13 Effective Strategies to Drive Participation in Marketing Initiatives – Rolling Stone

From social media With giveaways for local in-store competitions, businesses have found innovative ways to encourage customer loyalty around their businesses marketing initiatives. Regardless of what specific approach is used, it is crucial for businesses not only to grab attention, but also to create a sense of excitement and engagement in customers. However, leaders may not always be sure how best to drive this engagement.

To help entrepreneurs and business leaders generate engagement around a specific marketing initiative, 13 members of Rolling Stone Cultural Council shared their expert insights. Read on to discover their top retention strategies and why they’re effective in driving success.

Adapt the approach to the customer

Make sure the approach fits the customer you’re trying to reach. Different types of people access information in different ways and have different motivations for taking action. From data on cannabis users, we know that users’ motivations, behaviors and characteristics vary. Does your campaign appeal to the person you want to activate? – Amanda Reiman, personal plants

Offer the best possible customer experience

Plan to capture the attention of existing customers by making sure they have the best possible experience interacting with your brand throughout the journey. Improve customer retention by creating a loyalty program. These encourage repeat business and strengthen brand loyalty. Reward loyal customers with coupons, points, discounts, special gifts and more. – Candice Georgiadis, digital agency. inc

Promote UGC

A user-generated content (UGC) campaign is an effective way to drive consumer engagement. UGC campaigns promote authenticity, increase brand visibility, save costs and build a loyal community. By encouraging customers to create and share their own content, businesses can leverage the trust and credibility that comes from real-world experiences, ultimately driving sales. – Joshua Adragna, eyerate

Take advantage of the scarcity

Harness the power of scarcity. Younger generation consumers are willing to sacrifice time and money to be unique and stand out from everyone else. – Adam Ayers, number 5

Do story shoutouts

Engaging customers through story shoutouts on giveaways is a great way to get a lot of people seeing your product organically. This marketing tactic is commonly used by companies like Venmo and Cash App to increase brand awareness. Don’t just have someone comment and tag a post; Have them actually show their followers what’s going on. Make sure the reward is worth people doing it. – Christian Anderson (Trust’N), Lost Boy Entertainment LLC

Offer freebies

A giveaway via an email redemption or mail-in rebate and asking questions of the audience creates customer loyalty. To be effective, the campaign must target qualified leads via audience questions. Broadly matching questions will not help reach the campaign tipping point. – Adam Rumanek, Aux Mode Inc.

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Create a sense of urgency

Businesses can increase engagement by creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity in campaigns. For example, you can limit the time frame for participation or offer exclusive prizes. This creates a sense of excitement and encourages customers to act quickly, which can lead to increased engagement and brand loyalty. – Theo Sastre-Garau, NFTevening

Leverage content from community sources

Open innovation and design thinking take customer engagement to the next level. It conveys that a company trusts its community enough to rely on their skills for development. The transition from giveaway to competition is not easy; Community sourcing means investing in customer feedback and making them the protagonists of their consumer story. – Jacob Mathison, Mathison Projects Inc

Host a competition

Contests are great; It’s easy for consumers to join and for businesses it’s an excellent analytics tool, but behind the gimmick lies real engagement. Make sure your competition and price match the campaign or product. Inspire users to participate with motivating images, videos or quotes and don’t forget to thank your participants by liking and re-sharing relevant posts. – Cynthia Johnson, bell + ivy

Gamify your marketing

One extremely effective way to drive engagement is through gamification. Gamification is the use of game elements such as challenges and rewards to motivate and engage. This technique works because it appeals to our innate and very human desire to “win.” When the initiative is fun or interactive, customers are more likely to participate, interact, and share organically on social media. – Jennifer Sodini, Hidden Hand Media

Go beyond social media

Consumers have never been more connected, but they’ve never been more difficult to connect with. Today you can still buy media, but no more attention. You have to earn it. Modern marketing is about relationships, not the medium. So go beyond social media, own your fans and your intellectual property—and have a massive opt-in email marketing database. – Igor Beuker, Igor Beuker

Go back to your (grass) roots

If it’s a new product launching in stores, offer digital freebies if someone shares where they saw it. Ask people to share, and whoever shares the most gets a free pass or some sort of perk. It’s grassroots marketing at its finest. – Suzanne Johnston, New Media Film Festival®

Test campaigns before they go live

We’ve found that announcing a sale, promotion, or giveaway before that can be a great way to get people to sign up, pre-create their cart, or generate interest before the campaign goes fully live it goes live. Rewarding people for word of mouth is also a natural way to increase your reach without increasing your campaign spend. – ben magic, Good ranchers