Summary of my “eBook” – A Social Marketing Approach That Works – UGC Contests, Sweepstakes, Promotions!

Summary “eBook” – A Social Marketing Approach That Works – UGC Contests, Sweepstakes, Promotions!

A friend recently told me he enjoyed my “eBook”, Eight Secrets To Getting Off To A Great Start With Social Media Promotions!, and he used concepts from the “eBook” as his guide for creating a contest for a nutritional beverage he recently introduced. He said the information was useful but my “eBook” was a little long.

OK! I get it! So here is the summary I wrote for my “eBook” post, http://leonardscales.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/a-social-media-marketing-approach-that-works/. If you like more details please relax, grab a nutritional beverage and read the post. You’ll only need about 10 minutes! Oh, by the way, UGC stand for User Generated Content.

I’ll refer to contest, sweepstakes, and promotions as promotions or online promotions going forward.

If you’re involved with brand marketing or B2B partner rewards, I’d urge you to read the “eBook”. Online promotions can produce outstanding brand awareness; active relevant engagement between you, your target audience, and your brand; produce two-way communications with your target audience; and produce sales conversions. B2C and B2B online promotions are fun to execute can be very cost effective to deliver, and offer solid returns on your investments of time and money.

Here’s my “eBook” summary:

1. Plan your online promotion: Just as you plan other marketing, activities plan your online promotion. What are your goals for the program? Who is your target audience? What channels or mix of social channels and tools best support your program? What’s the best method for creating active engagements, two-way communications, sales…? Is my goal to increase sales? Am I possibly interested in building a brand specific social commerce network? What media will I need? Decide how to structure your program to achieve your goals. Much of this has to do with your activation idea. You’re only limited by your imagination and budget. Brainstorm your ideas and plans with your social media promotions partner.  A good social media promotions partner can help with all aspects of your program. They can help with the activation idea, the goal setting, the rules that will help protect your brand, with user security, with fraud detection, moderation… All of these aspects are important to consider and will help to assure a good experience for you, your brand, and your promotion participants. Your partner will help you bring these elements into clear focus. And remember; where possible integrate your promotion with your marketing calendar. You’ll extend the value of all of your programs. Take a look at, http://leonardscales.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/integrate-social-media-across-all-marketing-initiatives/.

2.  Develop a fun program activation idea:  The activation idea is the driving creative engine behind your promotion. Make it fun, engaging, and thoroughly relevant to your target audience. Actually, the activation idea is one of the most important elements of a successful social media promotion. The activation idea and goals of the program will lead to the prize you’ll be offering.
3.  Prize – relevant and desirable for your target audience:  Your prize need not be extravagant, but it must be relevant and desirable. If you have celebrity relationships, perhaps a day with a celebrity. If you produce sporting events, perhaps offer a guest reporting, tweeting, and blogging position for a high-profile event. If you are a consumer brand perhaps reward the winner with a six month or annual supply. If you produce athletic gear, suit them up! If you are a brand that’s interested in friends and family – select a prize for the family to enjoy.
4. Simple entry – easy to invite participation: Entering and participating with your promotion must be easy and simple. Entry can be at your website, your brand site, a web ad, Facebook… But no matter where entry is made it should only require a few clicks for users to register and invite their friends and family to participate. Uploading photos, videos, text… must be simple. Your contest rules let participant know the lengths and formats required.
5. 30-90 days is about right:  Most programs run for about 60 days. This seems to be enough time to create urgency and get the buzz out. Keep the site active after the winner is selected to capture and participate in conversations with users.
6. Analytics?:  Of course! Measure the number of participants and from where they began their participation with you, number of entries, where contest notifications (ads) were placed and their effectiveness, did Twitter work?, did email work?, was mobile access useful?, did your YouTube postings gain interest and did they generate comments and program participation. It’s important that you establish analytics before your program begins so the frequency and impact of your touches are captured. Review your analytics and plan your next program to produce an even better result! Review your objectives and see where you netted out. What did your brand learn? What program elements would you include in your next program? What program elements would you eliminate? What worked especially well? Did some element fail to perform as expected? Was your social media promotions partner on it! Did their platform perform as promised? Was their creative environment flexible or was it cookie-cutter and incomplete after-all.
7. Online promotions have flexibility: If you have selected a contest partner who has developed their software using a platform, making course corrections should not be a major problem. You should be able make tweaks to your promotion and the supporting tools you use – Twitter, Facebook…
8. Promote the winner:  When you announce the winner please remember to inform the participants of their future progress. If a contestant wins a chance to be a brand spokesperson, let the participants know what happened and that person’s experience in their own words. Let them know what continues to happen with their career. Keep your participants involved with you and your brand. Remember, it’s about the people.
9. Promote your program!: It’s absolutely critical to promote your program! If you make media buys include mentions of your online promotion where it’s reasonable to do so. Promote the fun of participating in your promotion and discuss the rewards. Promoting your program is essential. Know how you will do this before your program launches. Just building it is no guarantee they will come and participate. Many brands have email lists of consumers who purchase with them. This is a great place to begin promoting your program.

I’ve worked with brands that were skeptical when they delivered their first online promotion. After a review of the post promotion analytics, they became true converts and evangelists! In several cases these skeptics are delivering one promotion per quarter and are in the process of developing digital communities for specific brands.

Please don’t say this summary is too long!

Advertisement

« Selling Software as a Service (SaaS) – A Start-up or Early Stage Company Perspective