Game On! Integrating Social Media in your campaign using Contests.

We have discussed in previous posts the importance of incorporating all the different social media platforms available in order to attract more people to your events, conventions, trade-shows and even your company profile. (For more information on the importance of integrating social media to your campaign click here) However, there are even more ways that social media can help you bring more traffic to your website, blog or page. Featuring contests, competitions and/or coupons can help bring more traffic to your page, resulting maybe in more sales, more downloads or more clientele.

A recent example of this new technique is the American sporting goods store, Callaway. Famous for their golf equipment and goods, Callaway has become one of the biggest brands in the sports industry. With artist endorsements and sponsorships, Callaway has been able to appeal to a younger audience and attract people to their brand.

Like many of today’s companies, Callaway can be found in numerous social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. [Want to follow them on Facebook? Like them here] Recently, they have created a father’s day contest; Tee off with Diablo Octone and Justin Timberlake, where the lucky winner wins a set of Callaway clubs, meet Justin Timberlake and play golf with him. For more information on the contest you can visit Callaway’s official website http://www.callawaygolf.com/Global/en-US.html or click here.

In order to enter the contest you must like their page first in Facebook. This guarantees a member in their Facebook page, giving the company access to your profile, likes and dislikes, and most importantly your information where more contests, equipment, and news can be distribute in mass quantities.

As you can see very well known brands are incorporating contests and/or competitions to their marketing campaigns. The mix of utilizing social media and attractive techniques like the contests can benefit you in many ways; bringing you more traffic to your site, more followers, and customer data. All of these points can be used as evidence of a successful marketing campaign.

Incorporating these types of techniques in the event planning industry can be easy and very entertaining to your clients or customers. For example, if you are participating in a trade-show doing a contest or a giveaway can bring more people to your booth. The contest can require people giving you their information, which you can later use as data for emails or newsletters.

Remember to be creative and unique this is the only way your company, business or corporation can be successful. Using everything the Internet has to offer can benefit you no matter in what industry you are, make sure you integrate social media to your marketing plan in order to achieve your marketing goals.








Resources:
Information
-http://www.slideshare.net/socialmediaanswers/integrating-social-media-into-your-marketing-campaign
-http://www.callawaygolf.com/Global/en-US.html
-https://www.facebook.com/Callaway?ref=ts&sk=app_111452482273231
Pictures
-http://www.tributemedia.com/blog/kelsey-bates/nows-time-be-unique
-http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/01/27/top-10-social-media-countries/
-http://hookgolfswing.com/golf-gear-and-reviews/top-golf-club-makers.html

Help Us, Help You!

Marketing?...Go Digital!

We have established in previous posts the importance of incorporating new technologies and social media in events, conventions, meetings, etc. However, social media is just one channels of digital marketing. Marketing has evolved tremendously over the past few years. Now incorporating RSS feeds, podcasts, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click ads, and SMS and MMS messages will enhance the way you market your event, product or service. Although marketing and promoting events depend on the theme, concept and target market of the event itself, event planners can benefit from digital marketing since one of it's benefits include getting immediate feedback from the consumer.

Taking advantage of all the services the Internet offers can help you increase and improve how you market your convention, meeting, trade-show, conference and/or seminar. Google search engine provides several tools that can help you create a more efficient digital marketing plan. One of these tools is called a Google Analytics. This is a free and easy way to keep track of your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. 

"Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites." 

This is a great tool to have. For more information on the product and how to use it see the video click here.

Another tool event planners can use to enhance their event's marketing plan incorporating digital marketing is Google Webmaster. This is also a free and easy tool that helps you get data about crawling, indexing and web traffic. In addition, it sends you notifications every time there is a problem with your site. With Google Webmaster you can find out how Google views your site and how it is ranking it. You can also analyze data and see how many people found your site in search results, and how many people actually clicked on it. In addition, it tracks from all over the Web and shows you who added a link to your site. It also creates sitemaps in order to see how many pages have been added to your index. For more information on this great tool see this video. 

As you can see search engines like Google are offering numerous services, for free, that help website owners learn more about what their visitor's trends and habits. This way website owners can personalized and enhanced their marketing techniques with actual and exact information. These are only a few tools you can utilize in order to obtain the best results when using and applying digital marketing. For more details on What is Digital Market? this is a good blog article, which explains and defines what it is exactly.