, Facebook is the biggest and most popular social media platform in the world.
… and while not everyone is on Facebook, it is still a valuable channel that will help you achieve your business goals.
So, whether you’re in B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to clients), you should leverage this social media platform to market your brand.
One of the marketing strategies you can employ on Facebook?
Facebook Contests!
Facebook contests have been around for some time now and they’re one of the best methods to grow your customer base and boost your brand’s engagement rates online.
Here are 3 reasons why you should consider setting up a Facebook contest for your business:
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It expands your brand’s reach.
One of the significant benefits you’ll get from Facebook contests is extended audience reach.
When you create a contest that your target market positively engages with, your brand has higher chances of reaching a wider network due to likes, shares, comments, and tags.
With that extended reach also comes the added benefit of gaining more followers on your brand’s Facebook page!
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It increases brand awareness.
Another reason why you should incorporate Facebook contests in your social media strategy is they help increase awareness about your brand.
Whether you’re promoting your contest organically or through paid promotions, one thing is certain: You’ll be able to reach more online users and compel them to interact with your business!
Because of that, more consumers will learn about your brand.
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It boosts your customer engagement rates.
Facebook contests have a higher engagement rate for a simple reason:
They’re a form of fun interactive content on the social media platform!
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 66% of marketers saw an increase in their brand’s engagement rates after creating interactive content in their campaigns.
… and with more online users preferring interactive content over static content, there’s no doubt that Facebook contests will help you connect with your target market!
Creating an Effective Facebook Contest
Not all Facebook contests have the same objectives.
As a business owner or marketer, you should know how to create one that your target market will participate in, as well as when it’s appropriate to conduct a Facebook contest.
Knowing those details is essential to the success of your marketing strategy.
Below are a few pointers to guide you:
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Identify your goals and how you can measure results. The first step to creating an effective Facebook contest is to define your business goal. It could be:
– Increasing awareness about your brand – Crowdsourcing product development – Building an email list … and many more.
This step is important because it will help you design the most appropriate Facebook contest and know which key performance indicators (KPIs) you should use to measure the success of your campaign.
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Select the type of contest you want to run. There are 3 main types of contests that you can run on Facebook:
– Giveaways (These involve giving away a prize to lucky participants who enter the contest.) – Photo Contests (These are an excellent way of driving engagement and collecting user-generated content for your other marketing efforts.) – Referral Promotions (This type of contest requires more work but it’s one of the best ways to generate leads for your brand. Here, participants have to share your contest with their friends for a chance to win prizes.) Keep in mind that to run an effective Facebook contest, you have to understand your target market to create the right content.
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Choose the right prize. One of the important pillars of an effective Facebook contest is the prize you’re offering. This could be:
– Personalized prizes (Your offer must be something your target market is interested in.) – Product-related prizes (Your reward must be tied to your core business.) – Pain point-specific prizes (Your offer is designed to address one of your target market’s pain points.) Choosing the right prize for your contest is crucial to ensuring higher engagement rates. Otherwise, Facebook users won’t find your contest appealing and they won’t be interested in winning.
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Promote your contest. Some Facebook contest promotion tips you can employ include:
– Creating paid ads. – Sharing your contest on your email list. – Spreading the word about your contest on other social media channels. When your contest is right in front of your target market through promotions, you can expect high participation rates.
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Announce the winner and follow up after the contest. You have 2 options in choosing a winner:
– Randomly picking a name. – Selecting the best candidate based on the criteria you set for your Facebook contest. Once you’ve chosen a winner, announce it on your brand’s Facebook page and other online channels you promoted your contest on. It would even be better if you could make it a Facebook Live event!
After the contest, make sure you have a follow-up strategy. This is so you can nurture good business relationships with those who participated in your contest and eventually turn them into your brand’s loyal customers!
QWERTEE
Qwertee is a small Irish business that sells cool, funny, and graphic T-shirts.
In 2013, the brand ran a Facebook contest where entrants simply had to like QWERTEE’s Facebook page, share the link of the contest with their friends, and submit their email addresses for a chance to win awesome prizes.
The contest ran for the whole month of April (with a different batch of winners per week) to help the brand reach its goal of getting 100,000 online users to like its Facebook page.
QWERTEE randomly picked winners for the contest. The grand prize winner received 30 free tees from the brand; the second prize winner got a box equivalent to 300 packs of Haribo sweets and 5 free tees; and the third to fifth prize winners each won 5 free tees of their choice.
That’s a lot of free tee giveaways!
Through the Facebook contest, QWERTEE not only achieved gaining 100,000 new followers―the brand even exceeded its goal, recording over 200,000 new followers for its Facebook page!
Aside from that, the brand grew its email list due to the email addresses submitted by the participants of the contest.
That’s another way to promote QWERTEE’s products―through email marketing!
As of now, the brand has more than 500,000 followers on its Facebook page.
See? With the right type of Facebook contest suited to its target market, QWERTEE was able to attract motivated fans on the social media platform.
If you’re looking for interactive content that will help you grow your customer base and boost your brand’s engagement rates, then you should consider running a Facebook contest.
With benefits like lead generation, boost in sales, and so much more, adding this tactic to your online marketing strategy is definitely a good move.
Start planning your brand’s Facebook contest now (if you haven’t tried yet)!
Use this marketing strategy to interact with your target market and help them to easily find your brand online!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Thursdays: FYO! Find You Optimization”
Why should you stop thinking SEO and start thinking FYO?
We’re not saying that you should abandon Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Don’t get us wrong, of course, we know this is something very important, especially in today’s digital marketing age.
The internet landscape is vast, and a world of its own. You really need to distinguish yourself and make your brand/company/website known and easily searchable.
Better yet, get to the top of page one for Top Results on Google or any other search engine.
However, what is the purpose of SEO? It’s that customers Find You!
That’s what matters. So, while SEO is one factor of FYO… it really is only one, and we ought not to abandon all the myriad of ways digitally and offline for improving your FYO.
How can we look at this from a different and better perspective?
Let’s say you have it in the bag! You and your team are experts in SEO. Awesome. But did you ever wonder what else you could do to push it further and give your SEO skills a boost?
FYO! Find You Optimization!
You need your target audience to FIND YOU—your brand, product, service, or offer. This is SEO plus other tools that increase visibility online (and offline).
Every Thursday, we publish content on how you can get your target market to find you, beyond the typical “type and search.” There are other things you can do along with your SEO to give your online advertising process a boost.
Try considering other tactics beyond it—WOMO (Word Of Mouth Optimization), RO (Referral Optimization), and “All-Other-Means-Of-Getting-Your-Target-Market-To-Find-You” Optimization (AOMOGYTMTFY, if you’d like a long acronym).
Part of a great marketing strategy is knowing how to adapt new methods and make use of different types of marketing and promotion that best fit your business goals and which give you the results you want.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Thursday’s FYO!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
Powered by Valens Research
www.valens-research.com
