This Valentine’s day sales are expected to reach $18.9 billion, second only to Christmas (National Retail Federation).
The NRF is projecting the average amount spent per person on Valentine’s gifts will be an average of $142.31.
And with this Valentine’s Day falling on a Saturday, restaurants will be standing room only. It’s estimated that $3.6 billion will be spent on restaurants and movies.
Here’re some surprising facts that may inspire your Valentine’s Day marketing.
21% of people that own pets will include them in their celebrations.
Men spend twice as much on Valentine’s Day as women.
Adults 25-34 will spend the most money on Valentine’s Day.
How can you take advantage of the Valentine’s Day sales?
Send out a quick Valentine’s Day Deal on your Facebook page using the approved Deal on Facebook Page app.
Identify your buyer. Are you targeting males or females? For Valentine’s day, you may have a product for females, but need to target males as they are going to be the buyers. What age is your buyer?
Use your Facebook insights to identify the time when this audience is on Facebook.
In your Deal, use the language that will entice and connect with your identified audience. Your language will be different for a female audience than a male audience.
Solve your buyer’s problems. This week, men will need a fast, easy gift. Women spend more time planning their gifts; they may have already purchased, but this maybe a great time for a trip or special event.
Ideas for Valentine’s Day Facebook Contests and Promotions:
Use the Photo Contest App to have the entrants share their homemade Valentine’s cards and gifts. Or have entrants take a photo of them using your product or service that they love.
Use the Essay Contest App for a “Love Letter” contest. Have entrants write a few lines about your product or service.
How a Facebook Contest for a non-sexy business (insurance) achieved great success!
I’ve heard it many times before and in many variations but usually it goes something like this,
“Our business doesn’t lend itself well to contests. We’re not sexy, we’re a service.”
Well, here’s a case study on a business that could have said that but didn’t!
Stolly Insurance serves central Ohio with insurance services. The standard types, personal, commercial, health, life, and more.
THE CHALLENGE:
Insurance is not something people buy every day!
So the challenge can be to keep their audience connected and engaged, particularly on Facebook. Their marketing agency, NOW Marketing Group, has helped them gain steam and build an active social community through engaging posts and promotions.
One key promotion with such great ROI was their Facebook Photo Contest.
THE PLAN:
The “Stolly Hustle Award” that involved local athletes and high schools in the communities they serve!
Stolly Insurance Group, in partnership with Motorists Insurance, conducted a contest on their agency Facebook page searching four Ohio counties for the Stolly Hustle Player of the Year. Players from 14 schools in their area were nominated for demonstrating “the willingness to do whatever it takes to win.”
HOW IT WORKED:
On social media, Stolly asked each local high school boys basketball coach or Athletic Director to nominate one player. The entries were posted using a TabSite Photo Contest. Once all nominations are in, fans voted for their school’s nominee for about a month.
The player with the most votes was named Hustle Player of the Year and wins a Buckeye Prize Basket.
METHODS:
Facebook posts announcing upcoming contest to build awareness
Facebook posts announcing launch of contest
Posts giving updates on contest
Posts sharing when contest is ending and the need to vote
Facebook Ads used on posts to increase visibility
Like Gate on the contest app so voters needed to “Like” the Page to vote
THE RESULTS:
This Facebook Contest generated for the page:
116 new fans
Fan interaction on Facebook went from 215 the previous month to 1.7k the month of the contest.
Page impressions went from 12,769 by 4,890 users to 27,426 by 10,897 users
All in all, a successful way to ENGAGE the fan base, ATTRACT the community their business serves, and GROW both fans, interaction, and a positive rapport!
Your business may not be “sexy” but involving the community you serve can be a great way to run a contest that builds your business connections!
With over 1.2 billion users and spanning all important demographics, you’ve heard me say before that Facebook is a key location where businesses can connect with their ideal audience.
This post lays out how you can do that!
We’ll review an overview of how a business can create a Facebook Marketing campaign to drive users to a tab where they can access a coupon or deal offer.
The Who:
A key first step in any business campaign, but even more so when creating a online and social media campaign, is to identify your target audience.
Who exactly are you trying to reach?
What gender?
Age range?
What are their typical online behaviors?
What pain do they have that your products or services can address?
Answering these questions is critical to success as it helps you in later campaign steps to cater information to this specific audience.
Once the target audience is clarified and what pain points the audience has, then a campaign can be built that speaks in the language (style) of that audience and addresses their specific needs.
The Tab:
Once identified, the next step in the Facebook campaign is to create the offer landing tab on Facebook. This is the place that outlines the offer and gives the visitor access to it.
The key is doing it in a way that enables a lead capture so that you will be able to market to the user in the future as well. For this process I recommend creating a deal, coupon or offer tab. Something of value to the ideal audience that is an incentive for them to take action.
This offer should be time specific, not too long or short, something like 5-10 days can work best as well so that there is a need to act upon the offer in a timely fashion. The tab should have a clear and concise description related to what the visitor gets and what action they need to take to participate.
The Sharing:
After the campaign tab is ready, the next step is setting up the campaign’s other promotion assets. By this I mean creating the awareness and distribution messages for each channel where the campaign can be shared.
One key area that can be used on Facebook is the Facebook Page cover image. The cover image is the first and primary message area a visitor see’s when coming to a Facebook Page. It is large and needs to be visually attractive and convey the campaign offer concisely. I definitely recommend businesses design a new cover image for their Facebook page that announces the campaign message and includes a clear Call to Action that alerts visitors to the offer.
Next, it is time to schedule posts to the page that will go into the News Feed for prime times when your fan base is on Facebook. Mix the posts up in terms of style (image, link, and even video), and message, not simply repeating the same statement. Mixing the campaign posts in with your regular posts is important. You do not want to just repetitively push a promotion as the only messaging your company is doing on Facebook.
Ideally, the campaign should be about 20-25% of the overall mix of posting a page is doing on Facebook. As well, posts that are visual engage the viewer the best and by keeping the text concise and including the smart URL linking to the coupon/deal tab, the viewer can see the post in their own Facebook news feed, be motivated to click through, and ultimately arrive at the offer on the Facebook page tab where they can opt in.
Lastly, in addition to the cover image and scheduled posts, be sure to announce the campaign on your website and blog, and send out a email update to your existing email lists to alert them as well.
Beyond this, sharing messages on other relevant social media channels your audience interacts on can help get the word out.
Remember, this isn’t a once and done item. The more you can share in relevant ways and encourage your community to share, the better you can increase your campaign reach. The more you increase the reach, the higher the number of participants you can get.
That’s the quick overview of a repeatable Facebook campaign. Listen to my podcast on this to get even more tips and ideas at www.mikegingerich.com/12/.
Contests on Facebook can be run in multiple ways! Companies can run contests on tabs with tools like the TabSite Photo Contest App.
As well, Facebook recently loosened these rules to allow for more contest options and TabSite has responded to help Pages manage and run these additional options as well.
So with TabSite, Page Admins can run Promotions on tabs (for greater design control, features, and lead capture) or deploy quick and simple contests in the News Feed. Let’s look at the News Feed Timeline Contest tool below.
TabSite makes it easy with tools for management and deployment!
With the new Timeline Contest app, businesses can launch a quick & simple Facebook contest that is in the news feed using a normal post by the Page.
That means you can run a Timeline Contest that asks fans to enter the contest by:
liking the post
leaving a comment
posting a photo
etc.
TabSite’s Timeline Contest app does the work of sorting entries and picking winners for you. The tool allows pages to export the post data (likes/comments, etc) and randomly select winners according to the criteria you select. As well, at the Platinum plan level, TabSite users can run Photo Contests in the News Feed and easily get a export of all comments and photos on the photo contest post!
Quickly Create New Contest Posts
Additionally, TabSite users can create, customize, and launch their contest post from ready-made samples in the TabSite manager, making it easy to deploy, manage, and select winners via a timeline contest!
Post types ready to deploy in the manager include:
Sweepstakes
Trivia (visitors must comment with correct answer)
Photo Contests
Available at the Free Plan and up! Any plan can use the Timeline Contest App. At the Platinum and Enterprise Agency levels there are more features including:
Option to have multiple winners selected
Ability to Export Photo Comments on a Post (for photo contests)
Ability to Filter comments by a keyword (for trivia contests)
Ability to store up to 5 contest exports for future access
Overview:
Once in the manager, select the Page (if more than one Page is managed in TabSite) from the drop down at the top of the page, then in the left menu click on the “Timeline Contest” button.
To select a winner from posts already on your Facebook page, simply (1) click “Select a Post” which connects to your Page posts and pulls them in for viewing.
Each post shows the post excerpt, created date, and number of Likes and Comments it received. Simply Click on the Post that you are using for the contest, Identify what criteria you were running your contest by, such as by Likes, Comments, Likes and Comments, and photos posted as a comment.
The “Allow Duplicates” can be checked or unchecked. If duplicates are allowed, then in a “Like or Comment” contest where the user Likes (1 entry) and comments (a different entry), that user has 2 entries.
Same for Commenting. If “Allow Duplicates” is on for a Comment contest, then one user can comment 26 times and have 26 entries. If the box is unchecked, that user with 26 comments gets 1 entry.
Enabling selection of Multiple Winners, Downloading photos, and rejecting comments without photos are features available at the Platinum level.
Then Download the csv file.
For non-Platinum Plans, we store the most recent download only. For Platinum plans we store up to the most recent 5. At any time, simply delete the existing download to make room for a new download.
Options for Creating New Timeline Contest Posts
Need help creating a post? We’ve got you covered.
Click the “Create Post” tab to be given options to easily modify for:
• Sweepstakes (giveaways where a random winner is selected)
• Trivia (give users options and they must comment with correct answer to be eligible to win)
• Photo Contests (fans enter by adding a Photo Comment)
Simply select the type of post contest you want to run. Click the “Show More” button to see options. Then customize text and use our supplied image or click/drag to upload your own image and publish!.
That’s it! We supply sample disclaimer text for you. For full setup instructions and details click to view our Help Guide.
Again, available at FREE plans on up in TabSite!
To sign-up your Facebook Page for the Timeline Cost App, simply go here:
Facebook offers EVERY restaurant a great way to stay in touch with their customers and find new ones. The key is in providing timely information and great value.
By offering regular, fun, social information and timely updates via Facebook posts, a page has started well! By then making sure you offer easy access to information, deals, and more RIGHT ON Facebook to would-be customers, restaurants can really benefit. This provides easy, fast, and immediate access and removes barriers of potentially losing fans by transferring them to your website (more on that below).
6 Things Restaurants Should Do on Facebook
1. Post Inspiring Content, Images, and News Regularly
While it could be tempting to offer deals, specials, and more continually, please remember that social media is about building relationships, being social, and offering value. Users are on Facebook to connect and engage with things of interest. Being too salesy all the time will turn fans off. A loyal following and community can only be created if you actively seek out and share valuable content, yours and community related, that inspires, informs, educates and connects.
Post on a regular schedule, such as 2-3 times per day at key times and in a way that invites Likes, Shares, and Comments. Use a mix of post types from status updates to photos of food and short videos of life and times at the restaurant.
NOTE: people are visual and the popularity of Facebook and Pinterest prove that people connect with images. If you want to quickly capture the attention of your fans or followers, add images that are eye-catching and pleasing to the eye. Also, consider using simple tools like Vine and Instagram’s Video tool along with Facebook Video and YouTube as ways to easily create shareable videos that display well on Facebook.
2. Highlight Special Items on the Fan Page Cover Image
Now that Facebook no longer has a text limit of 20% on Cover Images, use the Cover Image regularly as a means of showcasing valuable items like this week’s special, new seasonal offerings, or pictures of the live band, whatever is relevant to your restaurant! This can be changed out weekly or 2x a week. Consider using a Cover Image template to enable you to customize images quickly and be sure to edit the image to include a description and a link when it is posted. Here’s 12 more ideas for creating buzz with your Cover Image.
3. Include a Menu Tab
It’s not rocket science! Let visitors on your Facebook Page know what you got right on Facebook!
Add a tab and add your menu to the tab. Want to save more time? Use the TabSite Website ReSizer and simply add your existing menu from your website to a Facebook tab! Why? It saves time! Update your menu on your website and the tab is updated automatically since it’s the same page, just on Facebook! Website ReSizer allows the powerful advantage of making any website page fit perfectly in a tab.
Then share updates to your menu via a post on Facebook and link to the tab via a Smart URL(mobile friendly) to take visitors direct to the tab!
4. Offer Reservations via a Facebook Tab
Does Friday evening get packed at your hot spot? Do you already offer reservations via your website? Then simply bring it into Facebook for use! Same as the menu tab above, create a tab and use the Website ReSizer app to bring your web reservations page into Facebook for use. Then post about it in the news feed before prime time and get customers used to coming to your page on Facebook to make their reservations! Sweetness!
This adds a great dimension of functionality to your fan page. When people are on Facebook, they want to stay on Facebook, and this allows them to do so by giving them the information and tools right on the Facebook page tab.
5. Use Facebook Check Ins and Check In Deals
Restaurants can have the Check In feature enabled, which is valuable to get extra exposure on Facebook!
Facebook offers quite a variety of page category options. One of the biggest features that any local business should take advantage of is the Check In option.
This will allow users to check into your location, which is helpful for at least two reasons. First, it can raise awareness of your business and location with friends of the user checking in. Second, check ins can be part of Graph Search results, so that if a Facebook user is searching for a restaurant in Chicago that friends have visited, check ins appear in results.
Graph Search result with check-ins of friends listed.
To check or change your Page category, go to the Admin Panel and select Edit Settings. Then go to Basic Information, and find Category at the top of the list.
Check In Deals
A big bonus that Facebook offers is ability for locations with Check In feature to offer a deal for visitors checking in. This is a great way to generate some buzz and get more exposure leading to more customers. (Note: I’ve seen that they are not available in some countries).
What is a Check-in Deal?
A Check-in Deal is a way to offer an incentive to customers to check-in to your business on Facebook with their mobile devices. When they check-in, you can offer any of the following Deals in exchange:
Individual: Offer a discount to an individual for simply checking in.
Loyalty: Offer a discount or freebie for checking in a certain number of times.
Friend: Offer a Deal to groups of friends who check-in together.
Charity: A check-in results in a donation to the specified charity.
Access Deals in your Page Admin area:
Check In Offer Deal Types as Shown in Page Admin
6. Offer a Special Deal for Email Sign-ups via a Facebook Tab
By adding a Email sign-up tab to your Facebook page and making users aware of it periodically through posts and tips, restaurants grow their email list and then reach potential buyers and sellers via this means as well. This is critical! Email continues to be a primary marketing success method. When it gets into the inbox, it gets attention.
Email marketing continues to provide value to those who use it by creating a routine of regular information and education that is in the inbox! With integration’s for tabs from services like MailChimp and Constant Contact among others, having a custom tab for email sign-ups is a snap! More powerful still than a basic sign-up form is to create incentive by offering some of value, a free guide, offer, or resource, that is the motivator that is shared to encourage users to opt-in.
Together these tips implemented and carried out with regular news feed updates on your restaurant fan page can be a valuable method of marketing to grow more customers!
What about your business? Most of these tips can also apply to other industries as well! Do you have other ideas to add to the mix?
