Are You Making These Common Mistakes When Planning A Digital Promo?

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We’ve all been there. We’ve spent hours, weeks, and months planning and organizing a digital promotion just to see the results fall flat.

Digital promotions can be hugely successful when done right. But they’re also pretty easy to get wrong.

If you’re not getting the results you want, you might be making one of these common mistakes:

1) Not Having Your Goals Defined

You can’t reach your goals if you don’t know what they are.

With so many ways to customize digital promotions, you need to have a clear idea about what you want to achieve. Certain types of promotions are better at reaching specific goals. You don’t want to find out too late that you should have gone with a different one.

Having clear goals ensures every part of the promotion works towards achieving them. A lack of focus can leave your promo floundering and compromise your ROI.

2) Running a Hit and Run Promo

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Hit and Run Promotions Suck.

You engage consumers for maybe 30 seconds as they fill out a form (bore) and then they’re gone. No repeat plays, no real engagement. What’s the point?

Don’t pour time and money into a promotion that, at best, is only going to get you a few emails. Run promotions that drive repetitive engagement and expose consumers to your brand messaging.

3) Focusing Your Media Messaging on Your Brand

Yes, improving brand engagement is probably part of the reason you’re running a promo. But that doesn’t mean you should only focus on brand messaging in your ads.

Your media messaging needs to focus on driving people to your promo. You can put as much brand messaging inside the promo as you want. But unless you get people to play, you may as well have just run an ad and skipped the promo part all together.

To drive traffic you need to show consumers what’s in it for them. Words like “play” and “win” have high value for consumers – so make sure they are in your ad copy!

4) Skimping on Prizing

Don’t build a great promo and then shoot it in the foot by offering crappy prizes. You have to offer appealing prizing if you want consumers to engage with your promo.

Working on a limited budget? That’s no reason to cut corners on prizing.

There are solutions that can help make it more affordable, like finding a prize partner.

You also don’t have to offer money as a reward. It’s all about knowing your audience and offering prizes that have value to them.

5) Not Planning Far Enough in Advance

Ever hear that old saying: “Fast, Cheap or Good. Pick Two”? Well it extends to digital promotions.

Promotions take time to plan, design, and develop. If you wait until the last minute, you’ll limit what you can create. Especially if you want to take an omnichannel approach and integrate the promotion in-store.

Integrating your promotion with your in-store marketing can drive more traffic to your promo. It lets you track sales that result from participation in the promo. Plus printing redeemable purchase PINs on your receipts encourages repetitive purchases.

But if you start planning too late, you won’t be able to promote your promo on your in-store assets. And that can significantly hurt your ROI.

It’s better to just start early. Trust me.

6) Waiting Too Long to Book House Media

Similarly, waiting too long to book house media can result in not getting any spots at all. That means you could miss a whole group of consumers who already engage with your brand.

Start early to get your promo on as many of your house media channels as possible. Consumers who interact with your brand during the promotion should hear about it and be encouraged to participate – whether they visit your website or your store.

Further Reading: [Slide Share] 4 Quick Tips to Secure House Media for Your Digital Promotion

7) Using Your Digital AOR to Build Your Promo

Okay, I admit this tip is mildly self-serving. But it’s also true.

When you partner with a digital marketing agency instead of your regular AOR you get better results. Here’s why:

An agency whose only focus is digital promotions has a ton more resources to pour into making your promo rock. They have more people, more know-how, and even more game structures to pull from.

At the end of the day that means you end up with a better promotion – and a better ROI.

Ready to start achieving more with your promotions? Click here to download your copy of our Comprehensive Guide to Planning Your Digital Promotion

John Findlay
John is a founding partner of the digital engagement agency, Launchfire (est. 1999). In his too-many years in the business he's developed gamified digital engagement strategies & promotions for a mighty impressive list of leading marketers.

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