Back-to-school season is the next big marketing event after the summer holidays. As a marketer, you should embrace this opportunity and ensure you engage your audiences on digital channels and interact with them. To help you capitalise on back to school, we’ve compiled ideas and real-life examples that you can use as inspiration to engage with consumers and, in the end, collect data. Let’s dive in!
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Classics
Quizzes are a simple and efficient interactive format with thousands of different combinations to generate traffic on your channels and engage your audience. Test your audience’s knowledge with a fun quiz. For more challenge, you can add a chrono or do a sudden death quiz, excluding participant as from the first wrong answer ?
Choose the fun and popular format of Tinder to create your quiz, survey or personality test. Participants have to “swipe” left or right to answer your questions.
We can’t talk about back-to-school without mentioning the teachers! Imagine a contest around their funny phrases. Invite your audience to share their experiences and reward the participant with the most votes.
Connect the physical and digital worlds
First of all, the internet may provide a very efficient way to reach audiences, but in some cases, marketing campaigns and contests still, need to be offered on multiple channels. Consumers could, for instance, enter the contest at your store, but also take part on your Facebook page or website.
But more importantly, to really connect the physical and digital worlds distribute (e)coupons in your campaign, to thank your participants for their participation, that can be redeemed for a discount when purchasing specific products or services.
New! Users of the Qualifio platform could already integrate Highco Data e-coupons at the end of their competition. From now on, they can also use Sogec e-coupons. This brand-new integration allows them to send discount coupons by email to participants in their contests. Discover step by step how to integrate Sogec discount coupons into a Qualifio campaign.
Boost sales by demonstrating how you products fit into people’s lives
Another right way to do this is to point out how people can use your products. Consumers today (even kids) are savvy and are creating a lot of content to share online. Consider letting your audience create your back-to-school content! Let them write texts, take pictures, shoot videos… This creative content will be unique and viral!
Let’s take the example of Manutan Collectivités: this brand specialised in furniture and interior design encouraged its audience to draw their ideal class. Students were then invited to share their drawings through a photo contest published on a dedicated website and to collect as many votes as possible to try to win furniture for their class.
Offer something useful to your audience
Your campaign shouldn’t be just about getting people to buy; you should also use it to help your audience. In addition to showcasing your products, find ways to become a helpful resource for your audience. A simple way to do this is to offer back-to-school tips.
Tip: this campaign can also work for targets other than students and children. For example, if you are a lifestyle magazine, what about sponsoring a cosmetics brand with a checklist entitled: “Is your make-up case ready for back-to-school ?”
No matter your sector, you can also imagine a personality test to help your audience make a choice or learn more about a specific topic. For example, Decathlon created a personality test entitled “Which sports will you discover this summer?“. An ideal campaign to collect preference data, segment its audience and promote its sporting goods.
Go viral with social shares
Invite your participants to share their result on social media. Better yet, encourage participants to share your campaign on Facebook for a second chance; it will help you grow your brand’s online presence.
That’s exactly what Studieshop.be did! They drove their customers to their online jackpot with flyers and encouraged them to share the campaign on Facebook to be sure to win a prize! Studieshop also wanted to have more fans on its new Facebook page. The campaign allowed them to create a first digital audience thanks to a pop up inviting participants to like the Facebook page before entering the campaign. Discover how to drive consumers to your digital channels with Studieshop.be’s success story.
Showcase your products the original way
Instead of just putting your products out there and asking people to buy them, showcase your merchandise the original way! With a spot the difference or an hidden object campaign or a memory like Ice-Watch. With the memory, your audience is spending time on your campaign, interact with your brand and see your products.
Not selling back-to-school products? Use it as a marketing opportunity anyway!
Just because you’re not selling traditional school supplies, doesn’t mean you can’t run a back-to-school campaign. Start by figuring out what this season means for your audience. Perhaps it’s simply the end of summer or a good time for a change: learn a new instrument, fix up that forgotten spare room, buy a new car, etc.
From the examples above, it’s clear that brands and media have many opportunities to engage audiences on their terms, which means reach them with content that provides value by educating or entertaining them.
