Contests to Engage Your Community During Christmas
The notion of community is essential for brands and retailers. Knowing, analysing, understanding, and segmenting are necessary to create and evolve a long-term relationship. With this valuable information, engaging your community will be easy. The second point that also requires regular work is interactions. It would help if you entertained them, never bore them, were relevant, and evoked emotions – a crucial element in a strong relationship.
Today, many strategies and multiple tools exist to achieve this. However, one tool stands out and proves to be particularly relevant at Christmas: contests. Many consumers highly appreciate them without being perceived as too intrusive and promotional like other tools. They tap into a critical code that characterises the holiday season: gifts and undoubtedly create excitement within the community.
Consider Your Objectives Before Launching a Contest
Contests are a great way to engage and strengthen your community, especially during Christmas. However, before diving into this marketing strategy, clarifying your expected objectives is essential. The communication, prizes, and even the type of contest will vary depending on the objectives set.
The primary objective that comes to mind is, of course, customer loyalty and engagement. Through various channels, websites, social media, and mobile apps, brands may want to launch interactive content to encourage the community to interact with them.
On the other hand, brands may want to expand their communities and can take advantage of the holiday season to collect new contacts. Through well-crafted forms and mechanics, it can be easy to acquire the contact information of new prospects who will need to be engaged later.
Some brands prefer to enhance their digital presence and start the following year on a new momentum. Some contests have a well-thought-out viral mechanism that effectively increases their community. There are about 14,000 participants with an average interaction time of 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
To foster increasingly personalised and high-quality relationships, brands can launch a contest to identify and segment their customers.
Lastly, more specific objectives can be considered, such as increasing the visibility of a particular store or a new product, collecting emails for upcoming email campaigns, and more.
Different types of marketing games based on objectives
There is a plethora of contests with significantly different mechanics. Some will be favoured depending on your target audience, objectives, and financial efforts. The type of game also has an impact on the message conveyed. This step is, therefore, crucial to the success of the operation.
For example, photo contests are excellent for gaining notoriety. The principle: The community must take a photo on a specific theme: table decoration, Christmas tree, Christmas Eve dinner., and the winner(s) receive prizes. Each photo posted online as part of the game is an additional point of visibility for the brand.
Many launch an advent calendar with prizes or elements to discover to engage and retain the community throughout the holiday season. This mechanic invites the brand's customers to interact with it throughout December. The brand can also opt for a simple quiz or a knowledge game to create engagement.
Drawings or instant wins are ideal for collecting new contacts. Users must fill out a form to access these contests. This allows the brand to update its database.
A treasure hunt is particularly interesting to implement to promote a new range of products. Through a map and clues, players are led to discover product characteristics and information in an immersive and contextualised manner.
To promote a physical store, a specific system can be established. To access the online contest, users must purchase in-store to receive an entry code.
Through all of this, it is clear that matching objectives with the types of games is essential.
The prizes to win influence motivation and brand image
The primary motivations for participating in these contests are the chance to win prizes and the fun aspect. The principle is simple: the more attractive the prizes, the higher the motivation and participation rate. 48% of participants play solely for the prizes. Now, balancing the available budget and the prizes to be won is essential. It would help if you also thought about the level of engagement required from the players. The more they have to get involved in the game, the more they will expect a substantial reward.
It's worth noting that there are often multiple prizes to be won, but the first prize usually holds the most interest for consumers. Therefore, This famous' grand prize' should account for most of the gift budget to create a desire to participate.
Another factor to consider in choosing the prizes is the brand image. The prizes to be won should align with the brand's values and the message it wants to convey. For example, for a cosmetics brand, it's interesting to offer products from its ranges, or even a day dedicated to skincare, or to go a step further, a trip to a paradise destination where the winner will be pampered. The essential thing is that the consumer still determines the choice of gifts.
Finally, the target audience is the last element to consider. The prizes can be different depending on the contest's target audience.
Focus on the digital gift card: the ultimate prize for contests
Three prizes are particularly appreciated: high-tech products, trips, and vouchers/gift cards. Once they are offered, it's essentially over for high-tech products and trips. But with a gift card, the brand can go further. Let me explain. The winner of a marketing game is now the holder of a gift card that can only be spent within the brand. Therefore, they will have to interact with the brand again by shopping on its website or in physical stores. From the moment the winner receives their card, the brand can continue to engage them further through specific communications and actions. However, with other prizes, reestablishing contact afterwards is more challenging.
The gift card can also introduce a new mechanism for winning prizes. It's interesting in cases where you want to increase your revenue or attract consumers to physical stores. The concept is simple. Customers who purchase a certain amount within the brand receive a code that allows them to play an online flash game like the Wheel of Fortune. The customer can then leave with a gift card of various values, ranging from 5 to over 1000€, for example.
Regarding the prizes, the brand has two choices. It rewards only the top winners, or it can also decide to give consolation prizes to other participants. Here, offering digital gift cards instead of discount vouchers may be relevant. The brand has a choice in the amount, especially in the validity date. The brand can make its gift card valid for a shorter period to create short-term traffic. For example, if it wants to maximise traffic before the holidays, it can make the card valid only during that period.
People who come to spend the card can either buy Christmas gifts for their loved ones or treat themselves. Since these will be pleasure purchases, consumers' behaviour will be different than usual. They will be more inclined to purchase higher-end products and more likely to make impulse purchases.
Regulations and data
In recent years, regulations for contests have become more flexible. For example, involving a bailiff in a lottery draw is no longer necessary, and the game rules no longer need to be deposited.
However, it's still necessary to draft rules to clearly understand all the modalities and leave no room for doubt. The rules must be simple, straightforward, and easily accessible.
Contests often involve the collection of data. Since the implementation of GDPR, it's essential to pay special attention to the data being processed, and the brand can only collect desired data with a clear purpose behind it. To comply with the new regulations, quickly deleting data upon the concerned user's request is essential.
The last element to consider is the channels used. If the contest is posted on social media, for example, it's essential to inquire about the terms of use of these third-party platforms and adhere to specific points to comply.
Contests are a fantastic marketing tool to engage your community during Christmas. However, for it to succeed, many elements must be considered: objectives, types of games, applicable regulations, channels used, communication, launch, and duration.
