10 Epic Contest Ideas to Improve Brand Marketing

The market is filled with more fierce competition than ever before, and companies are trying every possible tactic to stay on top of it. One such tactic that companies are using for their brand awareness is giveaways.

But before we talk about different ways to implement this tactic as part of your brand marketing strategy, let us first understand what brand marketing is? After, the whole fight amongst the companies is about making or staying the top brand.

What is Brand Marketing?

Brand marketing is a blend of two different words and concepts: branding and marketing. This form (brand marketing) is generally confused with normal marketing, but that’s inaccurate.

It is a form of marketing where you showcase your product/service to make people aware of your company/product/service. During this form of marketing, you connect your product with your audience’s identity, beliefs, and personality through successful tailored brand communication.

The main idea is not to increase the sales number but to make people aware of your product and how it can solve their problems.

Brand marketing strategy is more than merely plastering your logo and company name everywhere and hoping to create sales. Making your product/services a brand is a long-term game, and it requires patience, dedication, and hard work.

Now that you know what it is, let us talk about the different methods (contest and giveaways ideas) you can use as a part of brand marketing management.

10 Contests and Giveaway Ideas to Boost Brand Marketing

Everyone enjoys earning a reward, right? And why wouldn’t they? After all, winning makes us feel good. Therefore, promotional freebies and contests are excellent methods to improve your consumers’ experience and engagement with your business.

To help you with this, we have pointed out 10 such ideas which you can use as part of a brand marketing strategy.

1. Like and share to win

A great and easy way to get people to know about your brand is to encourage participants to indulge on your social media. One simple method is to ask them to like your post or share it on their own social media pages for a free giveaway. This is an excellent way because the user base on social media is expected to be 4.41 Billion by 2025.

You may also request that they use your own branded hashtag when sharing the announcement. You will be able to boost brand awareness and attract more visitors to your business social profile by having your content shared. Another important thing is to offer something interesting enough to elicit engagement and increase exposure.

2. Tag your friend to win

There is a great saying that “a crowd attracts a crowd.” It is an effective way to use it as part of your digital marketing branding strategy. The method is relatively simple to use. All you have to do is ask your customers to tag their friends and family members to win. Users who have been tagged can then tag their friends to enter the giveaway.

People will notice your giveaway announcement if they are tagged in your post. This allows you to reach an audience that you would not have been able to reach via other ways of communication. It is an excellent strategy to increase interaction, increase your following, and increase your brand awareness.

3. Comment the best caption

Another great way to make your brand a household name is to get people involved. One such way is to post a photo of your product or service on an online media platform and ask your user to write captions for them. This will lead to more engagement with customers.

Also, with so many people writing captions for your product/service, it will be good for your SEO. This will increase user traffic and engagement with your brand and aid in establishing loyalty. In turn, the winner receives goodies. You may also modify the postings to highlight the winning caption.

4. Follow to win

As the saying goes, “the more, the merrier,” and the same goes for your business following on different social media. You can increase your engagement by giving away a joining gift to users who subscribe to your online media channels.

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While doing so, you can always ask the new followers to spread the word about the free giveaway. You should keep in mind that this method is primarily to increase your brand awareness and might not affect your sales and revenue.

5. Post a photo to win

This is a general picture-sharing contest in which contestants are encouraged to upload a photo as an entry. It may be a photo of them that includes an item from your business. The objective is to highlight the product but with a customer’s personal spin.

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This is one of the most effective methods for social media platforms like Instagram to increase company awareness and interaction. Participants’ networks of Instagram followers and friends become aware of your brand when they submit photos with your branded hashtag to their Instagram profiles.

6. Post a selfie

Yet another great way to get your users engaged with your product or service is by asking them to post a selfie with the same. It’s known that people love to take selfies, be it of themselves or along with people close to them. This adds real-world context to what you’re offering – and demonstrates that you already have many satisfied consumers.

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And when it comes to choosing the winner, you can pick one that you find is the best or ask people to vote for it. You can use automotive software to select the winners based on the number of votes or likes. This eliminates the trouble of picking the winner and allows you to collect more material from more individuals effortlessly.

7. Tweet and retweet to win

Twitter is a great platform to include in your digital marketing branding strategy. What makes Twitter so great is that 63% of the demographic on Twitter is between 35 and 65 years of age. Also, posting or using Twitter is ideal for freebies that can help you reach new audiences, increase your following, and boost engagement.

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All you have to do is ask people to send out a tweet adorned with a specific hashtag and then pick a winner at random from everyone who sent out a tweet following your specifications.

8. Post a review to win

Every organization needs a good feedback loop to grow and enhance its service or product for the consumers. According to a survey by Local Consumer, 79% of consumers weigh reviews as personal recommendations. All you have to do is ask your user to leave a review about your product or service.

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Having a large number of favorable reviews will help your brand significantly. After all, a good track record of evaluations is often all that is required to move a potential consumer from doubtful to assured.

9. Share a video

To generate good sales for your business, ask people to upload videos of your products. This is good marketing practice because 81% of marketers believe videos helped them increase their sales. You can ask them to make the video while using the product and offer that the video will be uploaded on the official page.

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The video might feature someone using your product, explaining why they deserve to win your contest or discussing why they adore your company. These tales may be wonderful strategies to acquire brand testimonials while also encouraging contest participation.

10. Leave feedback to win

Every customer loves a company that values their feedback and works on them. And when you offer a gift/giveaway for their honest feedback, it’s just a cherry on top. After using the product, you can ask your customers to post their feedback on social media channels.

But make sure to ask them to do so after they have used the product and are fully aware of its good and bad. By doing so, you are set to attract more customers, and with the feedback, you can always make your product even better. Also, you can ask them to use a hashtag when leaving feedback.

With the understanding of different giveaways and contest ideas, you now know how they can be used to increase brand awareness. Let’s further discuss how you can create a robust digital marketing branding strategy.

How To Build a Brand Marketing Strategy Around Giveaways

Want to increase revenue, sales, and traffic to your business? Consider a giveaway or a prize contest. These, when properly advertised, are excellent tactics for reaching out to both existing and new consumers. But first, you’ll need a strong strategy.

1. Keep it simple

The most important thing about marketing your brand is to keep it simple. If brand marketing strategies, along with giveaways or contests, are simple, you’re more likely to get a lot of responses. To do this, you have to keep the giveaway rules easy enough to understand.

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Also, ensure that the signing-up procedure is not complicated. Lastly, clearly define how you pick the contest winner or the giveaway.

2. Understand your audience

Another important aspect is that you need to understand your audience clearly. There are different social media platforms, and each one has a different demographic and utilization. So, it’s crucial that you clearly understand what type (age, sex, nationality, etc.) of audience your business plans to target.

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That will help you in building a brand strategy that will help improve your sales, revenue, and brand value while giving you an edge over your competition. Furthermore, it’s critical to review the customer journey and resolve existing consumer concerns.

3. Define your goals

Building a digital marketing strategy is no easy task, considering its complexity. One such thing is defining the goals of your brand marketing strategy. It is critical to identify your objectives and design your strategy around them because when you define the goals, it makes it easier to target the right audience.

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Also, with so many social media channels, knowing your goal helps you select the right platform. When you have a clear understanding of the goal, it helps you design the perfect strategy, whether for increasing brand awareness, sales, or revenue.

4. Pick the right contest

Picking the right contest for brand awareness is very important because the type of contest you pick will be decided on the type of platform and your business goal.

There are several choices to choose from:

● Trivia or a quiz

● Photo and selfie competition

● Free giveaways

● Voting polls

This is important because it affects the business objective and brand marketing budget. Moreover, the type of free giveaway or contest prize will depend significantly on the type of contest.

5. Build a sense of urgency

When you build a brand marketing strategy, you have to create a sense of urgency because it creates a psychological effect on the human mind. Create a one-of-a-kind offer that is time-sensitive and drives people to act immediately.

Customers should feel that they are losing out on something significant if they do not take advantage of the deal right away. Ensure to inform individuals about the contest’s progress and make concessions to those who did not win to keep them in your consumer base.

6. Clarify the rules

Setting out rules for your contest is crucial since each platform has its own set of contest rules that you must follow to stay in compliance. So, when you design your contest for any given channel, make sure you read their compliance and regulations very carefully.

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Additionally, define your content’s goals fairly as it will be a great benefit to the users as well.

7. Select the prize

The contest’s success may be determined by the rewards you provide. Prizes should be significant enough to entice customers to participate in the contest without exceeding your budget.

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Choose a prize that your ideal client will value and make sure it relates to your offering. Spending a lot of money may not get you as many points as being creative. It’s also good to select a prize relevant to your brand. Whatever you decide, make sure your consumers get a taste of your services or products.

8. Analyze the results

Now that you have successfully crafted a brand awareness campaign, it’s necessary to monitor its success.

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It all comes back to your goal and objective, which you planned to achieve with this contest. You can use online tools and prepare a report to measure the contest’s success. Check the report for the platform where you held your contest and look at how engagement demonstrates the impact of your campaign.

Conclusion

Everybody wants to run a business that’s successful and famous. But to do so, you have to face a lot of competition and stay top of the market. Your business has to implement several marketing techniques through which you can gain new potential customers.

The marketing tactics we’ve listed can effectively scale your business. Engaging your customers with giveaways can create a successful brand marketing strategy around it. Running social media competitions is a terrific way to get your audience more interested in your online presence, but you must ensure that you are getting results.

The outcomes will differ depending on the platform and the contest, but if you have a comprehensive brand marketing management system that combines and coincides with the rest of your marketing agenda, you will for sure generate consistent leads.

Key Takeaways

● The success of a business relies heavily on marketing efforts that create a positive brand image.

● The interactions between a brand and its consumer are the basis that forms their associations.

● Companies that create integrated marketing and branding strategies provide consumers with a seamless and unified approach to interacting with their brands and, as a result, increase their market shares.

● Keep your contest’s prize aligned with the competition’s premise as much as possible.

● You need to keep the entry barrier low for even your more “involved” contests.

● It is always a good idea to make sure your contests and contest prizes add some value to the experience of your entrants with your brand.

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