Southern retailer Belk, the nation’s largest family-owned and operated department store, has partnered with HelloWorld to engage its customers to share their love stories. The campaign, which runs through Feb. 28, kicks off the brand’s Year of Modern. Southern. Music. celebration.
With this campaign, Belk is targeting brides-to-be and the winner will receive a dream wedding with a $20,000 grand prize and a private concert with Edwin McCain.
Participants are invited to share their love story with a photo for the chance to win the $20,000 prize. Belk has partnered with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Edwin McCain, who will perform a private concert at the grand prize event. What’s more, seven participants will be chosen to each win a $100 Belk gift card.
Share Your Love Story can be accessed via mobile, Facebook, or the web. Participants register and then are asked to submit a photo and short description of the love story depicted in it to be uploaded into the photo gallery. Photos can be selected from Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, or a mobile camera roll for quick uploading. Once submitted, participants are incentivized to share their entry on Twitter or via email to receive an additional entrance into the sweepstakes.
Sara Kowal, HelloWorld’s VP of Product Innovation, explained how the campaign came to be.
“Belk has created a campaign for 2014 called the Year of Modern. Southern. Music.,” Kowal told Loyalty360. “They feel that music is fundamental to the southern lifestyle, which extends to fashion. They were looking to build connections with consumers and partnered with HelloWorld to develop a visually enticing, share-worthy campaign centered on customers’ stories of love. To help motivate sharing, they included the chance to win a unique experience that consumers couldn’t get anywhere else. The ability to choose photos from any channel–Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, their camera photos or their desktop-makes it easy for consumers to engage and also allows them to share the moments they capture from their everyday, on-the-go lives.”
Kowal said HelloWorld believes that loyalty is about rewarding relationships, not necessarily transactions.
“This campaign strategy reflects Belk’s desire to create a personalized connection with consumers who reflect the modern southern lifestyle,” Kowal said. “Belk used owned media–such as its website and Facebook page−along with a press release to drive awareness about the program. In addition, entrants are motivated to share entries with their friends via social media and email by the incentive of an additional sweepstakes entry. Belk creates experiences that reflect the modern southern lifestyle so their customers get the fashion they desire and the value they deserve. Its vision is for consumers to count on Belk first.”
Programs like this continue to drive deeper engagement with Belk and, even more importantly, build connections with its consumers.
“For HelloWorld, we’re all about enabling brands to achieve rich consumer engagement,” Kowal added. “Our platform allows a streamlined process for brands wishing to create promotions, build loyalty, and develop a long-term relationship with consumers.”
Kowal said loyalty is about so much more than it used to be and the role of loyal consumers has evolved “beyond your top spenders” to include your top advocates and your deepest consumer relationships.
“Loyal consumers are even more important than ever and they expect more than in the past,” she said. “It is easy to showroom, shop from your computer, and your mobile device so the connections to the brand are more important than ever. Consumers also look to other consumers for recommendations, ratings, suggestions, and opinions, so cultivating a loyal audience and building advocates for your brand are key.”