Shop Local / Promotional Strategies & Incentives for Your Shop Local Campaign

Promotional Strategies & Incentives for Your Shop Local Campaign

Promoting your shop local campaign is just as important as its development – how you choose to promote it can have a significant impact on success! Including incentives is a great way to not only promote the campaign’s message, but it also increases participation.

Let’s have a look at some promotional strategies and incentives to help boost your shop local campaign.

• Create a campaign kit
  Creating a campaign kit that you can distribute to local businesses is a great way to ensure your shop local message reaches a wider audience. A campaign kit should include things like posters and stickers that can be displayed in windows or given to customers while they shop.
  
  Using a QR code on a poster is a fantastic way to quickly get people to visit your shop local ShowMe app!
• Have a launch “party”
  Choose a date when your campaign will launch and involve local businesses to create a launch “party”. This may be a night where some local businesses will stay open later or offer discounts, free samples, etc. The aim of the launch should be to get community members out and mingling with local businesses.
  
  You could also attach your campaign launch to a pre-existing event. Is there a farmers’ market in the area? Is there a holiday event for the community coming up? Choosing an already established event to tag along with allows you to easily promote the shop local campaign to a large group of people!
• Utilize social media
  Do not forget about social media! Creating social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) for your shop local campaign is a great way to spread awareness. Social media provides and ideal space to engage with community members directly and the cross-promotional options are endless!
  
  Be sure to promote your shop local campaign accounts on any relevant local accounts as well. For example, if your town has a Facebook page it should cross-promote the shop local campaign pages.
• Reach out to local media
  Make sure your shop local campaign gets attention in the local media! This may include newspapers, radio stations, or even popular local blogs. Using various types of media ensures your message reaches a broader audience.
• Incentivizing your campaign
  There are several ways in which past shop local campaigns have incentivized their message to get more people involved.
  
  Prizes would ideally be either products or gift cards from local businesses, ensuring the prize continues to promote the shop local message.
  
  Here are a few examples of how this might work:
• Enter to win draws
  Create paper slips and distribute them to local businesses, and each time a customer makes a purchase they can write down their name and contact info to be entered to win! This is a great way to kick off a shop local campaign, ideally it would only run for a week or so and then a winner would be chosen.
  
  This type of contest can also be done via social media. Shoppers could “share” how they supported a local business (ex: a photo of them getting a haircut or wearing new fashion from a local shop) and that could be considered one entry.
  
  Creating a hashtag for your shop local campaign is a good way to track entries, for example, “#ShopLocalTOWNNAME”.
• Scavenger hunts
  Some shop local campaigns have had success with scavenger hunt-style contests. This may involve creating contest cards where shoppers must visit various local businesses and receive a stamp or sticker with their purchase. Once the card is full, they can drop it off at a local business where they will be collected and drawn randomly to choose a winner.