As a retailer, you are always thinking about the next campaign to help improve your revenue and reach your audience, especially during this time of year. User-generated campaigns are an ideal campaign to launch during the holiday season, and many retail businesses find great success on their own.
Retail Dive reported this week that Target and Macy’s are already in full plan-and-execute mode with their holiday campaigns this season, leveraging tools like Facebook’s new “holiday shopping season” targeting segment that “reaches users engaged with holiday planning and retail sales. activity.” The campaigns are also running through Instagram, expanding the reach of brands. Retail Dive reports that the new targeting segment “can be found in the ‘behaviours’ section within the ‘seasonal and events’ category and will be available from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day [for both Facebook and Instagram].”
What makes these companies’ campaigns so successful is that they have the same core focus: engaging customers across various social networks and encouraging them to be your brand advocates, with a reward that is personal to them. The reward can be a prize like a trip, a free product, a credit to your business, or the reward can be satisfying from a philanthropic perspective.
ENCOURAGE CUSTOMERS TO BE PHILANTHROPISTS
Estee Lauder launched a breast cancer awareness campaign a few years ago that has been hugely successful every year in raising funds for a cure. The company uses the hashtag #BCAstrength to encourage those who are fighting the disease, have beaten it, or are supporting a loved one who is currently fighting. The goal is to create a community of Estee Lauder customers who are a supportive and positive social force for those fighting breast cancer.
The positive results generated by the clients of the company:
– both old and new
– brought a new humanizing element to the brand and more importantly continued to raise awareness to find a cure for this terrible disease.
INSPIRE CUSTOMERS TO ACHIEVE A GOAL
Victoria’s Secret is known for its beautiful “angels”, supermodels who have become the face of its brand. The brand has catapulted audience campaigns that only its angels have gotten, one of the most famous being the “Train Like An Angel” campaign. The campaign is ongoing, but it gains momentum just before the company’s big annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
The brand has a sportswear line that it promotes during the campaign and offers training videos on its website with the angels. Victoria’s Secret also takes advantage of the angels’ social presence by encouraging fans on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest to set their own fitness goals and share their progress on social media using the hashtag #TrainLikeAnAngel. The brand even picks the winners and rewards them for participating in the campaign.
MAKE IT ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS
User-generated campaigns aim to spread your brand to the masses, but you need loyal advocates and customers to do so. Make your campaign about the audience you are trying to target. Chobani, a Greek yogurt company, needed to drive sales and turned to its loyal customer base to do so. Chobani reached out to customers through different social and grassroots media to share videos and images about why they love Chobani yogurt for their “Love Story” campaign. The campaign was so successful that the company experienced a 225.9% increase in revenue between 2009 and 2010, crediting the campaign with the foundation of the success.
Engaged customers are the foundation to catapult a successful user-generated campaign; always be sure to address them on a personal level that makes them want to share your message. Snapchat reported in May that it has 100 million users, and 65% of them upload photos. Your audience is out there! Take advantage of what’s in front of you by creating a campaign that will make users want to share with the millions of people on social media.
What are some of your favorite user-generated campaigns? Let us know on our LinkedIn!