Quick-to-market incentives help brands be in the moment with their loyal customers.
These incentivized engagement solutions often coincide with specific current events or special brand occasions.
Incentive-based programs such as sweepstakes, UGC contests, rebates and loyalty programs deepen and expand customer relationships with mutual value for both consumers and brands.
They also target goals such as customer acquisition, sales lift, customer brand advocacy and customer insights.
Incentives drive interaction. Consider 81% of consumers say they’re more likely to engage with a brand if it offers an incentive. They’re great tools for acquiring key consumer data for your brand.
In fact, in exchange for supplying brands with personal data, most consumers expect an incentive, including discounts (89%), product rebates (64%) and contests or sweepstakes (52%).
Typically, quick-to-market incentives can be built in less than a month and they are usually only live for a short period (30-45 days) to spark sales and generate brand awareness.
Here are 6 types of quick-to-market incentives that can help your brand.
1. Running a Sweepstakes is a Great Way to Collect Customer Data
A sweepstakes is a type of contest where a prize or prizes may be awarded to a winner or winners. It is used as marketing incentives to reward existing consumers and draw attention to a product.
A sweepstakes captures consumer attention, drives brand engagement and increases customer acquisition with a chance-to-win solution that can also include the ability for winners to pick their prizes.
Sweepstakes remain one of the most popular ways to collect valuable first-party data and opt-ins because of their versatility. While the construct is constant – entrants register for a chance to win, with one winner or winners selected at random either throughout or at the end of the incentive period – these programs can be tailored to meet a variety of marketing objectives and incentive requirements.
A good example is The Home Edit on the Reset 2021 sweepstakes in collaboration with Honeysuckle White and Shady Brook Farms. Entrants had the chance to win a virtual consultation from The Home Edit.
Sweepstakes prizes included:
- A virtual session with Clea and Joanna of The Home Edit.
- A $2,500 gift card to The Container Store to help incorporate the kitchen reset plan.
- $75 worth of turkey products to reset and start making healthy habits a reality.
2. A User-Generated Content Sweepstakes Extends Brand Conversations
No other consideration is permitted and the winner is selected at random.
Consumers create user-generated content (text, videos, reviews, images) when they share their original content on social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and/or by uploading their submissions on a contest site.
User-Generated Content is quite valuable to brands because it’s a current stream of content created by loyal consumers. Social media users know what is relevant and you’re accessing these insights by asking them to use a specific hashtag or to submit it through an entry page.
UGC Sweepstakes help a brand’s lead generation and audience development, as well as:
- Attract new business
- Increase traffic to your website
- Let your best customers work for you
- Spark interest from your social media users
- Drive sales
- Generate buzz about your brand
User-Generated Content extends brand conversations to consumers, allowing participants to create and share original content through online engagements or social media networks.
3. UGC Contests Are Powerful Marketing Tools to Activate Your Customer Base
When brand enthusiasts create and share their authentic content, you extend the reach of marketing campaigns, engage social followers more organically and positively influence consumer purchase decisions.
For example, you may require people to upload a photo or video to enter but have the winner determined by voting or other judging criteria. The element of chance does not exist in a contest.
In exchange for sharing their original content across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and/or by uploading their submissions on a contest site, entrants earn chances to win prizes or earn rewards.
Participants can elevate your UGC contest when incentivized to invite friends and family to view their entries in a branded gallery. Winning submissions can be determined by registered user votes, predetermined judges, or a combination of both, as well as through social aggregation.
For example, the Netflix-Adobe UGC contest titled, “The Great Untold,” allowed participants to show off their creative talents through 60-second videos submitted through TikTok or WhatsYourGreatUntold.com.
There was a limit of one entry per participant, which resulted on a video of their untold story. Three grand prizes and seven first prizes were awarded.
Each grand prize included $10,000, a digital code for a one-year subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud and the opportunity for their entry to be made into a short (3-5 minutes) film.
Each of the seven first prizes were $1,000.
4. Social Sweepstakes Stimulate Social Advocacy Through Hashtag Incentives
A social sweepstakes extends your reach and reputation and is a great way to increase to engage your customers and increase your number of followers.
Hashtag engagement tactics stimulate social advocacy. Hashtag sweepstakes on Twitter and Instagram are low-cost and highly effective solutions to stimulate social advocacy for your brand, products and/or services.
Each time a participant publishes a post containing the brand’s hashtag, he or she is automatically entered into the promotion.
Consider a social sweepstakes with Varo Bank called Varo For Tomorrow $100,000 Giveaway.
The entire incentive lived on Twitter/Instagram. To enter, participants had to follow @VaroBank on Twitter, post a photo or video answering the question, “What are your 2021 money goals?” and include #VaroForTomorrow and #Sweepstakes and tag @VaroBank.
5. Gift With Purchase Programs Increase Purchase Size and Frequency
It’s ideal for customer-specific marketing, rewarding purchase through receipt or code validation.
Gift with purchase (GWP) programs can be guaranteed rewards, cash, offers or in some cases, charitable donations. You can include a progress dashboard so participants can track their purchases toward their gift.
Many brands also incorporate a sweepstakes overlay to help drive traffic and
give consumers a reason to come back between purchases. This strategy is particularly beneficial for products with low purchase frequency and high consideration.
Butterfinger did a Gift with Purchase program where participants bought Butterfingers at Target, uploaded their receipts and scored a Radiant Ember unlock code for Brawhalla.
6. Rebates Let You Compete on Price Without Eroding Brand Perception
They also help your brand achieve several marketing objectives, including:
- Drive sales in price-competitive categories
- Motivate product or service trial
- Cross-sell portfolio products
- Upsell to a larger size and premium-priced products
- Increase purchase frequency and purchase a size
Aviation Gin did a rebate program to encourage consumers to celebrate National Aviation Day by visiting local bars and restaurants to receive a free Aviation Gin drink.
After purchasing an Aviation Gin drink at a local bar, each participant visited the site to upload their receipts and received $7 reimbursements to cover their drinks.
Quick-to-Market Incentives Will Help You Collect More Consumer Data
At the end of the day, quick-to-market incentives are not meant to be complex, complicated or filled with bells and whistles.
The whole point for quick-to-market engagement tactics is to spark interest in your brand or new products through engaging, time-sensitive vehicles that serve as a great way to collect more consumer data.
Quick-to-market incentives are designed to generate immediate interest in your brand that can lead to long-term loyalty. They help you with brand awareness, data acquisition, customer acquisition, email subscribers and social media followers.
Quick-to-market incentives are inspiring and tantalizing and help consumers gain interest and loyalty to your brand.
If you need help with any incentives or would like to talk about your customer engagement efforts, feel free to reach out to our experts here any time.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.