7 Simple Tips for Organizing a Successful Sweepstakes
How to run a succesful contest
On average, 34% of new customers are gained through a business’s giveaway or sweepstakes promotion.
With stats like this, marketers are delving into sweepstake techniques to make their campaigns bigger and better and seeing a respectable increase in revenue.
However, doing a giveaway isn’t as easy as it looks.If you’ve tried this promo technique before, you may already be familiar with the underwhelming response from a poorly executed strategy.
So how can you conduct an effective promotion and see amazing results from your sweepstakes?
If you’re ready to up your giveaway game and grow your business with great results, you need to know these 7 simple steps for success. Follow along to learn the secrets behind a smashing campaign.
What Are Sweepstakes?
Before we jump into the steps for success, let’s brush up on the types of giveaways you can host. Contests, sweepstakes, and surveys all set out with the same mission: to engage customers and encourage interaction.
Surveys encourage customers to leave reviews or feedback in exchange for entries, whereas contests and sweepstakes are geared towards drawing in new audiences and spreading brand awareness.
The main difference between these two categories is the level of skill your audience must contain to enter. While contests can get your viewers submitting stories, photographs, or other contributions, sweepstakes open up the playing ground for anyone to participate.
They are purely based on luck and require small actions like a like, follow, or share to be entered.
1. Set Your Goal
Before you set off with your DIY sweepstakes, you’ll need to determine what your end goal is. Are you looking to increase your follower count? Promote a new launch? Draw more readers in by increasing brand awareness?
Having a clear goal will make the planning process easier and more direct. If you launch a sweepstake with no real goal in mind, you may find yourself giving away items without reaping any real benefits from the campaign.
Once you know what you want to accomplish, you can tailor your rules, prize, and supporting content around that goal.
2. Choose Your Platform
Decide where your contest will root from. Your goal should make this easier to narrow down. For example, if your primary objective is to boost engagement on your Instagram account, this will serve as your main platform.
If you want to draw more traffic to your website or blog, consider making your blog the landing page for your sweepstakes. While it is possible to host a sweepstake across multiple platforms, sorting the entries and ensuring proper rules have been followed becomes much more complicated.
Choosing one platform doesn’t mean this is the only place you’ll post about your giveaway, but it’ll act as the main hub for the campaign.
3. Set a Timeframe
Choose a start date and deadline for all submissions. Although this step seems obvious, many businesses will launch a giveaway with no clear ending illustrated. This will cause confusion for your participants and reduce the sense of urgency to enter.
Have an end date set and emphasize it right from the start of your campaign.
4. Align With an Event
You can host a giveaway at any time, but the most successful and useful campaigns are often associated with an event.
This can be both an internal event like an anniversary or milestone event of your business or a publicly known holiday. If you have a product launch or exciting event coming up, couple the two promotions together to increase interest and get your participants excited.
Choosing holidays such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day helps your business break into a viral-type market and can help you narrow down a relevant prize as well.
5. Define Your Rules
Now that you know what you want people to do, and where you want them to do it, you develop your giveaway rules. This is your chance to give direction to your campaign and eliminate any confusion from your audience.
For sweepstakes, you’ll need to include the following details in your rules announcement:
- Start and end dates for entries
- Your eligibility rules (location and age restrictions)
- Draw date
- When the winner will be notified
- Odds of winning
- No purchase is required
- Purchases don’t impact winning odds
- Respect for privacy as per applicable laws
To ensure compliance on your selected platform, it’s a good idea to review the rules and regulations for sweepstakes on your specific site choice.
6. Choose Relevant Prizes
Take some time to consider what kinds of prizes will encourage your audience to participate but tie in with your brand. Perhaps you can give away a service offering or a product from your brand.
If not, choose items that a customer can relate to your business such as a new mother package for a motherhood blogger page.
7. Spread the Word
Prior to your release and throughout the campaign, your marketing should be geared to support your sweepstakes. Share information and links on your social pages, online sweepstakes directories, or even tag your posts with a ‘sweepstakes 2020’ hashtag.
Take advantage of a large audience of sweepstakes fanatics by promoting your giveaway on online sweepstakes platforms like Contest Scoop. You’ll have the chance to get your brand in front of an entirely new audience and be featured on reputable websites.
And of course, don’t forget to boost your visibility by utilizing paid promotions. You’ll reap the benefits of an excellent ROI and simultaneously increase your reach.
Launch Your Sweepstakes Today!
Now that you know these 7 simple steps for successful sweepstakes, you can launch your campaign with confidence. From setting your goal to maximizing your impact, you’ll be boosting engagement and increasing revenue in no time.
Want to publish your sweepstake on the best online sweepstakes website?
Get in touch with our team at ContestScoop.com to discover how you can take advantage of our built-in audience and improve your giveaway success today.
