What Is a Teaser Campaign? (Plus 8 Tips To Ensure Success)

Updated September 30, 2022

Marketers use a wide variety of advertising techniques and communication strategies to promote products, services and events. To maximize their potential reach, engagement and impact, they may create teaser campaigns leading up to big announcements. If you work in marketing or aspire to pursue a career in this field, you might benefit from learning about teaser campaigns.

In this article, we explain what a teaser campaign is, discuss why they're effective and provide eight tips to help you create one effectively.

What is a teaser campaign?

A teaser campaign refers to a series of advertisements that slowly reveal information about an upcoming event, product launch or announcement. Also known as pre-launch campaigns, they use clues to provide the audience with hints about the announcement.

The clues may be straightforward or cryptic, encouraging audience members to decode the message behind each ad. The goal of teaser campaigns is to get people to talk about a specific brand or product, which increases awareness and engagement.

Marketers who develop teaser campaigns carefully plan each phase of their communication strategy to ensure every ad creates suspense and excitement leading up to the final reveal. They may use several forms of media to create these advertisements including videos, graphics, photos, soundbites and GIFs.

Why do teaser campaigns work?

Marketers use teaser campaigns because they're effective at piquing interest. Using this type of campaign also allows marketers to tell a story about the product, service, event or business they're promoting over time, which can make it more memorable than a single announcement. Teaser campaigns also work well because they:

Create a feeling of inclusion: Teaser campaigns are a great tool to make fans feel like they're in on a secret, which can help them develop a more personal relationship with the brand you're marketing.
Build suspense: Successful teaser campaigns generate excitement and anticipation for the big reveal, which keeps people engaged with your content.
Generate curiosity: The clues and cryptic messages marketers use to create teaser campaigns appeal to their audience's sense of curiosity and their desire for knowledge.
Encourage conversations: Teaser campaigns give audience members something to talk about as they try to uncover what the big announcement is, which can help foster a sense of community around a brand.
Provide an interactive experience: Audience members often have fun trying to figure out what all of the different clues in a teaser campaign mean, which creates an interactive, game-like experience that encourages friendly competition with other fans.

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8 tips for creating a teaser campaign

While each teaser campaign is unique, there are some basic steps to develop one effectively. Here are eight tips to help you create a successful teaser campaign:

1. Be mysterious

To create a successful teaser campaign, create a mystery for your audience to solve. You can use cryptic images or messages, provide clues in riddles or puzzle pieces or incorporate questions to encourage fans to guess what exciting news is in store for them.

Use your imagination to develop creative and interactive advertisements that generate suspense. This can help you entice audience members to follow your brand online and keep checking back for future updates.

2. Reveal clues slowly

Once you've identified what types of clues you plan to create, reveal them slowly. By sharing one advertisement every day or even every week, you can continue building suspense over a longer period of time. This allows more people to discover your teaser campaign while it's still active.

How often you choose to reveal clues may depend on when you need to make your final announcement. Determine when you plan to reveal the last message and then work backward to create a content calendar so you can schedule your individual advertisements accordingly.

3. Provide an incentive

Instead of relying on human curiosity alone, provide an incentive to encourage people to attempt to figure out what the big announcement is before the end of your teaser campaign.

For example, you might create a website people can visit to enter their guesses and award each person who is correct with a coupon code or a limited edition product. This can help you increase engagement and brand loyalty.

Another popular marketing method to incentivize followers is to encourage them to share posts about the teaser campaign on their social media pages. Once so many people share a specific post, the next clue unlocks automatically. This creates a sense of teamwork and collaboration while motivating people to continue promoting your brand online.

4. Use clear calls to action

While the rest of your campaign may be full of cryptic messages, codes and mysteries, make sure your calls to action are clear. Use simple, concise language to let your audience know what actions you want them to take next. Some examples of clear calls to action include:

Stay tuned for more clues.
Follow us on social media for more updates.
Share this post with your friends to unlock more clues.
Share your best guess by leaving a comment below.
Subscribe to our mailing list to stay updated.

This can make it easy for audience members to participate in your teaser campaign and encourage participation.

5. Count down to the big reveal

As the big reveal approaches, create a countdown to build momentum and increase excitement. You can use video clips, graphics or GIFs to develop a cohesive series of countdown posts. Include the number of days that are left in each piece of content so your audience knows when to tune in for our announcement.

This can help you create a memorable teaser campaign and ensure audience members participate in the exciting reveal so they can find out what the announcement is all about.

6. Develop a campaign hashtag

Before you launch your teaser campaign, develop a unique hashtag for it. Create something short and simple so it's easy for people to remember. Then, use this hashtag on each of the pieces of content you create to maintain a sense of brand consistency. Encourage your audience to use this hashtag as well when they discuss your campaign online or share your content.

This can help you connect with your audience and allow followers to communicate with each other easily across different social media platforms. It can also make it easier for you to assess your audience's reaction to your teaser campaign because you can search for the hashtag to find out what they're saying.

7. Leverage multiple platforms

Instead of focusing on one platform or media outlet, incorporate several options your audience engages with to maximize your reach. This may include social media platforms, email marketing, billboards, radio and television ads and print marketing.

Use similar visuals and language across all of the platforms you choose to make sure your teaser campaign is easy for people to recognize. Time each of your advertisements to launch at the same time to make sure people who engage with different platforms or media outlets receive the most recent clues in a timely manner.

8. Collect contact information

Look for opportunities to collect contact information from the people that engage with your teaser campaign. For example, you might require participants to share their email addresses or phone numbers with you in order to submit their guesses about the announcement.

Organize this data as you collect it, and then use the contact information you gathered to send follow-up advertisements or communications. This can improve your future marketing campaigns.