The holiday season is officially upon us, which means that marketers everywhere are finalizing every last detail of their holiday ads, down to the smallest period. But you want to be better than the rest, obviously. You want your ads to be stronger, deliver better results and have a higher recall rate. Easier said than done, isn't it? Luckily there are ways to maximize your ads in a way that might not cost an arm and a leg, and be just as effective as the most extravagant, high end, advertising.
It's called customer-led social media. It's when you engage with your customers in a way that promotes them to do your bidding for you. They share, like, comment, promote, post, and tweet all for your benefit. But its not as simple as asking nicely. Effective customer-led social media requires offers to your customers that they find value in, such as a print ad that doubles as a bottle wrapper, like Glacial beer offered to their customers.
This holiday season, use these five tips for customer engagement and customer-led social media activity
- Turn Engagement Into Cash - If your business is one that participates in online purchases, than it is a top priority to make that experience as intuitive and convenient as possible. The first step businesses should take is optimizing their website, both for desktop and mobile devices. When targeting your audience, start with those who are already buying and recommending you, these will become your new brand ambassadors. By doing this, you will be optimizing the amount of positivity and trustworthiness that surrounds your brand. Consumers are much more likely to make purchasing decisions based off recommendations from those they trust.
- Leverage User-Generated Content - By utilizing content put out there already by your followers and customers, you can significantly reduce the workload for your team. Not saying you should let others do all the work, but highlighting reviews, recommendations, posts or tweets that rave about your business is a good way to spread positive brand awareness. An awesome exmple of this that some of you might have participated in is the Red Cup contest that Starbucks ran 2015 during the holday season! Read more about user-generated content in our blog, Ways to Engage Your Audience During the Holidays
- Use Video and Live-streaming - In previous blogs, we provided tips on how to use Facebook ‘Live’ for your business. Live-streaming and video and awesome ways to give your business a face and personality. this will make customers feel like they are dealing with other people and not a business. Remember, people want to do business with other people!
- Deliver Interactive Campaigns - Your most loyal customers love your brand for a reason. They recommend your brand to their friends and family and rave about you when given the chance. Give them something more to share! The Glacial print ad we mentioned previously is an excellent way to get customer engagement, ultimately building customer loyalty.
- Provide Exceptional Customer Service - This shouldn't even have to be mentioned. It should be in the forefront of all businesses. Without good customer service, there is no way to make and retain the right customers, the valuable ones. Social media makes it easier than ever to connect with your customers to provide such service.
Check out how businesses target customers through the holiday shopping season with our blog The Consumer Games, or learn more about Ways to Engage Your Audience During the Holidays.
For more tips and tricks about how to conquer this holiday season, check out this article!
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