Supercharge Your Back-to-School Promotion

Drive Sales and Engagement

The back-to-school season represents a significant annual retail opportunity. Brands can maximize sales during this peak shopping period by offering time-limited promotions and special, customized bundles that appeal to both students and parents.

Capitalize on back-to-school shopping by aligning your brand with consumer preferences, increasing immediate sales and fostering lasting customer relationships.

At Realtime Media, our experience has shown that these three strategies are highly effective during the back-to-school season:

• Partner with educational organizations via Co-Branded Campaigns
• Offer seasonal, time-limited Interactive Content and Instant Win Games
• Create a family-centered marketing approach with User-Generated Content

1. Co-Branded Campaigns with educational organizations

Aligning with a well-regarded educational company can enhance your brand’s image and relevance in the back-to-school season. The specific targeting of students, a key demographic for back-to-school campaigns, ensures that your marketing efforts are reaching the relevant audience.

For example: Skincare brand Bioré partnered with Chegg, an education-based technology company, in a back-to-school sweepstakes that gave out valued study packs as prizes. Students registered with their primary contact information and answered a few marketing questions to enter the sweepstakes.

This type of partnership offers several strategic benefits during a critical sales period. By requiring participants to register, you can collect valuable consumer data. Sweepstakes with educational prize offerings will encourage active student participation, serving to increase brand awareness and familiarity. This heightened visibility among a key demographic is crucial during the competitive back-to-school period.

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2. Offer seasonal, time-limited Interactive Content and Instant Win Games

Instant win games serve to incentivize immediate purchases. Interactive elements such as quizzes, challenges, or mini-games add an element of fun and excitement to your promotion, encouraging increased participation and customer engagement. These promotional tools can serve to significantly boost sales volumes, particularly during the competitive back-to-school shopping season.

For example: During the back-to-school shopping period, parents often stock up on easy-to-pack lunch items and snacks. Flipz pretzels, a popular snack brand, ran a back-to-school campaign that gave consumers the chance to play a digital scratch-to-win game after purchasing an eligible product and uploading a receipt.

By offering rewards or prizes for completing the games or achieving specific milestones, you can prompt repeat purchases and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Positive experiences increase the likelihood of consumers sticking with your brand beyond the back-to-school season. These tactics create an engaging, interactive experience that can help differentiate your brand in a crowded market.

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3. Create a family-centered marketing approach with User-Generated Content

Contests can tap into consumers’ creativity, inspiring them to create and share content that bolsters your back-to-school campaigns. Participants can enter via a website or by using a specific social media hashtag to share photos, videos, or stories.

These submissions could showcase shopping experiences, product usage, or the positive effects of your products or services on families’ back-to-school activities. Elevate your brand’s image by aligning it with values that are important to parents, educators, and communities.

For example: Healthy snack options, such as raisins and other dried fruits, are a popular purchase as families prepare for an upcoming academic year. Sun-Maid’s healthy snacks are a staple in many kids’ lunchboxes. Sun-Maid ran a creative back-to-school campaign inviting students ages 6-12 to write essays for a chance to join the company’s “Board of Imagination.” Finalists were put to a public vote, with the top 5 winners receiving $5,000 towards their college savings account.

This type of campaign not only drives engagement and sales but also builds a positive, community-oriented brand image. Offering a significant reward, such as a contribution towards a college savings account, can position you as a brand that values and supports education. A targeted promotion can boost your brand’s market presence during a critical buying period, making it a potent strategy for back-to-school marketing.

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As you plan your back-to-school promotions, remember that Realtime Media is here to help you create memorable and impactful campaigns that drive sales and boost your brand’s goals at a key retail milestone of the marketing year. Get in touch with us today!