We’re still in the peak of barbecue season, the Pimms and Aperol are free-flowing, and retail stores are struggling to meet demand for cooling fans, but “holidays are coming” and sooner than you think.
Q4 is close, and proactive marketers are readying their Thanksgiving campaigns ahead of the busiest time of the year. With that in mind, we’ve put together a selection of the best, most inspiring Thanksgiving marketing campaigns to help you get ready for the Holiday season.
So don’t be a turkey, show some appreciation this Thanksgiving and jump-start the holiday season with timely campaigns that attract a large audience. By gathering consumer data and user-generated content (UGC) early in the season, you’ll create a solid base of content and prospects for marketing promotions through the holidays and beyond.
1. Capture first-party data with Instagram Stories
Looking to drive engagement amongst users, improve brand storytelling, and increase the effectiveness of your social presence? Or perhaps you’re looking to capture valuable first-party data and rich audience insights on potential customers that will help you learn your prospects’ motivations, intentions, interests, and preferences to fuel future marketing efforts?
Thanksgiving is a great time to engage with your audience using Instagram Stories. Build lightning-fast, mobile-first experiences that tell your brand story, incentivize engagement, and seamlessly incorporate data capture mechanics. From user-generated content to quizzes, live polls to meme generators, these real-time campaign types can be embedded into Instagram Stories to help you rise above the noise and drive action.
2. Generate authentic user-generated content from fans
A popular CPG brand leveraged Thanksgiving’s focus on food to make their brand part of the holiday. They launched a UGC campaign encouraging consumers to share their favorite recipes made with the brand’s products. A dedicated landing page then pulled in content from across Instagram and Twitter and enabled users to browse and share top recipes.
3. Build your CRM database
Food Network gathered 258,380 marketing contacts by publishing the ultimate Thanksgiving sweepstakes on their website. They gave away seasonal prizes to drive signups and included opt-ins for newsletters and promotional offers. The simple sign-up provided a seamless user experience that kept visitors engaged.
4. Ignite Thanksgiving social conversation and increase sales
With Coca-Cola’s ongoing “Share a Coke” campaign proven to be nothing short of success, the brand created a Thanksgiving-inspired version centered around using the personalized bottles as drinkable place cards around the dinner table. Customers could purchase customized cans and bottles featuring their guests’ names or hilarious personal messages, before placing them on the Thanksgiving table as place cards. Promoted through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the Coca-Cola campaign came up as the topic of conversation on both social media and at the dinner table
5. Engage your social media audience with a tasty personality quiz
To serve up some lighthearted sharable entertainment for its social media audience and website visitors, and to drive online engagement around Thanksgiving, Realtor.com® launched a fun personality quiz campaign, where participants are provided specific Thanksgiving dishes based on their quiz results.
From Thanksgiving traditions to go-to music genres, the quiz takes participants through ten fun-filled personality questions to discover their interests. Upon completion of the quiz, participants are provided with entertaining, pun-filled Thanksgiving dish descriptions based on their personalities. So whether they are smooth and sweet like pumpkin pie, or have more versatile and reliable qualities (just like a dinner roll), the results are bound to put smiles on participants’ faces.
6. Maximize conversion rates with Instant Win sweepstakes
The holiday season is often a waiting game, patiently opening the doors on the advent calendar day after day until Christmas arrives. Sometimes your customer is tired of all the waiting and wants the quick gratification that comes with “Instant Win.”
By activating a Thanksgiving-themed instant win, your customers can enter a simple sweepstakes and find out if they’ve won, from a range of prizes, live-in-the-moment. What’s more, by including a simple submission form, you gain valuable data for future marketing efforts.
7. Spread kindness (& UGC) throughout the Thanksgiving holiday season
To spread kindness throughout the holiday season, The Integer Group used 1,000 hand-drawn stars to drive heartwarming UGC across the nation. Using the hashtag #1000StarsStrong, The Integer Group used Marigold Grow to track and display the best UGC in a beautifully visual format.
Check out our holiday campaign ebook for even more examples of brands using the holidays to drive festive campaigns and stand out during a busy shopping season. And for more information on Marigold Grow and how this solution can help you gather consumer data and user-generated content (UGC) this season, request a demo today.
