Tips to Make Sweepstakes Work for You

Tips to Make Sweepstakes Work for You

So, your company wants to run a sweepstakes.  That’s a great idea. It gets your brand exposure with a new demographic.  They are a very cost effective way that marketers have branded products for decades.  The mere act of putting on a sweepstakes ups the number of people who will interact with the brand and website.  Even if you don’t gain customers directly, you will get information that can be helpful.  Managing online contests can be a real challenge.  That’s why sweepstakes administration companies may be a good investment.

Here are some tips for managing sweepstakes:

1. Look at your demographic and offer prizes they would want.  If your demographic is fans of the movie, “50 Shares of Grey,” sending them a lifetime supply of Axe Body spray might not be helpful.
2. Think of your top prize as being at the head of a pyramid of also awesome offers.
3. Make it easy for the customer to enter or join, really.  You can be giving away the Hope Diamond but if it too hard to sign up, no one will.
4. Give customers different ways to sign up — maybe they can tweet you.  Send you a Facebook message, whatever. In baseball, they say “go where the ball is.”  Do that with your customers.
5. Promote your product via programmed learning.
6. If you can give your rides immediately, do it.  Ask winners to promote that they won.
7. Make the sweepstakes rules and regulations as transparent as you can, you do not want complaints later.
8. Make sure there is enough time for people to respond.
9. Make sure you register your sweepstakes with the state — in states like Florida and New York there are very specific rules.  That is one area where a good sweepstakes administration company can really help.
10. Promote your sweepstakes with a decent agency that knows about sweepstakes administration.

The Deal with Rules

The reason you need to be really careful is that while your intentions may be stellar, sweepstakes or contests can me misconstrued as  gambling.  There are a lot of laws that deal with lotteries (illegal unless run by the government), sweepstakes or contests.   Not only that but different industries have different rules.  A good sweepstakes administration company will save you a lot of stress.  Trust them, they do know what they are doing.

The Bottom Line

Sweepstakes really can grow your customer base but, like doing your taxes, it is easy to not dot the right i or cross the right t and get into trouble.  Unless you have done a lot of these, there’s no reason to know all about the different laws and regulations for each state but that doesn’t man your brand or product can’t benefit.