Identity marketing is a technique where brands create gated offers for specific groups (known as consumer communities) that share deep-seated commonalities. Some common consumer communities include students, the military, and healthcare workers.

One of the best things about identity marketing is that your consumer communities want you to engage them. Research shows that more than 90% of students, teachers, first responders, nurses, seniors, and the military want to hear about exclusive offers just for them. And even better, even more of these consumers said they would share an identity-based offer with others they knew were eligible for it. 

But the best offer in the world won’t do you any good if no one knows about it. To make the most of your identity marketing campaign, it’s critical that you promote your offer using the right channels. Here are the most successful and cost-effective strategies our customers use to launch their campaigns.

6 Tips for Promoting Your Verified, Exclusive Offers

You don’t have to invest a lot of new money to reach your audience. Just start integrating your offer into your existing paid campaigns and owned channels.  

And don’t let the fear of discount abuse hold you back. When you digitally verify eligibility for your offer as a seamless step in your purchase process, fraudsters looking to rip you off don’t stand a chance. 

01 Make Your Offer Easy to Find on Your Website

Because digital verification protects your offer from discount abuse, you can—and should—promote it on all your high-traffic web and landing pages. To maximize impact, create a dedicated landing page for each consumer community or combine related offers onto a single landing page.  

For example, you could make an “Academic Discounts” page to promote a teacher and student offer or an “Everyday Heroes” page for offers to medical workers and first responders. Landing pages like these give you the opportunity to use messaging and imagery that resonates with your communities and to provide a clear path for customers to verify their eligibility.  

For an even greater boost, optimize your landing pages for SEO and link to them from your footer, FAQ page, and banners.

02 Leverage Social Media

Social media is one of the top ways consumer communities want to hear about your offer. To meet this demand, use a combination of paid social and organic posts that target your communities. Videos and GIFs are especially popular. Prioritize the social channels where your audience is most active. For instance, Gen Z consumers are most likely to use YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. 

Be sure to encourage followers to tag their friends and share your post, perhaps with a fun hashtag. One SheerID customer invited its Instagram followers to tag nurses about a free, limited-edition gift for healthcare workers, and within 6 hours, the gift was out of stock. 

Don’t forget to make your offer easily shareable, and consider creating refer-a-friend programs—they’re an effective way to boost awareness.

03 Send Emails

Promote your offer via email campaigns to both members of the communities you’re marketing to and others who would gladly share your offer with eligible friends and family. That’s basically your entire database—96% of consumers said they wanted brands to provide special perks to those who deserve them most.   

Include your offers in newsletters and email blasts to reactivate customers, increase AOV, and improve order frequency. 

04 Promote Your Offer to Affiliate Publishers

Affiliate marketing can raise awareness of your offer, and unlike affiliate-based verification providers, SheerID is a white-label program that allows you to work with as many affiliates as you want. Consumer communities like students, teachers, and the military have a number of niche websites with high conversion rates. Deal sites are also a popular place for community members to search for offers. 

To amplify your affiliate reach, SheerID partners with FMTC to distribute your offers to the top enterprise affiliates—for free. One SheerID customer reports that over 25% of its sales come from affiliate links. 

05 Pulse Your Offers

Every consumer community has holidays that celebrate them, such as Veterans Day, National Teacher Appreciation Week, World Health Day, and Back-to-School. Running special campaigns that recognize these groups with VIP treatment, a heartfelt thank you, or a deeper offer will capture their attention during these times and keep your brand top-of-mind throughout the year.  

You can also test new offers or run a program to a new community during lulls in your campaign calendar. One SheerID customer reports that a 50% discount it offered its community for only one week performed as well as its Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions.

06 Make the Most of the Data You Collect

When you digitally verify your offer with SheerID, you collect zero-party data—data that a customer willingly provides in exchange for something of value, like a discount. Zero-party data that is verified by SheerID is the most valuable customer data you can have because it is self-attested and reliable. And because you own it, you can add it to your CRM and use it to: 

• Build custom and lookalike audiences for social and programmatic.

• Design segmented email blasts.

• Develop remarketing campaigns.

• Provide a more personalized customer journey. 

Using the zero-party data you gather to re-engage customers is a highly effective strategy. When Purple used its data to create a lookalike audience, it saw an ROAS of 25:1.

Launch an Identity Marketing Campaign Today

Identity marketing is a great way to acquire new customers, encourage loyalty, and establish positive relationships with your customer base. And with SheerID’s Verification Platform, you can verify customer eligibility quickly and easily, ensuring exclusivity and protecting against fraud. SheerID, as well as our trusted marketing partners, can also support your brand in promoting your offer to ensure maximum visibility.