How customer incentives can attract more followers for your business
Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PR pros, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.
Guest post by Brian Flax
Consumers love free products, services, and incentives, and what better way to advertise to a large audience than by using a free service like Twitter? If your business already has a following, then your work is halfway done. As a business owner, all you have to do now is think of a good customer incentive you can post for your followers.
Don’t fret if you’re just getting started on Twitter; posting customer incentives can be an easy way to attract more followers and some retweets and favorites in the process.
Let’s take a look at some real-world examples of customer incentives posted on Twitter that helped increase customer loyalty and drive traffic to various businesses.
Walgreens’ free download
1Consumers love it when you can simplify their life in some way, and Walgreens took advantage of this fact in this effective call to action.
By directing followers to a free download that allows them to send photos from their phone to a local Walgreens for printing and pick-up, Walgreens attracted 99 retweets, 53 favorites, and a handful of comments from customers praising the app and sharing their success stories. Best of all, it didn’t cost the company a dime to promote.
Wendy’s 30 days of prizes
2Wendy’s created a successful Twitter campaign that was aimed at acquiring more followers and offering them a chance to win a daily prize. Titled “30 Days of Bold,” all you had to do was follow the Wendy’s Twitter account for a chance at winning a prize every day. They also used the hashtag #getbold to increase exposure. The end result of this one tweet was 170 retweets, 52 favorites, and almost 500,000 followers looking for a chance to win a daily prize.
Taco Bell’s free tacos
3During the 2012 World Series, Taco Bell asked followers to retweet this tweet if they thought a base would be stolen during one of the games. They used the hashtags #StealATaco and #WorldSeries to help with promotion and exposure. As a result, the tweet was retweeted 2,107 times and favorited 149 times. What did the consumer get? A free Doritos Locos Taco whenever a base was stolen during the World Series.
Taco Bell continued their use of the #StealATaco hashtag, and after Hurricane Sandy, gave out free tacos to those affected by the storm. It appears that was an effective way to increase customer loyalty. When your posts are retweeted by other users, you have a better chance at picking up additional followers.
McDonald’s recognition
4In addition to recognizing your Twitter followers and customers, it’s never a bad idea to partner with other brands and mention their products in your tweets. McDonald’s recently posted a tweet that advertised not only their own product, the Quarter Pounder, but also recognized their partnership with Coca-Cola in this tweet. The tweet was retweeted by Coca-Cola, advertising both products to each other’s group of followers. The tweet was retweeted 57 times and favorited by 73 Twitter users. A link was included that Twitter users could click on to play a game promoting both McDonald’s and Coca-Cola products.
Another example can be seen directly on Coca-Cola’s Twitter profile. The company recently partnered with Ford to introduce their PlantBottle technology into Ford’s cars, helping clean up the environment by using recycled material in the fabric of Ford’s cars.
Be on your best behavior
5In addition to using customer incentives to increase customer loyalty and drive traffic, business owners should be aware of certain behaviors that can help attract and retain followers.
Syncsort, for example, uses Twitter as a way to engage with their followers by posting consistently, responding to their followers’ questions in a timely manner, and mentioning other companies in their updates. All of these behaviors help to increase their exposure, add followers, and provide exceptional customer service to retain current customers and attract new ones.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money on incentives – you just need to have a good idea. Offer a free download, partner with another company to promote your product or service, or donate to a cause whenever your posts are retweeted. If you have the budget, try offering a free product or service or run a contest where your followers have a chance at winning something related to your product or industry.
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