Want more customers walking through the door of your store, restaurant or other business? Try attracting them with a Twitter-based contest.  One that’s sooooooo simple even people who haven’t heard of Twitter are enticed by their friends to try it. Unlike advertising it is a free, instant way to reach people who have agreed to hear from you. Then stay in touch at helpful times via Twitter – and see sales grow. 

In a moment I’ll describe how others have conducted successful, customer-attracting contests.

Sure, according to a poll, most Americans haven’t, “even gotten sufficiently interested in Twitter to have a disparaging opinion about it.” Maybe that includes you. Yet, done right, it can increase sales and enable you to learn more about what they want. Any size or kind of  business can use it.

Whole Foods launched a contest this month, challenging its followers to tweet their five-word food philosophies, with winners getting gift cards for free food at the store. Among the contest submissions were:

“Peanut butter goes with everything.”

“Just say yes to chocolate.”

“Good cooks make good friends.”

“Life is short. Eat well.

 Keep your followers engaged and involved

 Once people sign up to follow your company on Twitter to participate in the contest, you can continue to reach them until you send something that turns them off or bores them. Encourage them to stay involved so you know what’s on their minds and can offer future traffic-building contests. Whole Foods, for example, encourages customers to tweet them about everything from recipe ideas and special diet suggestions to information regarding in-store promotions and specialty items.  

Reward customers for telling others about your business

 Retail Me Not has a Twitter contest going on right now with much bigger prizes than those offered by Whole Foods. Tweet your best money saving tip with the tag #retailmenot. They are giving away one $500 Macys gift card each day. The top tip will be picked at the end.  That winner gets a $1,000 gift card to Macys. This contest combines an online only business with a physical store. Notice that the contest should seek submissions that relate to your kind of business. 

Bonus: Partnering businesses benefitted from getting introduced to each other’s customers.  

Similarly Athens Unleased, a blogger who covers what’s happening in Athens, Georgia, co-sponsored a Twitter-based contest with the State Botanical Garden that hosts the annual Sunflower Music Series. The result?  Like Retail Me Not and Macy’s this other online+physical site partnership generated more people traffic and visibility for both partners than they could have attracted, acting alone.

Got a book or other new product coming out?

Come up with a variation of Mark Bittman’s contest to celebrate the launch of his book of recipes that can be made in 20 minutes or less, Kitchen Express.  “Tweet an original recipe in 140 characters or less to win a copy of the book and Internet fame.”

Some contests are designed to encourage people to keep a look-out for the company name on Twitter Fast Fixin is smart that way. Writes one winner, “I just happen to be on Twitter at the right time when they announced their contest. They asked Our Goal is: Bringing Families back to the Dinner Table! What is your dinner time tradition? #EZDINNER  Answer 2 win free food Ends in 40 mins.” 

Give them a reason to show up during your slow times.

 You could launch a similar Twitter-only contest to attract customers to your business at the times of day, days of the week or times of the year when fewer people usually show up.

 Consider this, as a what-if example…

My friend Paul once had a roasted chicken-to-go place, called Poultry in Motion. What if he’d posted signs in their windows, banners on their walls and a message on their web site: “Get FREE mashed potatoes+pie slice with your chicken. Get Twitter alerts and be an early bird winner. Sign up @PoultryInMotion. Then, at the traditionally slow times, Paul could tweet all followers: Freebie alert: first 30 in get free mashed potatoes and pie slice # PoultryInMotion.

 The folks at the Dallas-based chain Magiano’s thought they ought to jump into Twitter when they were told others were talking about their restaurant on it. They attracted 2,000 followers after launching a Twitter contest that offered $100 gift certificates to two winners. Maggiano’s sent the tweet, “Follow @Maggianos by 5pm CST to be entered to win $100 in Maggiano’s gift certificates.” Winners of the gift certificates were chosen at random from the followers. Now they have more than 6,000 followers.

What consumer-serving local business wouldn’t love that?

What if you launched a Twitter-based contest, offering your partnering company’s product to winners?  You reciprocate, offering your comparably-priced products or services to their contest winners? Your contest might be for the best

• Slogan or tagline for your business.

• Product or service to use with yours

• Tip related to your product (as Retail Me Not is doing)

• Five words that describe why they like your business (a variation of the Whole Foods’ contest)

By launching a Twitter-based contest, Moonfruit, a small, do-it-yourself Web-site building company, increased their number of followers from 400 followers to 47,000 in just a few days. Over seven days, Moonfruit’s contest offered 10 Apple MacBook Pros to those who sent the most Twitter messages that included the “#Moonfruit” hashtag.

By using a hashtag (like #Moonfruit) people could easily follow what others were submitting to the contest and tell others about it by retweeting (passing along) the message their received with the hashtag in it. Plus the novelty of such contests means that reporters and other bloggers, like me, will write about it.

 Unlike an advertising campaign such contests only cost your time. Plus it is a pull (permission-based) rather than a push approach. Such contests enable you to build a list of people familiar with your business and open to hearing from you again.

 With it you can:

• Make “only on Twitter” offers thus deepening the insider feeling and motivating others to follow

• Ask for product improvement suggestions,

• Reward those who tout your company the most sending the most tweets, using your hashtag or Twitter name the most within a set time

• Ensure that people stay engaged as Moonfruit did by reminding followers “don’t forget to follow @moontweet to find out if you’ve won.”

 Unfortunately the contest was so popular that it was attracting more participation than those Twittering about Michael Jackson’s death at the time or Iran – so Twitter pulled it from their top topics list. In this still-evolving new frontier, Twitter is making up rules as things happen.

 Wouldn’t you like to have the “problem” of launching a wildly popular contest that attracts a crowd to your site or your door?  Take some simple steps to avoid annoying people on Twitter and to ensure fairness in awarding prizes as Lisa Barone suggests.  For starters, tell followers that their Twitter messages should tell recipients about the contest.

Here’s some other customer-involving Twitter tips

 • If people were searching on the web or in the phone book for your kind of business, other than the name of your business what other key words would they look for?  You want to use those words in your tweets to be seen by them – and you want to see what competitors are in the Twitter conversation.  Search relevant keywords within a certain mile radius by going to Twitter search. 

• Update your customers on changes in your products, services, hours  or special events or demonstrations. Erik Oberholtzer, co-owner of the Los Angeles restaurant, Tender Greens,first thought Twitter was just “alot of people are sharing a lot of useless information.” Not anymore.

“The benefit is getting a message out there and building a community.”  Now Oberholtzer he keeps people engaged by sending tweets, “about three times a day with the restaurants’ daily specials or tell followers about his finds at the Santa Monica farmer’s market.”  Joanne Chang, co-owner of Myers+Chang in Boston, said she uses Twitter to update menu items and offer recipes.

• Build anticipation for an upcoming event, your yet-to-open business.  That’s what Jen Deaderick sent her first Tweet – “Tupelo02139 is preparing’’  - four months before she opened her restaurant Tupelo. By the time Tupelo opened, word had spread among followers o (@tupelo02139), and their followers’ followers. “Our opening night was packed and at least half were there because of Twitter,” she reported.

• From announcing a bar’s happy hour to a bakery’s “fresh from the oven” pastries to a mobile Korean barbecue taco van arriving on a street near your office, using Twitter is the free, instant way to tell those who have signed up to receive a message they want.

• Become a bigger customer magnet by joining forces with worthy competitors like Aaron Cohen has orchestrated on behalf of the Boston restaurant scene with his Twitter stream @eatboston.  He’s gotten 60 and 70 local restaurants to join, ranging from “high-end establishments such as L’Espalier and Craigie to quick-service chains like Boloco and Papa Gino’s.” Andrew Teman has another compilation. 

What local businesses serve the same kind of customers or the same situation?  Join forces and create a Twitter stream.  For example, what local restaurants and nightspots might band together to attract the evening crowd or those going to a nearby movie? What places are kid-friendly?  What special niche do you serve?  Partner with others who also do and start a Twitter stream to reach and serve more of them better together.  Then use your Twitter stream to launch a collective contest that pulls in more followers.  All partners can contribute prizes – to be picked up or enjoyed after walking in the door of a participating business. 

 

 

 

 

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