Strengthening the relationship with your customers: which promotion to choose? 27 September 2023 Let’s look at the most effective promotional formulas to strengthen the bond with your customers There are several promotional tools at our disposal to create and strengthen the relationship with customers effectively. Online draws and competitions, MultiGame, gift with purchase promotions and quizzes and surveys allow you to offer consumers: The chance to win a prize The opportunity to interact with your brand in a playful way Learning more about your company and your products in a more engaging way Providing consumers with a space to give their feedback and give their opinion about your brand and your offering. Let’s look at the most effective formulas to use to keep your customers close at hand. Which promotion to organise to strengthen the relationship with your customers There are different types of promotions that you can organise to strengthen the relationship with your customers: Online draws and competitions to communicate and share your brand and your news MultiGame to offervarious activities that strengthen the bond with the brand by exploiting games and informative or promotional content in a custom environment to create multiple regular appointments Gift with purchase promotions to create loyalty through gifts, collections and loyalty cards Quizzes and surveys to gatherfeedback or suggestions from your target audience. Online prize draws and competitions In an online prize competition, participation takes place through the website or page dedicated to the promotion and this also offers you the opportunity to present to your target audience your brand and news about it. You can create a communication space with your customers much more effectively than an advertisement could because it will be the consumer him/herself who will look for it and visit it in order to participate in the initiative. After purchasing the product that is the subject of the promotion, the customer must, in fact, connect to the website dedicated to the draw or competition and register with the data indicated by the regulations in order to participate and have the chance to win. Remember that choosing prizes that attract your target audience is a fundamental aspect for the success of any draw or competition! You can expect prizes to be awarded in Instant win mode or with a final draw or, and this is the solution we recommend, you can plan a combination of these two mechanisms. In the case of an Instant win, it is advisable to provide a basket of prizes large enough to allow you to make the most of this mechanism by rewarding multiple participants. With a final draw, instead, it is essential to choose a very attractive prize for your target audience. However, be careful not to make it a mere question of financial value in itself but ask yourself, instead, what your target really wants, aim for customised and exclusive prizes. If you combine the two mechanisms, you extend the experience of participation beyond the immediacy of the Instant win play and keep your promotion alive for longer, as, for example, Valdo did with its contest aimed at consumers in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. MultiGame To keep your customers connected for a longer period of time, you can schedule a MultiGame or a calendar of regular online appointments. The logic is similar to that of the advent calendar, that is, multiple “windows” that conceal different contents: games, videos, discount codes, information, quizzes, vouchers, to give a few examples. You can decide that your initiative has any duration, offering regular appointments that encourage consumers to return several times to visit the promotion site. Such an initiative can be exploited to prepare the ground for the launch of a new product, for example, or an event such as Fattore Momma competition to inform customers about your offering in a more stimulating way or even just to entertain them with ever-different different mini-games. If you decide for a largely fun activity, you can choose between several mini-games: Wordsearch, Puzzles, Memory, Hidden Objects, Timed Quiz, Match it, Slide and Match. The environment of the minigame is completely customisable to be in line with the image of your company and to have your products as protagonists as in the Manila Grace competition. You can also associate to the Multigame a prize-competition with final draw featuring an enticing prize pool that encourages participation all the more. Gift with purchase promotions As we have seen in our article dedicated to promotional initiatives that help increase sales, these are a great tool to increase sales but they also work very well to strengthen the relationship with customers. In a gift with purchase promotion, everyone who buys the promoted product or service receives a gift, but you can also expect more purchases to be required to get the prize. You can ask for a certain number of stamps or proofs of purchase to be collected in a certain period of time, or create promotions related to loyalty cards. In this way you can create a campaign that develops over a longer period of time and that helps you achieve the goal of retaining your customers. In Italy, for example, gift with purchase transactions can by law have a maximum duration of 5 years: you can, therefore, develop longer-term initiatives than competitions that can last a maximum of one year. Quizzes & surveys Another activity you can put in place to engage your audience and strengthen the bond with your brand is quizzes and surveys. Giving your customers a way to express their opinions and tell you about their relationship with your products is a great way to foster a strong and lasting bond. Knowing their opinions, especially the less positive ones, can help you avoid disaffection with your customers and allow you to promptly activate corrective actions that bind them even more to you. Strengthen the relationship with your customers at home and abroad You can decide to organise these promotional initiatives within the territory of your country but also abroad. Each country has its own rules and regulations on promotional initiatives and certain mechanisms may be subject to different rules in different countries or, in some cases, even be banned. Relying on the support of an agency specialised in international prize draws and competitions ensures you can avoid mistakes that could cost you penalties. Find out more about promotional initiatives that help you build customer loyalty, contact us!
