Using Promotions to Generate More Sales: Part I
Why is Social Media Important?
Social media is all about the conversations. If you create a conversation with your customers, they will become more engaged with you and your company, and your company will prosper from the healthier relationship.
Make the Plan
Like building your long-term social media community, creating a promotion typically can't be done on the fly. Nor should it. Even if you are a marketing expert who intuitively "gets" how to run a promotion from start to finish, you'll still want to make a plan in advance.
Do the research
Before you do your promotion, you need to get online and see if anyone has done something similar. The key is, if you have an idea for a promotion, find a similar promotion and learn from it — it's like finding a pot of gold.
Create an Outline
Once you have researched promotions that are similar to what you want to do, you need to create an outline citing how your promotion is going to go. At a bare minimum, it should include at least the following information:
- The type of promotion
- The theme of the promotion
- The social media channels to be used
- The participants in the promotion
- The responsibilities of each participant
- The materials needed for the promotion
- The goals of the promotion
Set the Goals
Keen observers will have noted the last required point on the outline: the goals of the promotion. It's important to set concrete, measurable goals for the promotion so that you can see how it truly performed. If the promotion didn't work out as planned, analyse the results after it's all said and done for insights into what went wrong and what went right. The types of goals that can be measured in a promotional campaign include the following:
- Increased sales/donations: are the first-level goal for most organisations — a specific increase in the sale of a particular item or the amount of donations received.
- Awareness: involves making your organisation more prominent in your social community. Specific metrics would include attendance at a specific event or an increase in the number of new contacts on an organisational mailing list.
- Participation: may revolve around a specialized major event, where you need people to participate for the event to succeed. This could include a community fundraising event in which your organisation is participating.
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