Take Advantage of a “National [Insert Noun/Verb] Day” to Grab Your Customers’ Attention and Promote Engagement

Have you celebrated National Pancake Day? How about National Sisters Day or National Margarita Day? Yes, I know they aren’t real holidays, but I’ve celebrated all three of the aforementioned days (and many more) because they’re fun!National days are also great marketing opportunities for businesses due to their popularity on social media. Don’t believe me? Search Instagram for #nationaldonutday or Twitter for #nationalsiblingsday, and you’ll see what I mean. Instead of waiting until the end of the year, figure out which national days fit your brand to collect leads and engage your customers all year long. Below you’ll find five examples of national day marketing campaigns to inspire you to give it a try.

Hashtag contests

Hashtag contests are the perfect complement to national days since folks are already posting to social media with the day’s hashtag. Old El Paso hosted a National Taco Day #nationaltacoday contest on Instagram. To enter, folks had to post a photo to Instagram of how their family likes to celebrate taco night, tag and follow @oldelpaso, and include the hashtag #OEPTacoDaySweepstakes in the caption. Along with giving entrants the chance to win free tacos for a year, Old El Paso donated $1 for every post to the LeBron James Family Foundation.

TIP: Use a unique branded hashtag for contest entries. In the example above, Old El Paso used #OEPTacoDaySweepstakes instead of #nationaltacoday. This allows you to know exactly which posts are entries to your contest versus posts that were made without any knowledge of your contest.

Special offers and discount codes

Special offers or discounts can get customers through the door on national days. Baskin-Robbins created quite the stir on National Ice Cream Day #nationalicecreamday by giving away a free scoop. With each Baskin-Robbin’s purchase of $10 or more made through DoorDash, a free scoop was added when the customer included offer code FREESCOOP. This promotion not only made ice cream lovers drool, it also spread awareness of Baskin-Robbin’s delivery options through DoorDash.

IDEA: Want to hand out exclusive coupons instead? Use ShortStack’s unique coupon code distribution tools to email codes to your list or dole out codes upon form submission.

Retweet giveaways

Retweet giveaways require entrants to share your brand messaging, a major win for marketers. Budweiser, the self-proclaimed “King of Beers,” naturally hosted a sweepstakes on National Beer Day #nationalbeerday to win a year’s worth of beer and a fridge to store it in. To enter, participants had to Retweet Budweiser’s post, which put their brand in front of a bunch of thirsty beer lovers.

TIP: Include the national day hashtag in the Tweet you want entrants to Retweet to fill up the hashtag feed with your brand’s message.

Comment to enter contests

Dunkin’ Donuts knows fans love their coffee so much that they renamed National Coffee Day #nationalcoffeeday National Dunkin’ Day. To celebrate “National Dunkin’ Day,” the brand hosted a comment to enter contest on Twitter. All that was required for entry was leaving a comment on the National Dunkin’ Day post on Dunkin’ Donut’s Instagram profile. Entrants had to comment with an emoji to describe how they felt before they’ve had Dunkin’ coffee, the hashtag #NationalDunkinDaySweepstakes, and tag a friend.

TIP: Ask Instagram comment to enter participants to tag a friend or two to help spread the word about your contest.

Landing page giveaways

For National Pet Day #nationalpetday, Canon hosted a sweepstakes where pet owners could submit one of the 1000s of pet photos they undoubtedly have for a chance to win Canon eCash. While Canon still used social media to promote their sweepstakes, collecting entries via a landing page allowed them to gather leads. These leads could be used down the road for Canon’s marketing campaigns.

TIP: Collecting leads via a landing page also allows visitors without a social media profile to enter and is a great resource to host the rules and other information that is typically abbreviated in a social media post.

Excited to get started with a national day promotion of your own? You should be! Search for a national day that fits your brand, then choose the type of promotion you’d like to run. Need some help? Just reach out to our support team or set up a call to learn more about ShortStack.