Hosting a contest is always a great way to get your community excited about shopping local and rewarding them for their efforts. But most of these contests start to look the same after a while:
- Shop Local
- Submit your Receipts
- Be Eligible for a Drawing
Shop Local Raleigh created a fun and exciting contest to encourage shopping local entitled Raleigh Bingo! Participants pick up a Bingo card, which lists services and products in the local community such as “Get a haircut” and “Visit a local brewery.” There are 25 total activities and purchases that are encouraged on each card.
To enter the contest participants must complete one row, just like traditional Bingo. If they complete the entire card — not only do they have some great local experiences to share — they also will be entered into the prize raffle 7 times.
Prizes are varied, and not your usual offerings, including coffee with the mayor and gift cards to local retailers and merchants.
Use Social Media
That contest alone would be fun but Raleigh took it a step further and added a social media component to it. As proof of completing each activity, the participant is encouraged to snap a picture and upload it to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with their hashtag #RalBINGO and tag @ShopLocalRaleigh.
Not only is this an enjoyable way of exploring the community and capturing shoppers experiences, it also gives them the opportunity to share it with others. Plus it’s good promotion for the shop local effort. The pictures of Raleigh go a long way for advertising for local businesses. This kind of promotion benefits everyone: local business, community members, and those on social media who are able to enjoy the exploits.
If you have an exciting shop local program you want the world to know about, please share it with us. We love hearing about communities organizing creative shop local campaigns like this one.
Image credit: via Shop Local Raleigh
