Engage & Nurture Your Community During The COVID-19 Outbreak With Gleam
In the spirit of keeping everyone together, here are some ways you can use Gleam to engage with your community, share important updates and continue to capture leads for your business.
Keeping your community of customers and fans engaged is hard work, especially during uncertain times when people are focused on essentials and making adjustments to life at home.
Right now, there's nothing more important than making sure everyone feels safe and well-informed in the comfort of their own homes. As a brand, you're probably taking mindful steps in your marketing to ensure you're addressing the situation with empathy and care.
To the E-commerce brands, streamers, bloggers, retailers, musicians, writers, creators of all kinds using Gleam to pivot your online operations, we acknowledge you're working hard and doing your best to make your customers & fans feel informed and engaged.
Here are some ideas on how you can use Gleam to maintain relationships with your audience from a cyber mile away.
At the heart of Gleam, we want to offer our customers the tools they need to engage with their audience in an organic way. We're also a big believer in running giveaways ourselves. There's never been a better time to host a giveaway now that everyone is in a reciprocating frame of mind.
If your business is going on strong as usual, then you're in the prime position to spread awareness about your brand and what you stand for. More importantly, you're in a fantastic position to give back to the community that has supported you all this while.
Here are some actions we recommend incentivising in your Competition:
- Send customers to your COVID-19 statement with Visit action (you can also use the prize description area for this)
- Continue to grow your mailing list with Subscribe action
- Drive traffic to social media channels with our Social Media actions (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
- Collect written reviews with the Custom action
- Offer extra entries to existing customers with the Secret Code or Question actions
Fellow Gleamer DMS ran a large scale giveaway to offer their unique service to one lucky artist to help them continue pursuing their craft, especially if they were inhibited by the current crisis. The messaging here is loud and clear: DMS wants to help others help themselves, both in good times and bad.
The coronavirus outbreak has led to a spike in certain consumer trends, but chances are you're able to pivot your product or service into something consumers are looking for as they spend more time developing new hobbies and habits (safely!).
Here are some actions we recommend incentivising in your Competition:
- Send traffic to video channels discussing your product with Wistia, Vimeo or YouTube actions
- Collect feedback from customers using the Question action
- Ask customers to submit photos of them using your products with Submit Media action
SmartHalo is pedalling strong and innovating on their new product. They partnered with BikeRide to give away their product and asked customers about their favourite features from their new iteration.
Just the term 'care package' invokes a sense of joy and security. Fortunately, care packages can mean anything and everything that will bring joy to your audience right now. Whatever niche you may be in, there's bound to be a way for you to introduce a sense of comfort and care to your customers at home.
Many retailers and brick-and-mortar businesses are now adjusting their product offering to allow customers to re-create the same brand experience in the safety of their own home. We've certainly seen many brands with their own creative twist, from homemade boba kits to 'cook it yourself' ramen kits, there's never been a more exciting time for retail businesses to pivot their offerings!
Hair Bar NYC is keeping up with customer demands by packaging their in-salon services into Home Kits, paired with digital assistance from a stylist on their team. They promoted this self-serve product using a referral campaign with Gleam:
There's never been a better time to partner up with a complementing brand to offer the ultimate care package to your customers. Product bundles are a great way to build a cohesive narrative and to deliver your product to a wider audience.
Uncertain times make unlikely allies. Gleamers Vizio Sound and The Ribbon have come together to offer the ultimate Netflix and chill experience, packed with amazing hifi and a delicious meal.
YouTubers like James Hoffman have swiftly pivoted their content towards actionable videos for fans to re-create their favourite experiences at home. Not only that, he's also running a series of giveaways in his recent videos to offer bags of coffee to subscribers worldwide.
The video below is embedded with a timestamp so you can see what James is talking about:
For those who have the privilege to operate their business as usual, here's another opportunity to make unlikely allies. No matter what industry you are from, you can always partner up with a charitable organisation or with your audience to give back to those in need.
- Use the CSV import feature to import external entries from your donors →
- Use our 'Donate To Charity' template to let entrants vote for their preferred organisation →
You can leverage the power of crowds and collectively raise awareness for front line workers, immunocompromised individuals, furry friends, ill children, and so much more.
Here are some of the kind souls using Gleam to leverage the power of crowdsourcing:
Through the sale of gamer face masks, Fanfit Gaming is recruiting their community of gamers to crowdsource face mask donations to front line workers. To promote their product and donation campaign, they've hosted a giveaway for their best selling neon light and leveraged on the power of crowds to raise awareness.
Additionally, they're using animated popups on their website to make sure visitors know about their giveaway promotion:
To make your own popup, read our section on creating opt-in forms or sign up for Gleam Capture to build your own now.
The good folks at BarkWiki sponsored a donation to the winner's shelter of choice, along with a generous cash prize for the winner themselves.
Twitch streamer Paul from Pestily started the year with an ambitious goal to raise 1 million Australian dollars for the Starlight Children's Foundation.
As a part of this goal, Paul hosted a huge giveaway on Starlight Day to raise awareness for the foundation. He and his wonderful community raised $270k Australian dollars overnight through the giveaway event. Entrants had the option to enter the giveaway by donating or attending the live stream:
There's no doubt that Pestily is right on track to achieve this goal by the end of the year!
Donating to a charitable organisation isn't the only way you can give back to community, particularly if you have a deep understanding of how the global pandemic has affected your customers and subscribers. In times like this, the best thing we can do is offer our support to those that have supported us all along.
- Use Custom Fields to collect eligibility criteria from your entrants →
- Use our 'Voting Contest' template to select a deserving recipient →
- Use our 'Nominate A Friend' template to let entrants nominate their friends or family →
The creative industry is one of them, with global disruptions impacting the livelihoods of artists from all sectors. Sound Yeti hosted a $200k giveaway to empower the many creatives using their tools to continue pursuing their craft.
Since many countries in the world have imposed lockdowns or movement control orders, homebound folks have been scouring the web for content and community to keep themselves entertained. People are searching for new ways to connect with a global village of like-minded people, which gives elbow room for content creators to get closer to their audiences by hosting virtual conferences, workshops and parties.
Dive Studios took the opportunity to promote their podcast and social media channels by giving away the chance for a listener to join the founders in one-to-one conversation:
If you've just moved your operations online and don't have a website yet, you can use our hosted landing pages to create a quick directory to send traffic to the pages that matter most to your business right now.
We provide a unique URL for each campaign hosted with Gleam, so you can distribute this link to your audience via social media.
For example, you might direct entrants to your product listings on an online marketplace, a third-party food delivery service, or a reviewing platform.
All you have to do is setup Visit actions for your desired destinations.
Here's what our hosted landing pages look like:
Eager to help out but not sure where to start? There's no shame in asking! Create a survey and discover what is most important to your customers right now. They might clue you in on new ideas and how they'd like to see your business pivot.
We offer a few ways for you to create a survey, and you can easily host it within Gleam or direct users to a third-party surveying platform.
Photo contests are one of our favourite strategies when it comes to engaging with your community both organically and authentically. If you're looking to add an extra edge to your giveaway and to amp up engagement with your audience, then you should let the photos do the talking.
- How to run a photo contest with Gleam →
- A primer on creating hashtag campaigns →
- Create a photo voting contest →
- How to utilise user-generated content in your other marketing strategies →
Here are some ideas for running your own photo contest or hashtag campaign:
- Ask entrants to share fond memories related to your product or service (Travel stories, favourite clothing outfit, favourite recipe)
- Ask entrants to share photos of their final product if you offer DIY kits at this time (hair treatment kits, meal kits, gardening kits)
- Challenge your audience with activities they can do from home (no-equipment workouts, home-cooked meals, creative photography, home-office setups, art projects)
Gleamer StoryTerrace held a photo contest that not only promoted their unique services but also gave their followers an opportunity to nominate the heroes in their lives. Their unique autobiography service has always focused on honouring the ones we love and on the importance of leaving a legacy, so this photo contest was the perfect way to convey their ethos:
To complement your photo contest or hashtag campaign, you can create a landing page for users to enter the contest, plus display all their submissions in a nice gallery. Even when the contest is over, you can still keep the gallery embedded on your website for visitors to learn more about your brand.
Here is how StoryTerrace set up their contest page using a combination of Gleam Competitions & Galleries:
If your Shopify business is headed for a slow down, you can still engage with store visitors using giveaways promotions. Visitors may not be able to buy from you immediately, but you can keep them engaged with free content and giveaways in the meantime so they'll remember you when the time is right.
Gleam connects with Shopify seamlessly, so visitors can enter giveaways directly from your store.
Whether you have made operational adjustments to your business, or simply want customers to know it's business as usual, it's important to make this information immediately available on your website.
You can use Gleam Capture to install a floating bar on your website and make announcements. Visitors can also be directed to a separate page for the full statement if you have one.
Want to keep capturing leads while your business is put on hold? All you have to do is install an opt-in form on your website to capture visitors who might have otherwise walked away in search of an alternative.
You can even include a discount for visitors to take advantage of as soon as your business is back on track.
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Helena Ng
Helena is a Growth Marketer at Gleam. Leave her a nice comment below if you got something out of this post ☺