November 9, 2023
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Posted By: Big Digital
Brands that are looking to engage new consumers and win more brand advocates onto their side have a powerful opportunity in contest marketing. Contests and promotions are constantly evolving, and while many brands are successfully leveraging contests on social media, they can also deliver incredible results when they’re integrated into your brand activation strategies.
The Benefits of Contest Marketing
Contest marketing is an effective way to increase organic brand visibility and recognition. The promise of a chance to win will get consumers excited to engage, encourage them to share, and rapidly expand brand awareness among networks of friends and families through personal recommendations.
Contests and promotions can be used to great effect to:
- Create community engagement and loyalty from your target audiences.
- Provide you with insights into consumer preferences and behaviours by letting you track participation and which promotions get the most attention.
- Encourage user-generated content online and generate more media assets to work with taken from in-person events.
- Increase organic traffic to digital stores and assets.
With the help of digital billboards, you can create one-of-a-kind contests and promotions for sponsor activations and other in-person events. They also make it easy to integrate social media into live brand activations and blend your digital campaigns with out-of-home marketing efforts.
Contests and Promotions with a Digital Billboard
Different digital billboard types can support and enhance activations by becoming your hub for contests and promotions. Check out BIG Digital’s lines of indoor and outdoor digital billboards, including weather-rated outdoor billboards, freestanding touch displays, battery-powered billboards, and digital interactive kiosks. These are some of the ways that all of our interactive digital billboards can support your next contest marketing campaign.
#1 Lead Generation
One of the leading uses of contests and promotions is lead generation. Brands are always looking for ways to connect with new consumers, but first, brands need to get their contact information. Contests and promotions offer the perfect exchange: contact information for great prizes and giveaways.
For the most part, today’s consumers understand how data collection works. They know that once they enter your contest, they can expect to start seeing your newsletter in their inbox. This gives brands two main challenges:
- Creating a contest or promotion that’s engaging and exciting enough to persuade consumers to join.
- Following up with value-added communications that encourage engaging with your brand rather than unsubscribing.
The easier you can make it to join your contest, and the more exciting you make your contest,, the less consumers are likely to resist giving up their contact information. Digital billboards can help ease the sign-up phase with features like QR code entry, mobile site integration, and gamification.
#2 QR Code Entry
QR code entry has quickly become the path of least resistance for consumers. With younger generations of consumers using their mobile devices more for anything and everything, they’re pretty much always at hand. QR codes allow anyone to quickly scan a code and get to their desired destination, whether it’s your mobile site or going straight to a contest entry.
Paired with the right CTA, a QR code speeds up conversion and delivers consumers straight to where they want to be.
#3 Drive Traffic Back to Your Mobile Site
Contests and promotions aren’t just about giving away products or experiences to new consumers; it’s about driving traffic to your site and engaging in a new relationship with untapped audiences. Pop up interactive digital billboard support can make sure that the impact of your activations outlives the in-person event.
Whether you’re targeting a national audience or more local targets, once you’ve integrated QR code entry, you can streamline participants to your mobile site. Now that you have their attention, rely on your digital assets to do their job and reel them in.
#4 Grow Your Fan Base
The most successful brands in the world don’t just have consumers; they have fans. Brand loyalty is a powerful force in marketing, and every company, from local shops to multinational companies, has the power to turn consumers into loyal fans. It’s part of the process of turning customers into brand advocates – loyal customers who don’t just buy your products and services but who live and breathe your brand and will tirelessly recommend you to their family and social networks.
The secret to growing your fan base is to deliver an experience or contest that’s both memorable and valuable to your audiences.
#5 Gamification Marketing
Interactive, immersive marketing experiences can take contests and promotions to the next level. Gamification marketing can make any contest feel more urgent and exciting, adding an element of challenge and competition to your contest. Pop up interactive billboards can support gamification experiences through touch and gesture control and customized games and experiences that will match your brand.
Ideas for Contests and Promotions
Need a great idea for a contest or promotion? This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to contest ideas that work great with pop up digital billboards to support your activations and drive engagement.
Trivia Contests
Quizzes or trivia contests are fun ways to get your audience members feeling competitive and give them a chance to win a prize. Trivia contests work best when you use a mix of easier questions with some tougher ones.
Games of Chance
If you want to take skill and knowledge out of the picture but still want to keep participants in suspense, use our interactive digital billboards to integrate digital games of chance like spin to win, Wheel of Fortune, Plinko, flip-a-card, sweepstakes, and more.
Giveaways
Contests get customers motivated and engaged when they already love your product and are eager to get some high-value freebies, but sometimes, you need to get audience buy-in for new products or your brand first. A more simplified giveaway is a better way to get customers excited about a product they’re not familiar with yet. All you need to do is make sure you have some requirement for consumers to qualify, such as signing up for a newsletter or consenting to getting updates from your online marketing campaigns.
Photo Contests
User-generated content is a massive asset. With a photo competition, you get users to send you their best photos, usually featuring your product or at your event or activation. Get them to share it on social media with the right hashtags and tag your accounts, and you can generate a massive amount of real online engagement. You can integrate photo contests into interactive digital billboards, bringing that content into your real-world activations.
Social Media Engagement
Photo contests aren’t the only way to increase social media engagement. When you’re running a sponsorship activation, get a social media wall that shows live social media updates and encourages audience members to share their selfies at the event in exchange for prizes in real time. It can create an atmosphere that you’re right at the heart of the action.
Pop up digital billboards can go anywhere you need them to, and they make it easy to incorporate contests and promotions in your activations. Take advantage of everything from QR code entry to gamification marketing to bring an element of competitiveness and engagement to your next activation.
