Last Updated on by Dan S
Originally Published July 22, 2020.
How to boost customer acquisition by running competitions on your Shopify store
Looking for a way to boost your customer acquisitions on your Shopify store? Have you tried running competitions? It could be the answer that you’re looking for. With a competition in place, you could increase your email list and store’s sales, as well as growing your social media profiles. What’s not to like.
Still unsure? We’ve distinguished other reasons why you should be running a competition on your online store:
- Increase your email newsletter subscribers
- Engage with new visitors that hit your website
- Get data for your ideal target audience
- Increase your brand awareness
- Grow your social media
Using competitions to grow your Shopify store
In order to grow your Shopify store and increase sales, you’ll need to plan your competition. Identify the goal you want to achieve and the freebie/s you’re happy giving. The goal you choose should be specific and clear, such as increasing your sales or brand awareness. Setting a goal from the start means you’ll be able keep track on it and know whether or not your meeting it.
You want to be able to measure your goal’s success by tracking and analysing the data. You’ll need to work out which metrics you want to track and how you can successfully launch your competition campaign. Once you’ve put your analysing and tracking metrics in place, you can now decide on the freebie or prize you wish to give away.
Think carefully about the prize you want to give away once the competition has ended. You want something that is going to guarantee you increased shares and engagement. Make sure it’s relevant to your competition and to your brand. The more people that are talking about your brand and products, the better.
Know when to hold your competition
Timing is key. It’s important to hold your competition at a time when you know it’ll get the most engagement. Running your competition at a certain time of year or during a special occasion are good ways to make the most of it. Collaborations with other brands and companies are great ideas for competitions. If you’ve recently collaborated with a brand, use this as a chance to run a competition and get your own brand out there. You’ll want to design your competition so that it meets and is seen by your target audience.
A fantastic way of holding a competition is via your social media channels, such as Instagram and Facebook. It means you can reach your current audience whilst stretching out and targeting new customers. A competition is a great hook to get new visitors to your website instantly and buy your products, which in turn increases your revenue. User-generated content is also great because you’re getting participants to send their own content in such as a video or photo. The winner of the competition would be chosen based on their content meeting your own criteria.
Creating and running your competition
You’ll need to spend time creating and designing your competition. This will include the actual coding creation, setting up the analytics and doing the marketing. Marketing is key, as this will draw in participants to your competition. Once you have your competition all set up, the next step is to market it and expose your campaign. Your current customers must know about the campaign and this can easily be done via social media or newsletter.
Announcing the winner
This is the part that all your participants will have been waiting for. Announcing the winner is important and should be done publicly. Posting it on social media and including it in your newsletters are good starts to making it public. It should motivate those that took part, especially the winner, and they should want to enter the next competition you hold.
Analyse the results
It’s always good to analyse the results after the competition has ended. You need to understand whether your engagement and sales increased during the competition running time. It could open up new customers and a different target audience.
Alternatives to running a competition
There are other methods of boosting sales. Our Shopify app, Movo, is an alternative, as it allows Shopify merchants to incentivise customers by reaching milestones to unlock gifts and prizes. It’s another great way to increase your conversion rate and sales.
