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In this blog, I lay out a creative way to connect with your community so they start to see your junk removal company everywhere – Facebook Gift Card Give-Aways. I came up with the idea when we were starting Integrity Junk Removal. We had tremendous success using this tactic when we first got started to connect with people and get the word out that we were the new company on the block.
I recommend this for anyone who is just starting or wants to keep their company front of mind in the community. It’s a power play for word-of-mouth marketing.
People buy from people they Know, Like, and Trust. How are you working to help your junk removal company tick these three boxes?
It’s rather simple – You set up regular gift card giveaways (every couple of weeks) on your business Facebook page. The gift cards are from local Restaurants or Food trucks, so you’re actually supporting local businesses with this marketing exercise too.
Read on to learn how you can get these restaurants to GIVE you the gift cards for nothing. Each detail in this matters, so I’ll break it down for you below.
I was looking for something that appealed to our ideal audience but could be enjoyed by all. I find that the Yeti giveaways, or the BBQ giveaways, while super cool, really don’t appeal to as large an audience, but WHO DOESN’T LOVE FOOD?
Everyone likes to eat out, and free food on the town is a great way to bond with a friend or catch up with a loved one. So this giveaway is appealing to a lot more people than just an object that can be won. Essentially, we are giving away memories.
Since everyone loves food, most people know most of the spots to eat out. If they see a giveaway featuring a local business, they already either know, like, or trust that business. It’s familiar to them.
If you choose restaurants and eateries that everyone loves, it shines some of that love back on your business when you feature them. The goal here is to quickly establish your junk removal business as a well-loved community feature.
When you can associate with other businesses that people already love you accelerate your brand awareness and growth fast without the struggle. Plus, like we already mentioned, you are also supporting a fellow local business which helps to grow your network.
People assume they will never win a giveaway, so if you are doing regular giveaways, their odds perceivably go way up, which makes them more likely to enter by tagging some of their friends. We found that people started to expect the giveaways and got excited for them.
Now its time to go through the individual steps in the Facebook gift card give-away so you can take action on this right away:
Create a list of restaurants and food places, and send them an email asking for a gift card that you can use in a giveaway. I’ve included scripts for you further along in this article, in case you’re not sure what to say in the email when you reach out to businesses.
If you need a list of email addresses pulled so you don’t have to do it manually, drop me an email at Lewis@bluecrocus.ca with subject line RESTAURANT EMAILS and we can pull a list for you for $25.
Once you have the gift card in hand, make a post on social media about the giveaway, including the gift card and any relevant information. The rules for the giveaway are to tag a friend in a comment. Each comment with a friend tagged is an entry, and they can tag as many people in the comments as they want, for unlimited entries.
We also did the bonus of inviting 10 people to like our page. The reason I don’t make this a requirement for entry is that its too much of a hoop to jump through for most people. Tagging a friend is easy. Inviting friends is more work. We want as little resistance as possible to their interaction so we can get a ton of organic traffic hitting our post.
One week is generally a good timeframe. We often ended up “boosting” the post with a small budget of $10-$25 for the week to help get more eyes on it. Make sure if you do this to set the audience only to people currently living in the area, and set your area in a radius that makes sense so you aren’t spending money to market to California if you are in fact in New York.
Once the giveaway has ended, collect the names of everyone who tagged a friend in a comment, and choose a winner using a random name picker like Wheel of Names.
I often like to do this process in a live video on the business Facebook page, as it gets even more interaction and organic traffic to your Facebook Page, which helps grow the page. On the live video, you can prompt people to make sure they are following the page, to spread the word, explain some of what you do, etc, but just keep it fun and short.
It’s a great idea to repeat the process every couple of weeks to give people more opportunities to win and show your support for the local community. Every time you run a giveaway like this, you are expanding your network and getting more eyeballs on your brand.
Overall, this is a simple and effective system we have used to engage with our community and support local businesses. Give it a try and see how it works for you!
Below you’ll find two tried and tested emails that work well when reaching out to local businesses. Bear in mind that this is a numbers game so make sure you contact as many businesses as possible. Feel free to send more than two emails, but don’t go overboard.
Sometimes they just aren’t interested and that’s fine, focus on those that see the value in this exercise.
Subject: Gift Card Order
Hello,
I’ve got an amazing idea I want you to be part of, as a fellow [Your City] business owner.
First, who am I?
I own [Your Company] here in [Your City], and our mission is to positively impact the community with everything we do. (check us out [Your Website].)
One way we have done this already is by donating furniture and appliances still in good working order to the [Your local Restore]and we are sponsoring the [Your Community Kitchen] as well as the [Your Local Area Event].
We have also run some gift card giveaways of local businesses as a way to promote their products/services to the local community and see more local business support.
I would love to see your business featured in one of our giveaways with a gift card worth $25, $50, or $100.
Are you interested in something like this?
How it works:
And boom!
Someone walks away with an incentive to come into your place of business and spend money with you, and we’ve gotten the word out to a bunch of the community 🙂
Regards,
[Your Name]
Owner
[Your Company]
Phone: 555-555-5555
Email: yourname@yourcompany.com
Subject: Re: Do you have Gift Cards?
Hello,
I’m not sure if you saw my previous email, but I had a sweet idea to feature your business in our community and give you some advertising as well!
First, who am I?
I own [Your Company] here in [Your City], and our mission is to positively impact the community with everything we do. (check us out [Your Website].)
We have run some gift card giveaways of local businesses as a way to promote their products/services to the local community and see more local business support.
I would love to see your business featured in one of our giveaways with a gift card worth $25, $50, or $100.
Are you interested in something like this?
How it works:
And boom!
Someone walks away with an incentive to come into your place of business and spend money with you, and we’ve gotten the word out to a bunch of the community 🙂
Would you be interested?
Regards,
[Your Name]
Owner
[Your Company]
Phone: 555-555-5555
Email: yourname@yourcompany.com
P.S. If you already replied to this by the time this reaches you, we so appreciate you helping to grow the community!
Some people are afraid to do cold outreach to other businesses, but there’s nothing to fear. The majority of them will appreciate the fact that you too are a local business just trying to build a life for your family.
Those that aren’t interested, well that’s their loss. Don’t burn bridges though, perhaps they’ll be interested in the future when they see how successful your giveaway campaigns have been.
Thanks again for reading, feel free to reach out to us here at Blue Crocus for any of your local business marketing needs!
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