In social media marketing, art supply stores, like any retail business, face the particular challenge of framing their products within the wider scope of their customers needs and interests. Social media provides incredibly creative and engaging new ways to reach your market.
Social Media Marketing campaigns, such as those provided by Wishpond, can be used to bolster your existing sales promotions, facilitate new and creative promotional campaigns as well as to boost your social influence and credibility and to ultimately achieve a greater online presence.
What can you expect in terms of ROI
- increase awareness of sales promotions
- reach new customers with the right appeals to their needs and interests
- increase brand awareness and loyalty
- Gain insight into your audience with Wishpond analytics
- Drive traffic and sales
Leverage the Natural Creativity of your Customers
Hosting social media contests is a great way of cultivating community engagement by piggybacking on the existing social and cultural investment of your customers.
Wishpond offers a wide variety of different campaign options. For the purposes of this article however we will be focusing on just three options:
Sweepstakes or Facebook Sweepstakes
Sweepstakes function as a contest in which participants enter a draw to win a prize. Wishpond allows you to set the parameters of the contest, including the prize, time frame, associated contest photo and more. We often recommend sweepstakes as a first campaign for new users of Wishpond. Sweepstakes contain very low barriers to entry; unlike video or essay contests, participants are not required to go to the trouble of producing content. For best results, Sweepstakes should be run on a regular basis, 2 times a month for example.
Participants will be required to submit their emails (plus any other required information you choose specify). Email addresses and other contact information that you collect will be useful for future campaigns. It is also possible to apply a like gate to your contest, making it mandatory for viewers to like your page on Facebook before being allowed to enter the contest. Additionally, users who enter your contest will automatically share the contest on their Facebook profiles.
To get the most out of a sweepstakes campaign, be sure to always offer one of your own products as the prize. Optimize your selection of prizes by considering the demand of the products in question relative to the timing of the contest. During back to school season for instance, basic supplies such as pencils, pens and paper may be most in demand (you know better than I do I’m sure). On the other hand, during the holiday season Gift Cards, wrapping paper and framing services may be more popular.
Photo Contests
Photo contests provide the opportunity to create a two way exchange with your potential customers and to pursue the valuable task of touching on points of interest, achieved in this case by allowing your users to have a direct say in what those points of interest are. Photo contests are a natural fit for Art supply stores given the visual nature of the business (not to mention the fact that visual content is generally very dominant in the social media universe). The campaign works by having users submit images which are then either voted on by other users or chosen directly by you to win a prize of your choosing.
Contest themes can center on the sharing of common interests. Some examples may include:
- share a personal photograph of an example of architecture that inspires you
- share a personal photograph of an example of nature that inspires you
- submit a picture of your favorite subject to draw or paint
The possibilities here really are endless. Another approach is to set up an art or design competition. Examples may include:
- t-shirt design competition
- poster design competition
- logo design competition
- fine art competition in which the winner’s art will be displayed and sold in your store
Vote Contests
With a market base as culturally inclined as the one in question, there is surely no shortage of fervent opinions to exploit in the effort to generate discussion and interest. Upon submitting their email addresses and entering, participants will then be granted the opportunity to vote for any number of options of your choosing. Vote contests offer yet another opportunity to touch on points of interest within your market base. But that’s not all; depending on your topic you can also uncover useful and illuminating instances of public consensus for your audience.
To illustrate this, here are some possible contest ideas:
- Choose your favorite painting medium – oil, acrylic or tempera
- what is the more effective strategy for learning how to paint or draw – by copying the master’s techniques or by drawing from observation?
These are of course, very subjective choices, but that does not stop your target market from having strong opinions on the matter and being curious about the beliefs and attitudes of their peers. You will do best by taking advantage of your target market’s overriding curiosity.
Wishpond Analytics
Tracking the effectiveness of your campaign with Wishpond is incredibly straightforward. All of the important data points are automatically condensed into one intuitive dashboard. The dashboard allows you to easily segment your leads by age, gender, location and interests. Apart from helping to better understand your audience, these tools also allow you to export a complete email list to create targeted email campaigns.
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