Building relationships is essential for customer satisfaction. According to research conducted by Epsilon, around 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a personalized customer experience. Personalized experiences are those that cater to an individual’s requirements without any compromises. It helps enhance relationships and improve the loyalty of customers. In the real world, building such relationships is relatively less difficult than doing it virtually. However, when it comes to ways to promote virtual events, it can get a little tricky to build in-person connections. Virtual events have managed to reserve a spot in the lives of corporate leaders for years now.
Their ability to reach the global audience has never failed to fascinate them. This reach has proven to be a great way to work on customer relationships. Not only do these promote inclusivity, but it is also easy to measure the indispensable data of our audiences. But, how do we humanize these virtual events to make them relatable for more people? After all, we are not meeting anyone. Or, how do we let the world know about the virtual event we are hosting? I have a one-word answer for you – a giveaway.
Giveaway – The Best Way to Promote Virtual Events
A giveaway is one of the top marketing strategies nowadays, and for good reason. It is a great way to bring more people on board who will willingly spread the word about your event, turning them into the faces of your brand. Once your digital brand gets a face(s), building connections becomes way easier than otherwise. Your prospects want to know that there are people behind that brand and not just a robotic presence.
From growing your reach to drawing new leads, giveaways are action-packed when conducted strategically. Moreover, it also helps you gain visibility on the SERPs when you optimize your landing page for the giveaway. You can use rank tracking tools to see where you stand as compared to your competitors. Still not convinced?
Why should you be using social media giveaways to promote virtual events? The answer is simple – to create brand and event advocates. When you announce a giveaway for your event, you will be creating a buzz. Use this social media giveaway (and the associated buzz) to tap into an untapped segment of your audience. In other words, when you use a giveaway, your current audience will help you find more audiences.
Giveaways end with rewards. These rewards are what excite your audience and persuade them to participate. Once they do, consider them converted into your event advocates. People are more likely to attend an event if it is talked about by other people. That will be the output of the efforts of your event advocates. They will amplify your virtual event to win the giveaway, thus bringing in an improved ROI. This is just one of the many reasons why you should be getting into giveaways at all. Find the other four below:
Create a Buzz Around Your Event
One of the many benefits of hosting a giveaway is to get your audience excited. Creating a buzz around your event will bring more footfall to your virtual event, turning it into a success. In-person events and trade shows have their own way of attracting customers. From free sampling to giving away branded merchandise, everything has been tried and tested. But how does a virtual event grow the excitement around it? By offering a chance to win such rewards. These rewards could range from free tickets to your events to a fun-filled goodie bag.
If your budget allows, you could also give away a free hamper full of exciting products to all your attendees a few days before the event. It will promote your event further. Whatever you decide, know that your target audience will be on their toes to get their hands on the prize. The better your reward, the more passionate your audience will be. As a result, your event will be one of the most talked-about events among your target group, all thanks to a giveaway.
Ideal for User-generated Content
As we have discussed before, people are more inclined towards something that others are talking about. It helps induce a sense of confidence and trust among them. When you launch a giveaway, you will most likely have a marketing strategy circling UGC. UGC or user-generated content is the content that your participants will be creating as a part of the giveaway.
UGC happens to be one of the most crucial aspects of content marketing strategy as it helps to humanize a brand. In fact, for a majority of marketers, it is among the most valuable forms of content marketing. For instance, AirBnB only uses the photographs clicked by its customers across the globe.
It influences the purchase decision of individuals and also makes the brand look a lot more authentic. Today, hosting a giveaway or a contest is one of the most effective strategies to motivate the audience to click and share high-quality content. By using free tickets, exclusive branded merchandise, and leveraging quirky hashtags, you will have overflowing user-generated content. You can also ask winners to share their prizes on social media, and this will set a base for your upcoming giveaways.
Brings People Together
One thing that we all crave in this technology-led world is a human connection. A social media giveaway is the perfect way to address that. When hosting a virtual event, it can get slightly challenging to bring physically distanced people together. By announcing a giveaway and encouraging your audience to participate, you can bridge the gap between them, at least virtually, if not physically. There are plenty of ways to do this.
You can make tagging other friends in the comments or sharing the content on stories mandatory for participation in your giveaway. If you plan to give away a free goodie bag of products to your attendees, make sure it is interesting. If your audience finds the products fun and exciting, they will want to share them with others on their personal social media handles. Imagine this scenario. You sent a fun-filled hamper to an attendee. She got excited and decided to share photos of the hamper on her social media. Now, one, you got a chance to reach an untapped segment of potential customers.
Secondly, it could be a conversation starter, and your audience can find each other to build a small social community. Giving your audience a chance to get together with like-minded individuals is perhaps the best reason to do it.
Promote Virtual Events – Magnify Your Reach
One of the fascinating things about a virtual event is the reach. Unlike in-person events, virtual events can tap into a much wider audience. You can even filter your audience and target a particular set of people based on their gender, age, or even geographical location. All this is best leveraged when you promote your event well. You will need proper strategies in place to expand your audience.
One of the proven ways to do this is hosting a giveaway. It helps spread the word about your brand and event even among those who have never heard about it. You will be expanding your reach to the followers of your audience. They might not be following you, but you are probably the perfect fit for them. In short, it will turn the cold audience warm, adding to your return. This improved ROI is what makes giveaway a great option.
How Can You Promote Your Giveaways?
Now that you’re convinced that you need to announce a giveaway, what are the best practices to do it? Let’s check them out below:
Optimize Your Landing Page
Once you have planned your giveaway, make sure to create a landing page for the same. A landing page is a crucial digital marketing tool. It is a standalone web page that is built only for a particular campaign. In your case, a giveaway. It is the most crucial page in your entire strategy. Why? Because this is where the conversions take place. There are plenty of factors to be careful of when optimizing the landing page for an improved ROI.
You will need to find the relevant keywords to rank at the top of SERPs. Keywords are the terms that your prospects type in the search engines to find a solution to their problems. You can use free keyword research tools to find pertinent keywords for your page. Apart from this, you should also focus on adding a proper call to action. Make sure the CTA is persuasive and that interactive elements in your landing page are easily accessible.
Request Sharing on Social Media
One thing you cannot get wrong is making sure that you ask your audience to spread the word. Indeed, true followers will do it by themselves if they like your brand and are excited about the event. But another segment will need that push. To ensure this, you should be requesting your audience to share the giveaway on their respective social media handles. You can use it as one of the prerequisite steps to be a part of the giveaway. It is also a great way to multiply your leads. When your audience shares the content under your brand or event name, you will get visibility in front of their social media friends. Thus, expanding your reach.
Promote Virtual Events by Using Email Newsletters
Emails have been making our lives easy since the 1990s. In the world of professionals, emails have proven to be the best form of communication. Why not leverage it to make your audience aware of your giveaway? Your subscribers are your biggest fans. They love to know about what’s new with you and the upgrades in your brand. Make use of a newsletter to create a buzz around your virtual event and giveaway. Give a direct link to the landing page of your giveaway to make things easier and convenient for them. They deserve it.
You can schedule an email series leading up to the final day of the giveaway as reminder newsletters for your subscribers to participate. Once your giveaway is over and you are announcing your winner, do not leave your subscribers hanging. Send an announcement about who won what. It will make your audience curious about the next giveaway!
Use All Your Social Media Platforms
Today, there are too many social media channels to count. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok are the leading platforms of the digital world. Yet, brands are suggested to be picky. They should only use those platforms that are the most beneficial to them. Using every platform will not be profitable in any manner. I am sure you have your social media platforms identified. You should host a giveaway for your virtual event only after you have a certain number of followers. It’s easier to attract participants this way.
Once you have planned, promote your giveaway on your different channels. Ensure that you are not using the same creatives across different platforms. There are two reasons for doing this. One, every individual has a preference. They may use Twitter but not LinkedIn. How will they get aware if you only promote on Twitter? Second, you might also have a few individuals who follow you on all channels. They don’t want to see the same content posted everywhere. That will be too monotonous for them. Thus, be careful while promoting your giveaway on your social media.
Promote Virtual Events – Get an Influencer on Board
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective contemporary marketing strategies. It has smoothly transitioned from becoming a buzzword to being an integral part of branding. Last valued at USD 7.68 billion in 2020, this form of marketing is expected to further increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.3% from 2021 to 2028. Nowadays, several brands are finding ways to work with micro-influencers. Since they do not have as many followers as macro-influencers, most take their time to interact with their audience.
You need influencers who can keep their audience engaged. Having a good number of followers won’t be helpful if the engagement rate is poor. When you get influencers on board, you can reach several thousands of individuals at once. It will further add to your visibility and reach.
Do Paid Advertising
Indeed, there are plenty of ways for you to promote your giveaway organically. But paid advertising is the medium that takes you beyond organic reach. Paid advertising has proven to be among the most sought-after ways to attract a highly targeted audience. With paid advertising, you can narrow down your audience based on their gender, geographical location, age group, preferences, tastes, and a lot more. The list is never-ending.
It increases the chances of tapping a new segment of the audience and converting them into participants aka your future customer. At times, you will come across prospects that might not be too willing to participate but would be interested in the event. A lead will be generated without any other motivational factor. They just didn’t know about you earlier. That is where promoting just one giveaway can take you. It can do wonders for your brand and your event.
Partner with Other Brands
If you’re just starting, get under the wings of a big name in the industry for this giveaway. It will get you more exposure and double the results for you. Choose a company that often runs its giveaways or contests regularly. With this method, you can even amp up your rewards and excite your audience further. For this, you should try and look for brands that are in some way related to your niche but are not your direct competitors.
Once you have identified these brands, reach out to them and understand if they are interested in working with you. You should also confirm if they are willing to share one of their products related to the virtual event for the giveaway. If they agree, you are good to go!
Promote Virtual Events with Giveaways – Conclusion
It can often get tricky to add a touch of personalization to virtual events. A giveaway comes to the rescue. It is a perfect way to attract event advocates and showcase the ‘people of your brand’. Giveaways help you expand your reach and promote virtual events even among those who had no idea about you to date. They might just turn out to be the kind of audience that you had been looking for. The opportunities that a giveaway offers are nothing but mind-blowing, making it worth a try.