Ronn Torossian, CEO, 5WPR

While the summer has recently started and half of the year has already passed, companies are still working hard on their promotional campaigns to reach a large number of people. Starting off each season on the right foot means preparing strategies and campaigns, and incorporating ideas that help companies organize and streamline their planning. This way, companies can meet and even exceed their promotional goals in the coming months. 

Google Business Profile

These days it’s actually more important than ever for companies to have an informative Google business profile, where local searchers can find business in the search engine results or even in Google maps. 

This means having an optimized and complete profile is the first step in achieving that exposure. Businesses should take some time to make sure they’ve claimed their Google business profiles, added images or even a video that showcases the company, respond to the reviews, and answer any questions in the Q&A section. 

Upcoming Events

Many companies tend to create promotional events around various holidays, which helps in marketing efforts. However, instead of simply planning an event, companies should also let their consumers know about them through a calendar of promotions, or even by notifying them across social media channels. 

Various events also allow companies to create round-up posts after those events either on social media or on the company’s blog. These posts can include details such as the overall success of the event, pictures from the event, and even follow up those posts with relevant hashtags later on. 

After July 4, companies have plenty of other notable festivities and events that they can celebrate with the target audience. With July being the anti-boredom month, companies can host month-long challenges around topics that relate to their business, for example. They can share other events or activities that can help consumers fight boredom, or even set up customer-generated content approaches by asking the audience for recommendations on events, activities, projects, and more. 

Customer Loyalty Programs

Another effective promotional effort that many businesses are already familiar with is loyalty and referral programs. Companies are already familiar with how much value loyal customers bring, as they result in repeat purchases, and those buyers are also more likely to refer the company’s products or services to other consumers in their communities. One way to build customer loyalty is through a referral or a loyalty program. 

One of the ways to create such a program is to simply create and print out cards for customers where they would receive a stamp for every purchase they make. After a certain number of stamps, that customer can receive a discounted product or service, a free product or service, or a goodie bag. 

Referral programs can offer the current customers a discount for all the new customers they refer or even create tiered loyalty programs. That way the buyers can move up in tiers based on their purchase history and receive even bigger discounts in the higher tiers.

About the Author: Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, a leading PR Agency.