Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Tip #126: Honor Fathers Leading Up to Father’s Day

Father’s Day is just a few weeks away (June 15) so this week’s tip is to utilize social media to help your customers honor their fathers and hopefully they’ll come in to buy your sweets in the process.

Below find a few ideas for some of the most popular social media tools. Take one and use it, or take a combination approach for the social media avenues your customers use most.

Facebook – For the week leading up to the holiday, have followers post their favorite sayings or lessons learned from their dad. Make a daily post and have followers comment in the post with their sayings or lessons. Then, choose your favorite at the end of the week to win a Father’s Day gift basket. You could take a humorous or sentimental approach with this one!
Twitter – Use a custom hashtag to encourage followers to post about their dad. Similar to the Facebook suggestion, you can take a humorous or sentimental approach here. Be sure to promote the hashtag so you can view all participant submissions.
Pinterest –  Have a Dad’s Sweet Dream Gifts contest that requires entrants to have a Pinterest board full of their dad’s favorite items from your website or online store. Require the board to include your company name (awareness builder!) and then have entrants submit the URL to their board by emailing you or posting the link on your Facebook page. (Check out this Pinterest contest for an idea of how it to communicate the idea to customers.)
Instagram – Photo contest! Have customers submit photos of themselves with their dads holding their favorite chocolates or candies from your store. Just as with Twitter, encourage a custom hashtag so that you can easily view the submissions.

For each of these items, you could say that if they come to your store before Father’s Day and show their comment, Tweet, etc. on their phone then they receive a free piece of fudge, truffle, etc. As you know, once you get them in your store, they’re likely to purchase your irresistible treats!