If there’s one thing that our most successful clients (i.e. those who have the greatest number of engaged fans and followers) have in common it’s this: they consistently provide their audience with great reasons to engage. We’ve previously written about the power of running weekly or monthly promotions (e.g. weekly coupons or monthly giveaways), but another powerful way to consistently engage your audience is to center promotions around holidays (e.g. Valentines, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Hanukkah etc).
With many countries about to celebrate their National Holiday over the next couple of months (4th of July, French Independence Day, Swiss National Day etc) we thought we’d provide you with some creative ideas for ‘National Holiday’-themed promotions.
IDEA #1: Encourage word of mouth spread by offering The Ultimate Holiday Party
Run a sweepstakes to give away the ‘ultimate National Holiday party’ – food, drinks, and bbq included. But to make it more ‘social’ and to encourage word-of-mouth spread, use our ‘group prize’ functionality and ask entrants to name the ’5 people’ they’d invite to the party if they were to win.
IDEA #2: Drive daily engagement with a ‘count down’ sweepstakes
Encourage regular engagement leading up to the holiday by running a ‘count down’ sweepstakes (e.g. ‘Count down to 4th July’ or ’30 days ’til Bastille Day’). For each day of the ‘count down’ award a daily prize like a gift card and then award one grand prize at the end of the promotion.
IDEA #3: Combine Holiday-Themed Virtual Gifts with Charitable Giving
Create a virtual gift campaign to enable friends to send each other free Holiday-themed virtual gifts (e.g. American flags, fireworks & party hats to celebrate 4th July). Combine this with an opportunity to ‘give back’ by offering to donate $1 to a charity of your choice for every gift sent.
IDEA #4: Encourage sharing by running a Holiday-themed Contest
Create a Holiday-themed contest where users submit their best fireworks photos, favorite 4th July recipes or pledges for what they plan to do to make their country better. Contests can be highly viral because each entrant will reach out to their friends and family to vote for their entry.
IDEA #5: Celebrate the Holiday by giving away ‘Mystery’ coupons
Many stores will offer coupons and deals to celebrate the 4th July or other National Holidays so why not use Wildfire Campaign Builder to provide a coupon on your fan page or website. To add more fun to your promotion, use our unique code upload functionality to offer a ‘mystery’ coupon, like the game retailer Hautelook created with Wildfire.
I had a little trouble understanding at first, but I think I know what meant now. Thanks!
Hey Dino,
You’re very welcome!
Hi, thanks so much for these tips! My blogs usually do bring readers and responses. One thing I do is engage with the readers. Answer questions in responses and make clarifications where needed. I think they appreciate that I take the time to talk to them.
Hey Ovel,
Thanks for your message! We try to do the same thing with our comments, respond and engage with each one! Hopefully our readers are diggin’ it. :)
Hi,
Thank you for sharing these usefully tips I will be using these to promote my new website which will be live from next month.
Regards
Sam
Hey Sam!
Thanks for writing in, we appreciate your feedback, and best of luck with your new website!
Really good suggestions offered for online retailers.
Hey Allen,
Thanks for the compliment! We appreciate your kind feedback!
Great job!
Thanks Schreck!
Thanks for a great post and interesting comments. I found this post while searching for some lyrics. Thanks for sharing this post.
You’re very welcome. We like lyrics too. :)
Pingback: Tweets that mention Use July 4th & Other National Holidays to Build your Fan Base « Wildfire Social Media Marketing Blog -- Topsy.com
Pingback: Farriz, Lai and Tseu gunning for much-coveted Overall Title … | Racing Automotive Wisdom
great blog, bookmarked it to show my friend :)!
Thanks Jenny!
Pingback: Use July 4th & Other National Holidays to Build your Fan Base ... | Intenseblog.com
Thanks for these ideas. is the ‘group prize’ functionality available in certain levels only of wildfire campaigns?
Hi Mary!
You are very welcome, it is our pleasure to share with our friends and fans. To answer your question, group prize is available with all campaigns standard and above, as the key to making it work is a customizable entry form! You see, you can configure almost any type of campaign, as long as it has an entry form, to ask your entrants who is in their “group” of friends, that they would want to win, together. At the conclusion of the promotion, you could then cross check the list against your entrants to see that all the friends signed up, and contact them to let them know they won the group prize!
Hope that helps!
Hi ,
Love the 4th of july idea, still figuring it out how to use it with my website. Fb or twitter readers….any advice and help specific to my website will be most appreciated.
I told my garnmdotehr how you helped. She said, bake them a cake!
Nice work, Bookmarking this now. We’ll see how it goes.
Very nice. Thanks for the update though, good info.
Thanks Willie, we’re glad you like it! :)
Hey Adela,
Thanks for writing in! You are very welcome!