Today, our Senior Manager of Content & Promotions, Anne Marie Robson, answers another common question that we hear from clients looking for ways to boost online engagement.
I’m planning my fall promotions and could use some help! How can I keep my audience engaging with online content during the autumn season?
Anne Marie: We’re happy to help! To start your fall promotions planning, check your calendar to see what key dates are on the horizon, from holidays to special events. Football season, Halloween, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday all make for excellent tie-ins for your fall contests and campaigns, but you could also include local fall festivals and concerts sponsored by your station, etc.
Once you’ve selected the holidays or events that best fit with your brand and your audience’s interests, approach businesses in your community to sponsor sweepstakes and other contests, awarding hot themed prizes. For example, have a local sporting goods store or sports bar sponsor a weekly or monthly giveaway for free football tickets if you have a college or NFL team in your area. Halloween pop-up stores and party supply stores make excellent sponsors for UGC costume contests, where your audience can submit a photo of themselves in their best Halloween costume for a chance to win cash, gift cards, or a shopping spree to stock up on decorations for their next big bash. Supermarkets are also perfect partners as you gear up for Thanksgiving promotions. Have them donate gift cards or offer exclusive discounts to your email subscribers as they prepare to cook their big holiday meals. Check out our Resource Library for a wide variety of pre-designed contest templates for these and lots of other themes, or download one of our free campaign guides, which are full of engaging campaign ideas for any time of year.
If you’d like to boost online engagement this autumn but have a limited prizing budget, you can still get your audience excited with fall-themed content such as trivia, surveys, and polls! You can also monetize these by selling a sponsored content package to a local advertiser.
Now that you’ve got some tips to get started, go ahead and plan your fall promotions with confidence!
