Back in February, 3M and Mohawk partnered up to run their first co-branded online campaign, using Promoboxx to help their dealers better promote their stores and best selling products. The current campaign includes the ”Chasin’ the Dream” sweepstakes, giving consumers the opportunity to enter and win a dream vacation to see a NASCAR race and additionally receive a 10 percent off coupon for select Mohawk carpet and wood styles at participating stores.

3M and Mohawk’s goal was to run a program that promoted their best-selling products while better leveraging their aligned dealership’s online marketing channels. 3M and Mohawk turned to Promoboxx to activate their dealer networks to increase the online conversation around this sweepstakes and raise consumer awareness of where to buy their products locally.

Campaign Benefits for the Mohawk Aligned Dealers

Mohawk’s first campaign generates many benefits for its dealers, including (but not limited to) the following:

1. • Promoboxx is free for dealers to use! (Who doesn’t love free stuff?!) This campaign is 100% sponsored by 3M, allowing retailers to utilize the marketing content and check list of online share tools at absolutely no cost.
2. • This campaign allows each dealer to customize the exclusive national marketing content to highlight their store’s information and then easily share it on their website, Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail. Dealers can easily access and share their new and engaging nationally branded content that promotes their store with just a click of a button!
3. • This program helps drive more traffic to a dealer’s online channels and store. By generating buzz online, a store can bring in more customers with special offers and discounts supplied through the campaign.
4. • By activating their free Promoboxx accounts, dealers are able to gain access to hundreds of new customer contacts. All leads generated from the “Chasin the Dream” sweepstakes and 3M on-site NASCAR races have been matched up to individual stores based on geographic location. These contacts can be used for future maketing purposes.

What Mohawk dealers are saying so far…

“The process was easy, and if I had a question Promoboxx was able to walk me through it nicely.”

“I really like how the campaign page layout looks professional and user-friendly to consumers.”

“The fact that you can like all the different pages from the campaign link (Scotchgard, 3M, personal stores, etc.) is awesome!”

“We often talk about the campaign in the store with consumers. The program helps us by giving another story to tell and differentiating us from the carpet stores down the block.”

“I really like the idea of the campaign, what Promobox is doing is a great thing.“

This month, Promoboxx worked with The Nutro Company to bring their retailers another installment of localized digital marketing content, centered around their high end pet food line, Ultra™. Promoboxx and The Nutro Company created two campaigns to run throughout the month of May, “Picnic Etiquette,” and “A Taste of Summer.” The two campaigns complement each other to deliver retailers a balance of promotional and educational, loyalty-building content to share on their online channels including Facebook, Twitter and via email.

As the majority of pet food retailers are just starting to explore online marketing and social media for their businesses, these campaigns are critical in kick starting their efforts. By providing their retailers with professional and co-branded digital content in a turnkey manner, The Nutro Company can penetrate local markets, while simultaneously strengthening the relationship with their retailers by arming them with the necessary tools to be successful in online marketing.

Kayla is our first Activation Manager, a new position at Promoboxx designed to work alongside Client Marketing Managers to engage thousands of our brands’ precious retailers in their various campaigns. Kayla manages all outreach and inbound retailer support channels and utilizes knowledge gained from these conversations to improve Promoboxx’s activation process. Also partnering with the Development Team, Kayla will explore new platform functionality that fits the evolving needs of retailers, ensuring their happiness for long term client relationships.

1.Tell us about yourself in a tweet! (140 characters or less)

Upstate NY native (go Cuse!), business enthusiast, traveler, adventurer, reader, life long learner.

2.What is one of your favorite things to do in Boston?

I’ve lived in Boston for almost two years, but I’m still in exploration mode. I love to try new things- new restaurants, rec leagues, shopping areas, festivals, and wine tastings. I’m also a super business nerd, so I’m always checking out random presentations, classes and industry meetups around town.

3. Why did you decide to join the Promoboxx team / what are you most excited about now that you are an official Promoboxxer?

In addition to having a fantastic product, the team was so incredibly welcoming. You can’t help but love them! I’m excited to work for a startup where I can directly see the impact of my efforts, and for the team’s extremely healthy habits to rub off on me

4. What brought you to Boston?

After graduation, I applied to positions all over the United States. I got an offer in Boston first, so I packed up my car and gave it a try. That was almost two years ago, and I couldn’t be happier that this is where I landed.

5. What is something that not many people know about you?

Growing up, I spent summers at my family cottage business in the 1000 Islands. I’ve pitched in with almost every handyman project you can think of- I’ve tarred roofs, sawed off and replaced leaky pipes, caulked windows, and painted countless walls, to name a few!

Want to join our team? Contact careers@promoboxx.com

General Electric knows how important the digital aspect of their marketing campaigns are in order to generate buzz. They also know how vital it is to have their retailers involved in their national marketing efforts to reach their consumers at a local level. When they came to Promoboxx to launch their online brand-to-retail marketing program their goal was to drive consistency in messaging and execution through their retail structure, while creating digital content that spoke to their local consumers.

GE invited a subset of their retail network to participate in a new online marketing initiative powered by Promoboxx in May 2013. One of the first Promoboxx program’s GE launched was a rebate promotion.

After launching many co-branded campaigns, Promoboxx has proven rebates to be a great co-marketing tactic. Reason being it’s a win-win situation; rebates allow brands help their retailers promote where to buy their products locally, consumers love the great deal and retailer’s are able to drive more sales to their store.

GE’s rebate campaign featured a great way to promote their local appliance stores, along with GE as a brand online. By opting in to this program retailers were able to offer their customers up to a $750 rebate, plus 50% bonus summer savings on select GE Café and GE Profile Series appliances. Using Promoboxx retailers were then able to easily localize their rebate offer by adding their store’s contact information, logo and linking up their social channels to their campaign page. One of the coolest functionalities of this campaign, was that GE retailers were able to add a link directly to their GE inventory – driving consumers directly to their website.

Check out some of GE’s retailers live campaign pages below, and if you’re looking for a great deal check out the rebate offers too!

• Famous Tate Appliance

• AJ Madison

• Bargain Supply

After customizing their campaign in just a few simple steps, GE retailers were then given a checklist of turnkey share tools so they could promote their rebate offer on their website, Facebook, Twitter and via e-mail. Check out some retailer shares below!

These days, it doesn’t matter who you are- brand or retailer, you have a list of your loyal customers’ email addresses, and it’s essential that you use it. However, as the saying goes, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Your customer has given you their email address under the assumption that you won’t abuse the privilege, and it’s your obligation to send correspondence that upholds their trust, but still gets your message across.

Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind before you press send.

1) Subject Lines

Perhaps the most important factor, the subject line can either make or break your efforts; if it’s intriguing, you’ll at least get an open, but if not? Trashed immediately- or worse, an “unsubscribe.” This is your only chance as an email marketer to get your email read with a compelling, relevant subject line.

A few things to remember when crafting your subject:

• Avoid words including “free,” “help,” “percent off,” and “reminder.”
• Keep the subject under 50 characters
• Don’t use flashy promotional phrases, CAPS or multiple exclamation points
• Make the subject interesting. Ask yourself- would YOU open this email?

2) Content

Be the type of company whose emails are something that customers look forward to receiving. Provide information that is helpful, creative, relevant and new to your customer base, so that they can look to you as an expert in your field and their go-to source of information regarding your industry. Have something to say- don’t just send an email to remind them that you exist.

3) Format

Presentation is surprisingly just as important as the content itself. By presenting information in an eye-catching manner, customers are much more likely to slow down and actually pay attention to your email (link).

Here are some fun ways to switch up the format of your email:

• Infographics
• Images
• “Top 10” series
• Videos
• Quizzes
• Promotions
• Contests
• Product Tips
• Fun facts about your product/industry
• “Meet the Team”

4) Frequency

It’s important that you set expectations with your customers for how often they will be receiving an email. Create a schedule and stick with it, so that your customers will know that they can count on your latest deals arriving in their inboxes on Tuesdays at 11am, or that your latest video will act for their lunchtime desk entertainment. Regularity = reliability.

Questions? Email taylor@promoboxx.com

Promoboxx is looking for a Senior Developer to make an immediate impact on a rapidly scaling SaaS marketing technology start-up based in Boston’s South End. Promoboxx is the only brand-to-retail marketing platform that allows brands to reach more consumers by partnering with their local retailers by launching localized, co-branded online campaigns (watch a brief video).

The Promoboxx team is passionate about helping local retailers succeed. A TechStars Boston 2011 company, Promoboxx is the leading platform for brand-to-retail marketing, working with Fortune 100 companies that include Chevrolet, Bridgestone, Reebok, Pepsi, GE Appliance, and many more.

About you…

• Rails experience preferred, but generalists welcome
• Medium to strong Javascript skills
• Passion for your craft, pride in your work
• Willing to teach and learn, play well with others, no egos
• Want to see your work used by the biggest brands in the world

About the product…

• Non-monolithic Rails app separated between UI and JSON web service
• Rails 3.2, RSpec, MySQL, Javascript, Resque, AWS, Rightscale, Sendgrid
• Interesting problems to solve – scaling, analytics, and service separation
• Agile process leaning toward Kanban — a few stand-ups a week, pair sometimes

About Promoboxx…

• Face the challenge of working with some of the biggest brands in the world – VW, Chevrolet, Bridgestone, Michelin, Pepsi, 3M, Reebok, Kia, Trek, etc.
• Strong customer revenue and stable financing from Launch Capital, Boston Seed, Common Angels, and dozens of amazing angels
• Open collaborative workspace with daily full team stand-ups
• Great South End location, close to other startups
• Team that works hard, but takes time to celebrate accomplishment
• New Apple equipment (choice of desktop/laptop) for new hires
• Employee rewards platform

About our professional development…

• Unlimited free courses with our neighbors at intelligent.ly
• Bi-weekly team Lunch & Learns – watch a Railscast and then discuss (with cookies!)
• thoughtbot prime subscription – unlimited thoughtbot workshops, books, etc.
• Team is attending Wicked Good Ruby – Boston’s first Ruby conference in Oct 2013 (join us!)

Reach out to careers@promoboxx.com with a resume and your favorite picture from the internet.

Join Us Tomorrow, Tuesday April 30th!

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, April 30th starting at 6pm for the Back To Back Bay Pub Crawl! We have some fantastic bars and sponsors participating – list below:

•  Lolita Cocina & Tequila Bar: Co-sponsored by Flybridge Capital (with help from BzzAgent)
•  Towne Stove and Spirits: Sponsored by Hubspot
•  Solas Irish Pub: Co-sponsored by Kibits and Plastiq
•  Globe Bar And Cafe: Co-sponsored by Promoboxx (with help from Dataxu)
•  LIR: Sponsored by Wayfair
•  McGreevy’s: Sponsor Announcement Coming Soon

Interested in Hosting or Sponsoring?

If you’re interested in being a sponsor or host bar, just send an email to kburke [at] hubspot [dot] com to get started.

Many Thanks

Many thanks to Katie Burke and Laura (Pistachio) Fitton at Hubspot, as well as Kate Castle at Flybridge for helping to organize this event!

Thanks also to Boston.com, BostInno.com, and Boston Business Journal for helping to bring visibility to #BackToBackBay

#BackToBackBay

Promoboxx is proud to announce our support of the Back To Back Bay campaign to help those retailers affected by the Boston Marathon bombings. These retailers have been closed for over a week, and many will be closed for much longer. Please click to view a map of those affected. To help, please share their page with your friends and family, “Like” their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter, or join their mailing list, but most importantly, spend some money at their locations.

Support Back To Back Bay

At Promoboxx we have ten core values, but the most important is “Believe in Retailers.” Hearing how retailers like Marathon Sports, Sugar Heaven, The Lenox Hotel, Forum Restaurant, and many others, quickly pushed aside their businesses to save lives, comfort the wounded, and then support law enforcement, our belief was confirmed and we thank you.

For those retailers affected, please reach out to support@promoboxx.com if you need any help, anything.

So, please support these businesses, and please continue to support local retail because we need them.

Thank you for your support! #BostonStrong

BC

Ben Carcio - CEO, Promoboxx
Promoboxx – Brands and Retailers. Connected.
ben at promoboxx dot com

We’re excited to announce that Promoboxx has been nominated in the “Best New Start-Up” category by New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA) and their NEVY awards. It is great to be nominated alongside our TechStars Boston 2011 buddies at Kinvey. Srav and I sat across from each other during the program, so it is great to see them nominated (luckily in non-competitive categories). We’ll have to debate whether its better to be “Best New” or “Hot.”

In addition to Kinvey, there are other Promoboxx friends nominated, such as investor/board member Nicole Stata, investor/landlord Dave Balter, my poker buddies Wayne Chang, Jeff Seibert and Ariel Diaz (Boundless), and TechStars mentors Will Herman, Ty Danco, and Joe Caruso. There are also Boston people/companies that we look up to, such as marketing heavy-weights Dharmesh Shah & Brian Halligan (Hubspot), Tom Erickson (Acquia), the ecommerce killers at Wayfair and Demandware, the Facebook ad gurus at Nanigans, and many more.

Despite the occasional uninformed missive from afar, Boston has an amazing and growing tech eco-system. We’re proud to be a part of it.

See you at the event!

BC

In 2013, national brands will need to focus on localizing their marketing efforts in order to achieve their goals and surpass their competition in today’s digital world. With 85% of consumers searching for local businesses online, brands can’t afford to ignore how important it is to engage their retailers and launch co-branding initiatives that cater to those local audiences.

We work with brands to connect them with their retailers on a daily basis and have seen a few key actions that brands must take in order to launch successful co-branding initiatives.

How To Engage Your Retailers

1. Establish a relationship. First things first: All brands need to establish a relationship with their retailers. It may sound obvious, but we have found that some of the biggest brands don’t really know their retailers that well. In fact, the bigger the brand is – the harder it is to establish and grow a strong relationship. No excuses, get to know your independent retailers! That means communicating with them regularly about brand news, asking them questions to find out why they love your brand so much and garnering an understanding of what you can do to help them sell more of your product.

2. Provide them new and relevant content. Your retailers are starving for content; they just don’t want to lose their identity with generic national content. That is why it is important to give them access to new content regularly, and make it relevant to them and their customers. By using Promoboxx, retailers are able to opt-in to national campaigns and co-brand the content to highlight their retail location. Then the retailers are given quick and easy share tools to promote their customized campaign on their online marketing channels.

3. Ask them questions. What are the channels they use to reach their consumers? Are they on Twitter? Facebook? Are they online at all? Not only will finding out the answers to these questions help you better understand how you can reach your consumers via your retailers, it will also allow you to provide your retailers with what they need. Once you understand your retailers, the possibilities are endless.

4. Teach your retailers new tricks. Are they on social media? If not, help them start. Many of our clients have helped their retailers get started through Promoboxx, and they love it! Do they need help launching a Facebook page? We will walk them through the Facebook set up process. Do they know how to use Twitter hashtags? Set up a social media training webinar. Help your retailers evolve with technology. This will help you build up influence in the online marketing world, and bring more visibility to your retailers.

5. Make it easy. The last thing you want to do is complicate your retailer’s life. They are busy and so are you. When trying to get your retailers engaged in your online marketing efforts, it must be turnkey. The technology should work to make both your life, and your retailers life, easier. At Promoboxx, it is our job to do just that. We built our platform to automatically generate a customized co-branded campaign for the brand and each independent retailer. After a few clicks the campaign is distributed on that retailer’s local online channels. We make it easy for the retailer to customize their campaign, while our analytics dashboard allows both the brand and retailer to gain meaningful insight to their relationship with one another and of course, the consumer

Yesterday we heard the big news. Facebook is rolling out a new search engine called Graph Search! Facebook claims that “with Graph Search, you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you’ve shared with them.”

For example: Lets say you are in need of a new pair of sneakers and are looking to buy them at a shoe store near you. You can use the Facebook Graph Search functionality to get recommendations based on what your Facebook friends like the most. This means that instead of searching Google with phrases like “shoe store” and entering in your zip code, which only pulls shoe stores based on their SEO, you will now be able to search “shoe stores my friends in Boston like” and it will pull up recommendations for you.

Users will also be able to search for content. You can type in phrases like “Photos of my friends in London” or “Music my friends like.” Facebook will also allow users to search other’s likes, location and history by typing in phrases such as “People who like to dance and work at Promoboxx.”

Facebook is integrating social networking and social search to create a personal experience to deliver more relevant results and personalized recommendations. What does this mean for retailers with Facebook pages? Never has it been more important for you to be engaging your online fans with relevant content to increase the visibility of your business!

The Promoboxx team is growing by leaps and bounds! We’re thrilled to introduce Lizzie, who recently joined us as a Product Manager.

Q. Tell us about yourself in a tweet! (140 characters or less)

A. I’m crazy about all things design, dogs and vintage cars.

Q. What is one of your favorite things to do in Boston?

A. I love walking the South End Corridor Park, frequenting my local Flour Bakery and biking along the Charles.

Q. Why did you decide to join the team, and what are you most excited about now that you’re an official Promoboxxer?

A. As soon as I started to meet the team, I knew the people and culture at Promoboxx was something special.  There’s nothing quite like being a part of a really tight-knit team that’s growing and building fast… I’m thrilled to be a part of it. 

Q. Do you have any interesting hobbies?

A. I’m a former classical musician, so I love to get together with friends and play music.   I’m also really interested in wine, and am lucky to have a French friend who’s teaching me a lot!

Q. What is something that not many people know about you?

A. I’m terrified of heights, I love action movies, and surprisingly, I’m not a huge fan of brunch.

You’ve probably heard the story. Growing up, our CEO Ben Carcio always looked forward to visits from the local alcohol distributors delivering the latest marketing materials to his parents’ liquor store. Equipped with neon Budweiser signs, Heineken coolers and Coors koozies, their visits represented a mutually beneficial marketing relationship between the big brands and the retailers who sold their product. These huge companies knew the value of sponsoring their retailers’ marketing efforts, and Ben’s parents relied on the support of the brands to promote their store.

These days it is clear that these in-store marketing materials don’t have the same draw as they once did; consumers are spending most of their time online talking to friends, sharing content, and of course, shopping. Therefore, it is imperative that independent retailers big and small promote their products in the digital media space.

However, that’s not always as easy as it sounds, and retailers no longer have that same support they once had when it comes to online marketing. While big brands have the time and resources to invest in digital media, the “little guys” are not so lucky. Sure, they’d love to take advantage of the exposure online, but who’s going to manage their online channels? Who knows how to do that, anyway? And who’s going to pay for it? These are questions that both the brands and retailers need answered in order to keep ahead of their competitors in the digital landscape that exists today.

Promoboxx aims to answer those questions by bringing that same symbiotic relationship that Ben’s parents experienced with local distributors to today’s online marketing. Check out our recent blog post that outlined how brands and retailers can use Promoboxx to strengthen their relationship and build their influence in the digital world.

The team here at Promobox is always striving to introduce and optimize tools that help gather data and show insights into the brand-to-retailer marketing process. One tool that we love is our Invitation System.

By using our Invitation System, brands are able to send out campaign launch communications to a list of their retailers to continue to remind retailers to opt-in and share throughout the lifetime of the program. We measure a co-branded campaign’s success based on high opt-in rates and engagement levels, so consistent and targeted communication is key to get your retailers actively participating and sharing their customized campaigns.

Brands that utilize the platform’s Invitation System see between 20-40% higher participation rates consistently across campaigns. The Invitations System also allows for communication to be integrated with other Promoboxx tools, creating a unified reporting view and providing actionable insights into your campaign data.

Here’s why we love our Promoboxx Invitation System:

• The tool allows you to track which retailers have been invited to a Promoboxx campaign, which locations have have opted in, and which retailers are unactivated.

• Brands can use the data to better understand which retailers are interested in the marketing content that is offered through the Promoboxx platform

• Brands can optimize email subject lines and content, measuring how this drives retailer participation rates

• Brands can easily re-send invites to retailers who have not yet opted in

• Retailer-specific links in invitation emails help to prevent duplication of retailer accounts — clean data is good data!

In addition to the Invitation System tools, Promoboxx also provides email templates that have been optimized based on what we’ve learned from campaigns launched with brands across various industries. Most importantly, our platform’s Invitation System integrates with all other Promoboxx tools, so brands can see unified reporting of their campaign and retailer data.

Everyone knows sharing is caring, but do you know just how important sharing on Facebook is to your company? Below you’ll find just a few of the many reasons why Facebook is no longer just a place to post those weekend photos and gush about your favorite TV show; rather, it’s a powerful tool to increase your business’ online exposure, strengthen brand loyalty and spread your marketing content far and wide.

The Power of Sharing

Stat 1: There are 184.2 million Facebook users in North America.

Takeaway: There are 184.2 million potential customers just waiting to engage with your brand on Facebook. Go get ‘em! If your business is not yet on Facebook, now is the time. Click for a quick tutorial on how to create a Facebook page for your business.

Stat 2: 56% of consumers say they are more likely to recommend a brand after becoming a fan on Facebook.

Takeaway: More fans = more brand advocates. Remember, it’s not enough to just have a page to gain fans; relevant, varying content is key for driving customers to your page, and having them return time after time. Click for how Promoboxx helps with this!

Stat 3: 95% of Facebook wall posts are not answered by brands.

Takeaway: Here is a great opportunity to get a leg up on your competition. Be that amazing company that posts new and exciting content on your Facebook page, and then consistently respond to comments and react to feedback. Not only will your company be humanized, your customer will feel appreciated and you will have some great new insights on who your customers are and what they’re looking for.

Stat 4: Online social content is easier to recall than printed information.

Takeaway: Facebook posts tend to be free flowing and more closely resemble speech, which is easier to remember than the perfectly edited, “combed-over” content in print. What you post on Facebook has a much better chance of being remembered (and passed on) than expensive print advertisements. The more you post, the better chance you have to be on the minds of your customers.

Stat 5: Brand engagement in 2011 increased by 176% on Facebook.

Takeaway: With the average person spending 441 minutes per month on Facebook, it’s no surprise that consumers are turning to Facebook to interact with their favorite companies online through media such as videos, links, promotional offers, sweepstakes and more. The more opportunities you give your customer to engage with your brand, the more they will remember you and recommend you to their friends.

Questions? Email us at support [at] promoboxx [dot] com.

After working to connect some of the most iconic brands in the world with their retailers and launching many co-branded campaigns, we have garnered some interesting insights into not only what the consumer likes, but most importantly what retailers like. In a recent survey sent to thousands of retail locations across the country, Promoboxx found that retailers prefer certain types of campaigns over others.

Results of the Survey:

• 35% of retailers preferred national promotions such as national product launches, special partnerships, celebrity endorsements, etc.

• 30% preferred the promotion of in-store events.

• 25% preferred tactical campaigns (special offers, coupons, etc).

• 10% preferred sweepstakes.

The retailer’s main concern is how the online promotion will drive in-store traffic. When they see that value, they are more likely to opt-in to a co-branded campaign (and your brand builds preference with that retailer). Your retailers want you to provide them content; they just don’t want to lose their identity with generic national content. That is why it is so important to understand what type of content they want and continuously launch campaigns that are relevant to both them and their customers.

By using Promoboxx, retailers are able to opt-in to national campaigns and co-brand the content to highlight their retail location. Then the retailers are given quick and easy share tools to promote their customized campaign on their online marketing channels. They can use Promoboxx’s online dashboard to check out how many leads they have generated, how many customers have visited their campaign page and how they measure up to other retailers carrying your brand. They can use these insights to make their next online marketing campaign an even bigger success. We love helping brands and their retailers win!

For every co-branded campaign that Promoboxx launches, our goal is to engage independent retailers across the country and help them easily tap into the national content of the brands that they carry. In order to do this successfully, we have been working hard to ensure that our technology provides a turnkey solution that allows brands to maintain their integrity and control, while simultaneously providing retailers a way to highlight their own local branding and expand their online presence.

After much review of brand and retailer platform feedback, Promoboxx has released a new engagement flow, “Engagement Flow 2.0.” The new flow, aimed at increasing retailer participation in national campaigns, strives to attract and encourage retailers to opt-in, customize their page, and share the content on their online channels. The first step in retailer activation, is our New Activation Page, below:

Activation 2.0 Highlights:

What: Campaign Preview Images + Campaign Description
Why: Showcase the new campaign to your retailers before they decide to participate. This feature helps retailers get excited about the campaign before activating.

What: Opt-Out Link
Why: Gives retailers a chance to tell you why they may not want to participate in a particular campaign. From their feedback, brands can optimize future campaigns and make sure they are giving their retailers what they want.

What: Wrong Contact Link
Why: Gives users a chance to reassign online marketing tools and content to the correct person at the retailer. This is helpful because the brand may not know who is in charge of online marketing at the retail location.

What: Help
Why: Retailers can reach the Promoboxx support team via phone, live chat, and e-mail. This feature has been placed in three different places on the engagement dashboard to ensure retailers know they can be helped at all times.

What: Activation Progress Bar
Why: Retailers can gauge how far along they are in the activation, creation, and sharing process. The activation progress bar helps mitigate drop-offs from activation to completion.

What: Features
Why: Retailers can view all the features provided to them from Promoboxx. Some of these features include: Reporting (retailer specific consumer shares, consumer visits, and leads) and Scoreboard (where does your retail location rank amongst others on Promoboxx).

Are you an existing client and want to see more new features on Promoboxx? Contact your Client Marketing Manager for a feature run-through at support@promoboxx.com.

Are you interested in learning more about Promoboxx and how we can help engage your local retailers? Contact our Sales department today at sales@promoboxx.com.

The legendary comedy of Mitch Hedberg (1968 – 2005) is often played at Promoboxx HQ. So, it was cool to discover that one of his jokes nails the Promoboxx benefits.

Every McDonald’s commercial ends the same way, right? “Prices and participation may vary.” I wanna open a McDonald’s and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald’s owner. Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti! And blankets!

Mitch got how independent retailers go rogue in their local marketing efforts, and how national advertising teams often have no idea what their retailers are doing. So, imagine if you were a customer at Mitch’s store? You’d leave laughing, but with a pretty skewed perspective of the McDonald’s brand.

Retailer Participation Matters:

It kills me to see ad disclaimers that say, “valid at participating retailers only.” Why don’t they know who’s participating?  What if a customer walks into retailer asking about a promotion, but gets a confused look? Retail anxiety is high enough, consumers don’t need to be concerned with brand-to-retailer communication issues. The current state of communication between the national brand and their retailers is not efficient. There may be a national sales conference or a few conference calls, but nothing that strengthens the brand-to-retailer relationship. What to do?

Our recommended approach is simple, send them communication asking them to participate in a promotion, explain to them why its a good idea, than ask them to say yes (or no), and BOOM you have an accurate list of the participating retailers.

When Independent Retailers Go Rogue:

Rogue brand marketing by local independent retailers is a consequence of having independent people sell your products. This happens all the way from the “mom and pops,” to strong franchise networks like McDonalds, to store managers of vertically integrated retailers like Walmart. The more you delegate marketing decisions to your resellers, the more likely those making the decisions will stray from your brand message.

Again, our recommended approach is very simple. Provide your retailers with materials that keep them aligned with you national promotion, while giving them parts of the campaign to customize and highlight their independence. Respecting who they are, even just a little, goes a long way. Your retailers will be happy because you are providing them content that drives more in-store traffic. You’ll be happy because they will be selling more of your brand.

My final recommendation, is to first listen to Mitch Hedberg, he’s amazing. But, more specifically, apply some realistic best practices to your promotion that maximize both retailer and consumer participation.

- BC

Q. Tell us about yourself in a tweet! (140 characters or less)

A. I live near Davis Square with my wife, Clover, and our daughter, Morgan. We’re expecting a baby in July! I love coffee, fire spinning, and Boabom.

Q. What are you most excited about now that you’re part of the Promoboxx team?

A. My first job was at a start-up with 6 people in Chicago. After working for rock stars at Harmonix, and then at Berklee College of Music, I’m really excited about being part of a small, elite team that’s breaking new ground in the digital world. It’s like coming back to my roots, only this time with a journey’s worth of experience behind me, instead of being green behind the ears.

Q. Do you have any interesting hobbies?

A. I met my wife while taking classes at the Boston School of Boabom, studying Tibetan martial arts. We also study fire spinning together, and actually got married at WildFire, a summer fire arts training camp.

Q. Where did you grow up, and what brought you to Boston?

A. I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC. When it came time to choose a college, I mostly picked Boston because I wanted to live in a city where it snowed more than once every 4 years.

As the Ravens claimed their victory Sunday night, viewers couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be some other winners at Super Bowl XLVII; Beyonce, the Budweiser Clydesdales, and the guy who made out with Bar Refaeli all come to mind. However, it was clear there was a new player in town when it came to Super Bowl advertising: social media. While social media efforts previously played a role in advertisers’ master plans for the big game, Super Bowl XLVII was the first year where digital media was an essential tool in strengthening the impact of their commercials.

“This year, we’re really seeing it go to a totally new level where marketers are making social networking a core part of their Super Bowl efforts. There’s a recognition among big businesses that social media is the new marketplace that they’ve got to be part of the conversation,” said Glen Gilmore, a social media strategist and professor of digital marketing at Rutgers University.

A buzz-worthy commercial is key to inspire people to take their opinions online, sharing them through Facebook, Twitter and more. “The No. 1 benefit to something like this is that your consumers actually become your billboards,” says Ann Mukherjee, Sr. Vice-President, Frito-Lay North America. “They’re the ones who become the ambassadors, who talk about the integrity and authenticity of the brand.” Many companies like Doritos, Volkswagen and Coca-Cola invited their customers to vote on their commercials, download ringtones and enter to win competitions, all to engage their customers on a more personal level and generate as much hype as possible.

The benefits of using social media in advertising don’t stop there; with social media (and Twitter in particular), companies can immediately evaluate the efficacy of their efforts. “You’ll know immediately if your ad has any sort of success by whether or not it’s trending on Twitter. Twitter is a boon for advertisers in the respect that they can see in real time if that ad is working, what people are saying and of course Twitter’s top trending lists right to the right on the homepage of Twitter show you what’s working and what’s not,” says Peter Shankman, CEO of Geek Factory.

At Promoboxx, we couldn’t agree more that social media amplifies a brand’s national marketing campaign. That’s why we worked with one of our clients on their Super Bowl initiatives and engaged their individual retailers by encouraging them to share the campaign on all of their local online channels. By allowing retailers to co-brand the content, the Super Bowl campaign was able to touch down at a local level and generate even more views. Plus, the retailers were thrilled to be a part of such a big event like the Super Bowl… a win-win for everyone.

I recently received an email from a new Promoboxx client asking: What are the secrets to launching successful campaigns, and how else can I best leverage your platform?

I love getting emails like this because the answer continues to evolve as we launch more and more features. So, here it goes…

How To Get To 100% Retailer Engagement With Promoboxx

If you’re looking for 100% retailer engagement rates (yes, this is possible!) it’s not that complicated. We’ve already done all the hard work, research, and testing for you. Here’s what all massively successful campaigns have in common:

1. Massively successful campaigns make use of the Promoboxx Invitations System.

The Promoboxx Invitations System enables brands to alert retailers about newly launched campaigns via email. The invitation email contains a unique link that tracks the retailer’s actions telling the brand if they’ve successfully completed all steps (i.e. accept invitation, add store data, share campaign), or where they may have fallen off along the way. The unique link generated by the Invitations System prevents retailers from creating duplicate accounts on Promoboxx, and ensures the continued cleanliness of your retailer data.

2. Massively successful campaigns make use of the Email Notifications System.

The Promoboxx Email Notifications System allows brands to keep their launched campaigns front and center in the mind of both retailers and consumers. Brands use this feature to send emails reminders to their retailers of the, letting them know it’s time to promote the campaign again on their online marketing channels (i.e. website, email, Facebook, Twitter). The Email Notifications System also reminds retailers of updated brand content on Promoboxx, and well as campaigns that are about to start or end. This system single handedly keeps retailers excited and in-the-know on all launched campaigns.

3. Massively successful campaigns make use of the Group Management System.

The Group Management System was created to help brands better target and connect with subsets of their retailer base. This system is integrated with Promoboxx’s reporting features, so you can view and compare different groups to others. The best part about Group Management is that you can create any group around any retailer data criteria you’d like for a more targeted campaign. Examples include: regional groups, most active retailers, retailers with Facebook pages, etc.

4. Massively successful campaigns make use of Cross-Engagement.

Each Promoboxx campaign comes with a “Cross-Engagement” link. The Cross-Engagement link, included in the footer of each retailer landing page, says “Are you a retailer? Contact us to participate.” This simple link can generate up to 33% of retailer opt-ins because it leverages the competitive nature of retailers. They’re always watching each other.

5. Massively successful campaigns make use of the National View.

Promoboxx automatically generates a retailer agnostic campaign page, in the look and feel of the brand’s brand-to-retailer campaign, for the brand to share nationally. The National View localizes a consumer and directs them to the landing page of the closest retailer to them – allowing the brand to drive leads directly to its local retailers.

There you have it! Stay tuned for B2R Marketing Success Secrets – Part 2!

As a national brands seek new ways to reach their customers with relevant and engaging content, they use the Promoboxx platform to launch co-branded campaigns with their network of local retailers. Engaging local retailers has proven to be an effective marketing tool for brands, but what exactly makes an effective co-branded campaign? We love helping brands get the most out of Promoboxx, and here are 4 ways that brands are using our platform to launch successful co-branded campaigns with their retailers:

1. Invitations: Invite ‘em to the Party

In most cases, one of the first times a retailer hears about a Promoboxx campaign is in the initial invite email, sent from the Promoboxx Invitation System. The message that brands send to their retailers should be optimized to give the retailer as much information about the campaign as possible: what the upcoming campaign is (the what), why they should participate (the why), and how they can participate (the how). An effective message is essential to high retailer engagement rates.

2. Share Options: Sharing is Caring

Many brands have special preferences for certain social media channels — perhaps consumers like to interact with Brand A primarily via Twitter, or perhaps Brand B finds Facebook to be the most effective way to distribute promotional content to consumers. Promoboxx works with brands to determine which social channels are best to create and share content on, and then helps them to optimize that content around the unique characteristics of those channels.

For example, Facebook content is most effective when it includes strong visual content – photos and videos. Consumers love viewing and sharing visual content on Facebook, so an effective way to optimize Facebook content is to include engaging video and photo content.

On the other hand, content shared on Twitter is “bite-sized”, fitting into the 140 character limit. Tweets encourage dialogue between consumers, brands, and retailers – it’s a conversation, so brands should use it as an opportunity to listen and share. Both retailers and consumers love sharing content via Twitter conversations. Twitter content should be clear and concise to really pack a punch — have your retailers promote your brand, use hashtags, get consumers engaged in current promotions and fit that all into 140 characters!

3. Share Reminders: Share Early, Share Often

So retailers have signed up for Promoboxx, your brand has created engaging content around your current campaign, but how does your brand get retailers interested in sharing that content? Promoboxx helps brands remind their retailers how, when, and what to share — all by sending out consistent share reminder messages specifically tailored to a campaign and the content it has to offer. Promoboxx encourages brands to send share reminders to their retailers regularly throughout the lifetime of the campaign, using the Email Notifications System. Continued sharing helps to keep marketing campaigns at the top of retailers’ Facebook and Twitter feeds.

4. Update Content: Keep it Fresh

Many brands will use the Promoboxx platform to run ongoing campaigns that continue for extended periods of time. In the case of these ‘evergreen’ campaigns, it’s important for brands to keep their content fresh. Promoboxx encourages brands to split their ongoing campaigns into several phases. From one phase to another, content should change. Brands may swap out new photos or videos, and refresh information about promotions – all in an effort to keep the content current and relevant to consumers. To keep your retailers and consumers engaged, you need to keep it fresh and exciting.

We’ve all heard of B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing, but what is this B2R marketing Promoboxx seems to talk so much about?

B2R (Brand-to-Retailer) marketing is connecting brands with their retailers by providing them with marketing materials they can use to facilitate the sale of their products and services they offer. Brand-to-Retailer marketing also plays a major role in strengthening the relationship between the brand and retailer, ultimately building a strong brand preference with each independent retailer.

Why is B2R Marketing important?

Manufacturing brands spend millions of dollars every year on national marketing programs. The majority of these programs focus on attracting and retaining consumers. In the past, retailers have been neglected in the marketing process. However, as competition has risen, brands need to find new ways to create preference of their products over others. Brands have started to realize that their retailers are their biggest advocates; in the end retailers have control of the products they sell, how they promote them and what they say to their consumers about them. What retailers don’t have, is the bandwidth to market these products and create preference on their own. Through brand-to-retailer marketing, brands give their retailers access to marketing programs that they can call their own and use to market to their consumers locally.

And what does Promoboxx have to do with B2R marketing?

Promoboxx is the glue for B2R marketing programs online. Shopper marketing has been around for a long time. Brands have provided independent retailers with in-store signage, fliers and coupons for years. However, with more and more consumers going online to research products and make purchases, brands are realizing they need to start providing online marketing resources to their retailers as well. When retailers build their presence online they can re-leverage national brand assets and activate consumer engagement throughout the digital path-to-purchase.

Promoboxx makes it easy for retailers to participate in the brand’s national online programs by providing easy-to-use tools to participate, co-brand, and distribute the programs on their online channels (Facebook, Twitter, website, and e-mail).

Want to find out more about B2R marketing and how it can help amplify your brand’s marketing efforts? E-mail us today at sales@promoboxx.com.

These days, there’s an increasingly noticeable focus on local: supporting locally owned businesses, eating locally raised meat and produce, and buying products manufactured in the USA. Currently, 23 million small businesses in America account for 54 percent of all U.S. sales, and their influence is only expected to grow in 2013. So how should brands get involved in this shift in buying trends? We’ve gathered the 3 most important tips to incorporate into your marketing plan for 2013, so that you can reach your consumers at a local level.

1. Help Your Retailers Maintain the Perfect Online Store Front

One of the oldest marketing adages is “Fish where the fish are.” There’s no doubt that customers are “swimming” online, even locally. In fact, 85% of consumers search for local businesses online and 82% of local searchers follow up their inquiry with an in-store visit or phone call. Therefore, brands not only need to make sure their online channels are professional and updated frequently with engaging content, but that those of their independent retailers are too.

How we can help: How are brands supposed to streamline the online presence of hundreds, thousands or even millions of retailers? Promoboxx allows retailers to opt in to the national campaigns of their choice, co-brand content from the brand and distribute it on their online channels, free of cost. Promoboxx even notifies them when new content is available and sends reminders when it’s time to share again. With Promoboxx, brands can extend their reach at to local level and unify their online marketing efforts, while simulataneously driving traffic to the individual retailers’ online channels like Facebook and Twitter.

2. Help Your Retailers Stay Relevant

Concentrate on what works; engaging customers online through rich content. Customers are going online to interact with their favorite brands everyday. Don’t just share content but produce content that asks your customers to express their opinion, give feedback, and take advantage of online offers that drive in-store traffic.

How we can help: Promoboxx understands that creating content to share on online channels can be time consuming and expensive, so we take care of the hard part. By opting into a brand’s national campaign, retailers gain access to all of the marketing content for that campaign, without the price tag or leg work involved in producing it. All the retailers have to do is accept the invitation to participate in the campaign, add their retail information and click “Share.” The best part? Brands don’t have to worry about rogue marketing, because they choose what is customizable.

3. Help Your Retailers Focus on Customer Retention, Not Just Acquisition

It’s not enough to simply acquire a customer; a brand needs to earn their loyalty and keep them coming back for more. Attention has shifted from acquisition to retention, which isn’t so easy with the “daily deal” trends of today.

How we can help: By having independent retailers share professional, new, and exciting content via Promoboxx the brand is able to keep their customers up-to-date with relevant news and promotions that relate to the company at a local level. Ultimately, creating a significantly more meaningful relationship with the customer. The brand will be first in the customer’s mind when it comes to finding the best deals and news about their industry.

Back in December 2012, Promoboxx partnered with Kia Motors for their Test-Drive for Tickets campaign to activate their central region dealers in Chicago and Cleveland. Promoboxx launched the brand-to-dealer online extension of this campaign, giving consumers an incentive to test-drive any new Kia vehicle in exchange for a pair of tickets to either a Chicago Bulls or Cleveland Cavaliers game. The goal was to increase the online conversation around this special offer and raise awareness of where to buy Kia vehicles locally.

A recent article featured on FastCompany reinforced that the most important asset to a brand are its customer-facing employees. Stating that “taking full advantage of that ground-level expertise means fostering better communication, and putting resources in the hands of those who face your customers. Technology in 2013 will focus on helping employees do more, more intelligently, and the wisest organizations will invest in this wholeheartedly.” It was exciting to read this, because that is exactly what Promoboxx aims to do for Kia and all of our clients.

Our main job is to help brands understand how to better engage both their retailers and consumers. A good co-branding campaign is a win-win scenario for all parties; a win for the local retailer trying to promote their business and a win for the brand that sells more product, while also strengthening their relationship with their retailers and consumers.

We loved being a part of Kia’s Test-Drive for Tickets campaign because Kia truly understood the value of working with their dealers to better reach their consumers at a local level. Kia focused on generating awareness of local Kia dealerships online and where to buy Kia vehicles locally. They also had a great consumer offer, which allowed Kia dealers to actually see consumer follow-up from this online promotion.

See below for the customized campaign page created by Bill Jacobs Kia:

Kia dealers were able to gain access to new and engaging content from Kia, quickly and easily highlight their dealerships branding and share their customized campaign on all of their online channels – and they loved it.

Check out some of the client testimonials we got below:

“Promoboxx was very helpful, creating an easy way for us to post the details of our promotion on our social networks, which had significant traction and follow-up!”

“Promoboxx is helpful on our online marketing efforts and is very easy to use. We would participate in another co-branding campaign again!”

“Because this campaign was so easy to use, allowed us to do it “our own way,” and had great visual graphic artwork (which was also customizable with our logo!), I would be happy to participate in another co- branding project.”

“The Promoboxx tool had an easy plug-in feeling, and I was impressed with the ability to customize posts and quickly select the exact page I wanted to place the post on (being an administrator of so many pages, this is often a problem).”

Brand marketers are becoming increasingly more concerned with how their retailers think. These brands place a high value on knowing values, goals, and concerns of retailers to understand how those retail partners market themselves along with the brands they sell. Every effort made is to gain additional insights into how retailers are growing and strengthening relationships with customers. That’s because both brands and their retailers have something in common: everything starts with the consumer.

In the automotive industry, we all know how it works: Automotive brands market to shoppers, shoppers buy at dealerships, dealerships order more from their automotive manufacturing brands. It’s the circle of life. It’s why automotive brands are so concerned with helping their dealers more effectively forge strong relationships with consumers. Because ultimately, the dealerships control the shopping experience for the majority of national automotive manufacturing brands.

When it comes to automotive brand marketing, Volkswagen is a thought leader. This past October, Volkswagen of America took its dealer marketing programs to the next level by launching its first dealer-focused online marketing initiative. Dubbed “VW Stories,” this initiative allowed VW dealers to take national “Why VW” content, customize it, and share on their local online marketing channels via Facebook and Twitter – for free. All with the purpose of drawing new consumers into the Volkswagen experience.

To further leverage its “Why VW” program, VWoA is using Promoboxx to engage its dealerships across the United States by encouraging them to co-brand and share new VW multimedia content such VWoA commercials. VWoA even brought it’s dealers into the fold of its highly anticipated Super Bowl XLVII commercials via “Why VW Stories.” An example of one VW dealer, Coastal Volkswagen of Hanover, MA pictured below:

“Promoboxx gives our VW dealers a quick and easy way to market VWoA national content locally on Facebook and Twitter. We’ve always been dealer-focused, so this is just another way for us to support our local dealerships.” – Sara Devine, Manager, Brand Marketing, Volkswagen of America

Ben Carcio, CEO of Promoboxx adds, “The advertisements around Super Bowl always cause lots of excitement in the media, especially for a brand like Volkswagen. So, we were thrilled to work alongside its agency, Edelman, to help VWoA dealerships become more involved.”

In 2013, manufacturing brands like Volkswagen will need to focus on localizing marketing efforts to achieve goals and surpass competition in today’s digital world. With 85% of consumers searching for local businesses online, brands can’t afford to ignore how important it is to engage dealers in order to cater to local consumer audiences.

- Sonciary // Co-Founder, VP Client Marketing // @shonnoll // sonciary [at] promoboxx [dot] com

Here at Promoboxx, we’re always striving to help brands connect better with their retailers and distribute co-branded content to an increasingly social consumer base. Recently Promoboxx has released several new features that not only improve the experience for retailers using our system, but these features also help brands optimize campaigns in order to better connect with their retailers and reach their consumers.

New Enrollment Flow

As new retailers sign up for Promoboxx, they are taken through the enrollment flow process, which allows Promoboxx to gather the necessary data to create a co-branded campaign. The updated enrollment flow includes features that help retailers understand the campaign they are activating, take them quickly and easily through the share process, and also allow for quick access to Promoboxx support channels if they need it. We’re excited for more retailers to use the new enrollment flow, and we’ve already seen significant increases in participation rates and sharing of co-branded campaign content.

New Retailer Dashboard

As a Promoboxx retailer, you want to know how well your co-branded campaign is performing, how many consumer views it’s received, and how many of your fans and followers have shared your co-branded content. The new Retailer Dashboard gathers the most important metrics of campaign success in one place, and shows each retailer their progress as well as how they stack up to other retailers promoting co-branded campaigns. One of the coolest features on the new dashboard is the Boxx Score for retailers. This score ranks each retailer based on campaign activity – a retailer’s score is calculated based on how many times they’ve shared on social channels, and how many consumer interactions they’ve generated. We love a little bit of friendly competition here at Promoboxx, and we think that retailers do too!

Enhanced Reporting for Brands

Ok, so we’ve updated the retailer experience in Promoboxx, but what about new features for our brand users? We want our brands to run successful campaigns co-branded with their retailers, and gathering reporting is essential for optimizing those campaigns. With the enhanced campaign reporting that we’ve introduced for brands, we hope to provide the metrics that brands need to track measure the progress of their campaigns, and provide actionable insights into how brands and retailers can optimize their co-branded campaigns.

Share Options for Retailers

We think that one of the most important aspects of a successful co-branded campaign is cross-channel sharing of content. We’ve encouraged retailers to share co-branded content on Facebook, Twitter, and their websites, and now we’ve included an enhanced option for sharing via email. With the new and improved Consumer Email capability, brands can create an HTML-rich email which is co-branded with each retailer’s information. Retailers can then send this email to their customers, either by using a list of leads captured through a Promoboxx campaign, or by importing their own list of leads.

We’ve also heard that sharing images on Facebook can be pretty darn effective in driving view of business and campaign pages. So we’ve given retailers the option to not only share a link to their co-branded campaign, but also to include a share image. These wall posts show up in the newsfeeds of a retailer’s followers and fans, and provide a visually interesting hook for consumers to click on and view co-branded campaign content.

Are you a Promoboxx user? What new features would you love to see?

As a Client Marketer at Promoboxx, part of our job is to have conversations with independent retailers and garner insights to better help them market online.

Independent retailers are the key to success with any Promoboxx campaign. Independents are the ones that sell products, help build a community, create memorable experiences and provide exceptional customer service. These reasons are why brick and mortar will never die and also why Promoboxx’s number one mantra is “believe in retailers.”

Yes, Promoboxx is a technology platform that connects brands to their retailers to help them localize national online campaigns, but there is another side to Promoboxx that most people don’t understand. To elaborate, today I was reviewing all of the retailer feedback I had received recently with one of my clients. Although I won’t reveal all of the details (top secret!), I will provide a few examples of insights Client Marketer’s at Promoboxx are able to share with clients on a daily basis…

- Retailers are looking for promotions that encourage the consumer to follow up in-store. Consider running an online promotion that drives traffic to both the local store’s physical store as well as its online channels.

- Retailers love to run an online campaigns around rebates because it draws the consumer to purchase without making an impact to the retailer’s bottom line. Rebate campaigns are a win-win.

- Retailers don’t have Facebook pages because they have a hard time understanding how managing a business page is worth their time. Now that your providing new, original content for their online channels, they want to get started.

Not only do we provide a technology that strengthens the brand-to-retailer relationship, but we help our brand clients better understand how to work with their retailers to achieve success…and we love what we do!

I recently attended a conference and had the chance to talk social media with the folks that keep brands alive: retailers. All too often I heard “I have Twitter, I just don’t know what to do with it.”

The truth of that matter is that it’s not enough to simply have an account on Twitter; that’s like buying the storefront and not setting up shop. Twitter, when used correctly, is extremely valuable. Twitter allows retailers a huge opportunity to connect with consumers on a more human level, offer top-notch support, reward loyal customers and identify industry trends. The best part? It’s free!

We’ve collected five reasons to stop being stubborn and start tweeting.

1. Give your company a personality

Twitter is one of the few places a company can exhibit their “personality,” so use it! Your followers will appreciate the reminder that there are people behind that logo. It helps them remember why they love you so much in the first place. Tweet about a customer service success story, your corporate culture, or new products. Get creative and remind your customers what makes you different from the rest of the competition.

2. Use Twitter as a support channel

This includes responding to direct tweets, responding to your follower’s comments, and tweeting about product updates. If a customer tweets you feedback about your product or service, good or bad, take it seriously. Social media gives you a huge opportunity to show off how amazing your customer service really is.

3. Reward your followers

Your Twitter followers are likely your most loyal customers, and therefore deserve a reward. Offer exclusive discounts to your Twitter followers by tweeting special promo codes, running contests for the best tweets about your product, or simply give them a sneak peek at a new product release. They’ll appreciate being on the inside and that you value their loyalty.

4. Use hashtags

A hashtag is a word (or words) that point to a specific topic using the # symbol. A hashtag is a word (or words) that point to a specific topic using the # symbol. Hashtags are an excellent way to identify what’s trending in your industry, or better yet, initiate buzz about what you’d like to be trending.

5. Share meaningful content

Don’t just talk about your product, rather offer relevant tips, fun facts, or how-to guides. The more meaningful content you produce, the more interest you can generate around your product!

At Promoboxx, our focus is making both retailers and brands happy. We do this in a variety of ways, but early on we realized the simple equation to this utopia is happy retailers = happy brands.

For now, we’ll concentrate on one side of the equation: the responsibility of brands to keep their retailers happy. By believing in retailers and providing them with the necessary tools for success, brands will be rewarded in loyalty (and sales) ten times over. Below you’ll find our top 5 tips for brands to make their retailers happy and ultimately, their biggest advocates.

1. Share Leads

Brands aren’t going to gain any points with the retailer if the leads that they collect during a national campaign go straight to corporate. After all, why should the retailer promote a campaign that doesn’t directly help them? Using Promoboxx, retailers that opt-in to national campaigns gain access to the leads that they collect. This motivates the retailer to share their campaign more often and push your product, in order to gain more leads. Impress your retailers by offering them the opportunity to gain consumer leads and allowing them to use the leads they collect for future marketing purposes. By rewarding their hard work it shows them that you support their success.

2. Provide Multiple Opportunities to Be An Advocate

What works for one retailer won’t work for another, so give your retailers plenty of ways to promote your brand. If your campaign is digital, encourage them to share via Facebook, Twitter, Blog and Email (to name a few), or if it’s an in-store promotion, make sure they have access to several types of signage, print ads, or whatever will work best for them to get on board your brand’s campaign.

3. Do the Leg Work (and Make it Free)

One of the most common reasons we hear for why retailers don’t market their stores (and the brands they carry) is that they simply don’t have the time or the resources. Take a load off your retailers’ backs by giving them the content to customize and share. If you really want them to be your advocates, provide it free of charge. At Promoboxx, our brands know that their retailers are the number one way to promote their products, so they use our platform to make their digital content as accessible as possible. Bonus: the brand’s national campaign will result in a more streamlined, cohesive effort.

4. Reward Your Retailers

Encourage your retailers to promote your campaign with an incentive. In a recent Promoboxx campaign, a brand offered its retailers a chance to win a dream vacation in exchange for promoting a national sweepstakes they were running. Another Promoboxx campaign rewarded the top-performing retailer with a discount on their next order from the brand. Giving your retailers a little extra motivation will not only get them excited about your current promotion, but it will also generate a desire for them to participate in future campaigns.

5. Give Retailers the Inside Scoop

Retailers interact with consumers more than anyone else, so their opinion is extremely valuable. Recognize retailers as an excellent source of information. Invite them to give their feedback on what type of promotions they would like to run, their preferred methods of communication with their consumers, and what works (and doesn’t work) for them. By working as a team, retailers and brands can build and thrive in a mutually beneficial relationship.

One of our brand clients has historically always provided retailers with marketing content, both in-store and online. So, when that brand turned to Promoboxx to help better engage its retailers the relationship’s foundation was already there; Promoboxx just helped streamline the process.

The problem with providing a lot of content to retailers is that they might not fully understand what to do with it or how to talk about it with their customers. Should it be shared on Facebook or Twitter? How often should it be shared? What makes the promotion special? These are all questions that need to be answered by the brand before the content is distributed. It’s important to give context around the content, because if you don’t make it easy, you’ve done nothing but discourage your most important advocates (your retailers!) from promoting your product.

How did Promoboxx solve this problem?

Promoboxx packages the content on a campaign basis, allowing the retailers to log in to their Promoboxx account, customize national content to engage their local audience and easly share it online with our checklist of share tools: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and website. Depending on what type of channels the client wants to focus on we will also provide instructions on share copy or what hashtags to use to keep the conversation going. We also send out weekly e-mails to all participating retailers reminding them that they should share their campaign again.

Content is vital to any online marketing strategy, but content without purpose is meaningless. Right now, we’re seeing more content than ever, but rarely do we see it making an impact, starting the right conversations and helping independent retailers boost their online presence.

That is where YOU, the brand, comes in. It’s great if you are are helping your retailers out with their online marketing, but make sure you are equipping them with the right kind of training and tools to succeed.

In Promoboxx, many brands run multiple campaigns throughout the year, providing rich and interesting content for their retailers to share on a regular basis. We wanted to make it is as simple as possible for retailers to activate and share these new campaigns, so we’ve introduced several new Campaign Automation Features.

Auto Enrollment

The new Auto Enroll feature allows retailers to automatically participate in future campaigns without having to log in to Promoboxx and manually activate their new campaign. This new feature saves time for retailers by eliminating a few steps in the campaign create process, and it makes activating new campaigns much easier. Brands benefit from this feature because more retailers can engage in new campaigns that they release, amplifying the consumer reach of the campaign on a local level.

Auto Sharing

Once retailers have activated their Promoboxx campaign and added information about their social channels, the next step is to share their co-branded campaign online. It’s important that retailers keeping sharing their co-branded campaign pages throughout the lifetime of the campaign, to keep their content relevant to consumers. The new Auto Share feature allows retailers to have campaign content shared automatically on their social channels. Retailers are notified each time content is shared on their behalf, and the brand can easily refresh the shared content throughout the course of the campaign.

This new feature is great for retailers because they can enable Auto Share, then not have to worry about logging back into Promoboxx each time that new share content is available. New content is automatically shared on a retailer’s social channels on their behalf, which means that retailers can easily stay connected with their fans and followers, and brands ultimately reach more consumers with their marketing content.

Opting in to these new automation features is easy for retailers — all it takes is the click of a button. Automation tools are encouraged only if the retailer feels that it is right for their online marketing strategy. If they prefer to log in to Promoboxx to activate new campaigns and share new content, then they simply do not enable the automation features.

New tools like automation give retailers the option to quickly and easily keep their online channels updated. With automation, brands can more easily distribute content on a consistent basis and build stronger relationships with their retailers by always providing new and relevant content to be shared.

We’re big fans of Instagram here at Promoboxx, so last week we launched a new customization feature that allows our clients to launch campaigns with the popular application. With 100 million active users, we understand how important this new piece of functionality is, as it helps our brand clients and their independent retailers market better online.

How Does Instagram Work via Promoboxx?

We’ve made it easier than ever to incorporate Instagram into a co-branded campaign. As always, when retailers activate their campaigns via Promoboxx, they are taken through the enrollment flow process, which allows Promoboxx to gather the necessary data to create a co-branded campaign. If a brand client enables the Instagram feature, participating retailers will be prompted to enter in their Instagram username, along with the usual information that we ask for in the enrollment process (store location, phone number, links to their website and social channels, etc.).

After the retailer saves all of their information, including their Instagram username, they will be prompted to start sharing their photos with a particular hashtag. This hashtag is campaign specific and is assigned by the brand. From there, all the retailer has to do is use their Instagram application to take photos using the assigned hashtag. Those photos are then pulled directly onto the retailer’s campaign page.

Curious to see a real, live example of an Instagram-customized campaign? Check out Reebok’s current “Live White Hot” campaign below, complete with a sample retailer’s Instagram photo included below.

Many of you have already seen the “Sh@t Sales Reps Say“ video, but I keep coming back to it as a guide for how manufacturing brands work with the local retailers who sell their products. The video is a funny industry insider look into how manufacturing brands use sales reps to better sell into local retailers. As you’ll see, its an ongoing and often awkward sales process where brand reps work to get their retailers to pay better attention to thier brand, by saying things like “you need to rep the whole brand” and “my pen only writes in dozens” and at one point you’ll hear the rep say “my promo is tapped out.” Here he’s referring to the budget he has to help the retailer with marketing, mostly offline materials like point of purchase (POP), promotional materials (t-shirts, posters, stickers), etc. Retailers are used to getting help and free stuff from these brands often via their brand rep, so brands reps are crucial to the ecosystem.

The Promoboxx platform supports these reps in the short term and will improve the rep/retailer interaction in the long term. Promoboxx is the new promo, and we’re never tapped out.

Here’s the video: