Author: Brad Johnson

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Want to attract more of your ideal customers? Do you know which words and phrases resonate most with your prospects? To explore how to come up with the right messages to attract your preferred customers, I interview Jeffrey Shaw on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Jeffrey is a brand message consultant who helps businesses attract […]

The post Messaging Matters: How to Attract Your Ideal Customers appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

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Wondering how to run brand contests and giveaways like a pro?

Contests and giveaways can be an amazingly easy and quick way to generate positive engagement, get more traffic to your website and, most importantly, generate more leads for your business.

That said, holding an online contest is not as easy as buying an iPad, posting a contest on Facebook and then waiting for the results to come in.

You might get lots of people interested and participating – and more likes than you ever expected on a post – but, at the end of the day, if you’re not getting the right people signing up for your contest or giveaway (i.e. your target audience), you’re not going to get a return on your investment.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to run contests and giveaways like a pro – so that you’re not just doing a contest for the sake of it but actually reaching your goals for your marketing strategies.

Why run online contests and giveaways?

As I mentioned in the introduction, contests and giveaways are a great way to get marketing results quickly and help accomplish the following:

• Boost engagement with your followers
• Generate new social media followers
• Get more traffic to your website 
• Grow your email list 
• Produce more leads and sales for your business 

Contests and giveaways are interactive by nature, and people often love them – after all, they’re an opportunity to win something that people want or need.

What’s more, contests and giveaways require participants to leave their details with you – and, with the right type of contest and prize, that means you can generate more leads for your business.

Plus, contests are a great way to generate more interest in your business and the products and services you offer – so, by promoting your products/services this way, you can even boost your sales considerably.

That being said, not just any contest will get you these results – you need to be very clear about your objectives, build a contest that supports these objectives, offer the right prize and promote your contest/giveaway extensively.

Step 1: Determine Your Contest Objectives

Before starting any new marketing plan or campaign, it’s important to take the time to establish what your campaign’s objectives are. 

When you know what your objectives are, you can build a campaign that helps support these goals and helps you reach them. 

First, consider your overall marketing and business goals – what do you want to achieve in the coming quarter?

Once you’re clear on those objectives, you can plan your contest goals to help you reach the results you want. 

Here are some of the goals you can set up for your contest/giveaway campaign:

• Generate more leads/email subscribers
• Boost your sales
• Increase brand awareness of your brand or a specific product/service
• Get more social media followers
• Boost your audience engagement 
• Drive more traffic to your business website 
• Gather user-generated content 

Once you know what your goal is, you can build a campaign that will help you reach that goal. 

Step 2: Choose a Relevant Prize

The prize you offer in your contest or giveaway is one of the most important elements that can determine the success of your campaign. 

If your prize is too generic – like, let’s say an iPad, which seems to be one of the most used prizes for online contests – you might get a lot of attention, but is it the right attention?

The thing is, everyone could use an iPad: from a 14-year old teenager who’s in a video-game phase to a 35-year-old marketing executive.

In other words, you’re going to get a mishmash of people signing up for your contest, none of them potential customers for your business. 

Whatever your contest goal is, whether it’s to get more leads or more engagement, the key is to get these results from the right people. 

To do so, you need a prize that will only appeal to your particular target audience.

Ideally, your prize should be brand-related, as well as something that your target audience wants.

For example, one of the easiest ways to offer a good prize is to use your own business’s products or services, like this example from Qwertee, who gave away 30 free t-shirts as part of their giveaway (and yes, they sell t-shirts).

Facebook Contest Example from Qwertee

The thing is, when you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers but also people who would genuinely want or need your products/services.

When you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers. #contest #marketingtip

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Here are some of the targeted, brand-related prizes you can offer:

• Coupon codes and discounts to be used on your website/in-store
• Your products 
• Access to your services 

Also, you should make sure to showcase the value of the prize – it’s another great opportunity to promote your business and your products/services and show people why they’re so valuable, like you can see on this contest landing page from Lucille Roberts.

Contest Landing Page Example from Lucille Roberts

Here’s another example, from Riedel UK, offering up a beautiful set of their wine glasses as a contest gift.

Instagram Contest Example from Riedel UK

The reality is that you might get fewer participants than you’d want this way (or, at least, compared to if you were giving away a tablet or something similar that appeals to a wider audience), but the idea is to get targeted participants. You want to get real leads and real engagement from people that are likely to be converted into your customers down the line.

Step 3: Design Your Contest 

Once you know what you want to achieve with your contest and have decided on a prize, you can start putting together your contest or giveaway; there are numerous types of contests/giveaways, such as:

• Photos and video contests
• “pick your favorite” contest
• Mention and/or hashtag contest
• Writing or essay contest
• Instant win contests
• The “refer-a-friend” contest
• And, of course, giveaways, which are similar across platforms

In order to run a successful contest or giveaway, you can use a number of tools to help create your contest, publish it on the channels you want, as well as manage your participants and assign winners fairly. 

Here are some useful contest tools to consider for your campaign:

Easypromos 

Easypromos is one of the most popular options for creating this type of interactive content. You can use it to create giveaways, contests, games and quizzes, as well as coupons and codes for special offers. In total, there are about 30 different applications to choose from.

Easypromos Interactive Content and Contest Tool

In addition, as you might notice above, it works on a variety of online platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as your own website and even via email newsletters.

There’s an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder. Plus, you can monitor your campaigns’ results and ROI, as well as set up automated emails to nurture your leads.

Shortstack

Another popular solution is Shortstack. This robust tool allows you to create contests, giveaways and quizzes, as well as landing pages for your interactive content.

It also has various features to ensure you can run your contest from start to finish: email marketing features, drip emails and lead collection tools, among others.

Shortstack Contest Tool

Their campaigns work on a variety of platforms, including all popular social networks, as well as on your website and on landing pages. 

Here are some of the most important elements that need to be on your contest post/page:

• A title that gets people’s attention
• Your prize
• A very clear and visible call-to-action (usually, in the main title)
• Entry details
• Contest rules (make sure you’re following each platform’s rules too)
• Other contest details, such as the time frame for your contest and how the winners will find out

Step 4: Promote Your Contest Everywhere

In order to get the most out of your contest, make sure to promote it high and wide – the more people join in, the better.

Here’s what you need to do in order to promote your contest:

• First, create a landing page for your contest 
• Send an email blast to your list and let them know about your contest and where they need to go to sign up (that email will probably have the biggest open rates you’ve seen so far!)
• Promote your contest across all social channels
• Promote your contest on your website and/or blog; for example, you can create a banner to promote it, use a Hello Bar or even write a blog post about it
• Create an ad campaign: if you’ve planned a really big contest and want to get the most out of it, it might be a good idea to invest in social media ads to reach a much wider audience 

Conclusion

Contests and giveaways can be extremely powerful tools for your business. They offer this highly-effective, super-fast way to get results: more leads, more engagement, more traffic and so on.

Follow the steps outlined in this step-by-step guide, and you’ll be running high-performing contests and giveaways in minutes.

Just remember this: stop giving away iPads.  

Unless you’re Apple, of course. 

The post How to Run Online Contests and Giveaways Like a Pro appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

       

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How do good stories end? In tragedy or triumph? With a wedding or a funeral?

That is the question of the denouement, a literary term that means more than just “the end.”

This article is all about denouement. In it, we will talk about the origin and definition of the literary term, give examples, and talk about where it fits in your writing.

Definition of Denouement

Origin of Denouement

Denouement came from the French language (thus, the extra “e”!) in the 18th century and means, literally, “untying.” In the case of a story, it means “the untying of the plot.”

The idea is that the tension in a story builds through to the climax and in the denouement, also known as the resolution, that tension is untied.

Where Denouement Fits Into the Dramatic Structure

At The Write Practice, we talk about the six elements that make up dramatic structure. They are:

1. Exposition
2. Inciting Incident
3. Rising Action/Progressive Complications
4. Crisis
5. Climax
6. Denouement

In dramatic structure, denouement is the final part, the moment when all the pieces must be put in their place, and when the author will leave us with our final image of the story.

How Long Are Denouements Usually?

After the climax, most stories wrap up quite quickly, within one or two scenes.

That means that the denouement, as the final part of a story, is generally one or two scenes long.

Examples of Denouement

The denouement is a relatively short part of a story, but it’s also one of the most important pieces, since this is the ending the audience has been waiting for throughout the story. Often, this is the part readers most remember from the story, and which lingers in their minds long after they finish reading or watching.

Here are a few examples of the denouements from literature:

Romeo and Juliet Denouement Example

Romeo and Juliet, the classic play by William Shakespeare, is about two “star-crossed” lovers from rival families who end up falling in love. In the climax of the story, Romeo mistakenly thinks Juliet has died and decides to drink poison to end his own life. As he’s dying, Juliet wakes up and when he finally dies, she decides to take her own life as well.

The denouement begins just after the couple’s death, starting from their discovery by their families and Friar Laurence. Only one scene long, it begins with a monologue from Friar Laurence, includes a reconciliation between the two families, and ends with a final monologue from the Prince.

Length: 1 scene

Ready Player One Denouement Example

Ready Player One, the bestseller by Ernest Cline, is about an orphaned teen who enters a competition designed by a virtual reality maverick named Halliday to win full control of the O.A.S.I.S., the virtual world he’s created, as well as Halliday’s vast fortune.

***Spoiler Alert***

The denouement occurs after the big fight with the evil, corporate Sixers, and after Wade Watts collects the final prize from Halliday.

The denouement consists of two short scenes, both of which take place once he’s back in the real world.

The first scene of the denouement is a brief interaction with Ogden Morrow, Halliday’s cofounder, in which he cements the lessons from the story, alludes to Watts’ fortune, and reveals the Sixers leader’s arrest.

The final scene of the denouement and the novel as a whole takes place at the first real-life meeting between Watts and his love interest, Art3mis, Samantha in real life.

***End Spoilers***

Length: 2 scenes

The Hobbit Denouement Example

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is about a hobbit named Bilbo who, at the urging of a wizard named Gandalf, leaves his home, the Shire, and sets off on an adventure with a troop of dwarves to steal a treasure from the dragon that has overrun the dwarves’ kingdom.

They experience various shenanigans, including a run-in with some giant man-eating spiders (and hobbit/dwarf-eating) in a spooky forest, a clash with a troop of trolls, and other setbacks on their journey before finally getting to the big showdown with the dragon.

The dragon, terrifying as he is, is just a preamble for a larger battle between the armies of humans, elves, and dwarves against an army of goblins. Finally, the hobbit gets his treasure and returns back to the Shire.

The Hobbit is a complicated plot with a triple (or even quadruple) man in a hole structure, and as such, the denouement is a bit longer and more elaborate, and in the end more of a montage of the journey home than a set of specific scenes.

For The Hobbit the denouement includes:

• Funerals and mourning for the fallen from the battle
• Bilbo and the dwarves receive their treasure (which Bilbo gives up)
• Bilbo says goodbye to the dwarves and is praised by the elves
• A journey to Beorn’s where he recuperates
• Traveling back to Rivendell, home of the elves
• A lot of elven songs (I’m not a fan of all the songs!)
• Traveling back to the Shire and to Bilbo’s hobbit hole with Gandalf
• Bilbo discovers everyone thought he was dead and his relatives had moved into his house
• Bilbo puts everything to right and is once again comfortable, but he does often visit the elves
• Several years later, Gandalf and one of the dwarves visits Bilbo again and they reminisce

There’s a great quote from Gandalf near the end of the denouement that both illustrates Bilbo’s evolution as a character and also the purpose of the denouement:

“My dear Bilbo!” [Gandalf] said, “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”

How to Write the Denouement: 3 Tips

If you’re writing a novel, screenplay, or other narrative, how do you write a great denouement? Here are three tips:

1. Make Sure One Exists

You’d be surprised at how many writers choose to end their stories at the end of the climax and forego the denouement, thinking it’s better to end on a high note.

It never works.

The reader needs one or two scenes to come down off the action, look around, and see how the world has changed now past the action of the story.

2. Show the New World Order

The purpose of the denouement is to give the reader a chance to see the New World Order.

The exposition and denouement are in many ways mirrors of each other.

If you’re stuck on what to write in your denouement, focus on how the world looks now compared to how the world looked in the exposition.

3. End With the Subplot

One of the best uses for the denouement is to cap off the subplot, if you have one. This is especially effective if you have a love story subplot.

For example, in Ready Player One, the final scene of the denouement completes the love story arc between Wade Watts and Art3mis.

This is a great way to finish your subplot efficiently while also ending your main plot effectively. Try it out!

How Will YOU End Your Story?

All stories must end. But how you end it can make our break your story.

Understanding what the denouement in a story is, plus using the tips above, will make your story all the better.

And just like every good story must end, so must this post!

Good luck, and happy writing!

What is your favorite denouement in a story? Let us know in the comments section.

The post Denouement: Definition and Examples of the Literary Term appeared first on The Write Practice.