6 Contest Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

Contests and promotions management are tried and true tactics used to engage a company’s audience, acquire new customers, build awareness, drive purchases, or encourage trials of new products. Contest marketing is a great tactic to employ periodically to energize your audience or it can be used as part of a greater loyalty strategy, where contests are one of several different tactics to help deepen engagement with customer loyalty program members. 

HubSpot's research reveals that every contest campaign results in 34% average increase in the number of new customers. In addition, contest emails have the highest opening rate of 45% compared to other email campaigns. 

Is your brand taking advantage of contest marketing?  

In this article, we will share 6 contests and promotion examples to easily incorporate in your next contest marketing campaign. But first, let’s understand what contest marketing is.

What is Contest Marketing? 

Contest marketing is a strategy that involves organizing and promoting contests, giveaways, or sweepstakes, to boost brand awareness and acquire new customers. 

It capitalizes on the principle of gratification, as it entices and maintains customers by appealing to their inclination for discounts or freebies.  Contest marketing campaigns can vary based on the specific objectives and organizational framework of the brand. 

Here are a few benefits of contest marketing for your brand:  

1. Customer Engagement: Contests are a great way to engage with your existing audience.
2. Customer Acquisition: They’re also a great way to acquire new customers, followers, or loyalty members. 
3. Driving Purchase: Contests can help drive purchases - especially by promoting a purchase-based contest (e.g. with receipt validation). 
4. Driving Trial: Launching a new flavor or introducing a new category? Contests are a great way to drive trial and get product feedback. 
5. Brand Awareness: Contests can be geared toward driving brand awareness - e.g. by using a social media or user-generated content component. 
6. Customer Loyalty Program Booster: Contests keep your members active and gives them new ways to engage. It can also be a way for users to collect more loyalty points. 
7. First party and zero party data collection: Drive more CRM data and collect information about interests, entertainment preferences, location, basket data, and more via the contest registration process. Contests are a great way to learn more about the market and your customers. 
8. Improve promotion: Contests serve as an excellent way to promote your brand and products indirectly, which leads to brand awareness. 
9. Low Marketing Costs: Contests can be executed with a small budget while providing significant value in return. 

6 Contest Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

1. Kellogg’s Cheez-It Spin-to-Win Contest 

Kellogg's wanted to drive acquisition of first party data by leveraging one of their 5 power brands, Cheez It. 

To achieve this goal, Kellogg’s teamed up with Snipp to create a simple yet engaging instant-win program encouraging consumers to ‘play’ for instant gratification. An easy registration process, where participants could simply enter their email addresses enabled access the Spin the Wheel game.  

Participants could spin the wheel for a chance to win (or lose!) from a host of prizes in real-time. The wheel included a $5 prepaid card, a $5 Fanatics reward, and free Cheez-it for a year and a chance to ‘try again’! Snipp collected the registration data for Kellogg’s allowing them to better understand their audience for re-targeting purposes. 

Learn how Snipp has helped several sizable brands succeed with their contests and promotions by viewing more contest and promotions case studies. 

2. Coconut Bowls Giveaway Contest

Coconut Bowl is a Shopify eCommerce store that sells coconut bowls. Their goal was to generate user-generated content, increase email subscribers, create social awareness, engagement, and sales for their unique product.  

To achieve this goal, Coconut Bowls ran a giveaway contest offering a prize that their customers loved, the Vitamix blender, along with their own product. They created a custom landing page to make it easier for customers to participate in the contest. 

In addition, Coconut Bowls enticed participants via various channels, including referrals, Instagram tags, and contest comments, providing a rich and varied experience for those seeking to increase their chances of winning. 

 As a result, Coconut Bowl generated 41K emails in 4 weeks, 37K new followers, and 15K shares.  

3. Digital Rebate Program for Keurig Dr. Pepper

Keurig Dr. Pepper wanted to explore and test the effectiveness of digital rebate programs to drive effective conversion rates and engage with their consumers, for their K-Supreme Brewers. 

To achieve this goal, Dr. Pepper partnered with Snipp, leveraging our digital rebate solution. The contest was designed to offer consumers with a seamless UX and rewarding experience.  

The program, developed in both English & French, enabled consumers who purchased any qualifying K-Supreme product to upload a photo of their receipt and register to get a $40 Rebate! Snipp integrated our solution via an iframe on the brand site. Two URLs were set up to test out and see which one was most effective and helped them determine which resonated most with their target audience  

Click here to learn more about Snipp’s Rebate Management Solutions.

4. Gift With Purchase Contest for Xbox + OPI 

Xbox partnered with OPI on a global, exclusive line of nail polish and was looking to reward consumers with exclusive in-game content for Forza and Halo. Their challenge was to find a technology partner to execute multiple programs across countries, currencies, and languages while providing various levels of support in each country. 

That’s where they approached Snipp, the perfect collaborating partner with the expertise of promoting and processing such large contests.  

Snipp developed 15 individual gift-with-purchase programs leveraging our receipt processing and promotion technology in 12 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia. Each program was tailored to the specific market, from localizing the language to creating country-specific qualifying rules, customer service support, and micro-sites.

Consumers who purchase qualifying OPI products could upload their receipt and register for the program to get an exclusive Forza or Halo in game content reward. 

Xbox & OPI were able to generate an incredible amount of unprecedented consumer purchase data from each campaign and can track programs individually as well as holistically. 

Want to run a Gift-with-purchase contest on a large scale? Here is how we do it.

5. Mad Mex Digital Stamp Card 

Mad Mex spiced up their loyalty program experience by adding a brand-new mobile app feature: the digital stamp card.  

Every time you purchase Mad Mex, you get more than just delicious food. With the digital stamp card in the mobile app, consumers receive a stamp for every meal they purchase. It’s like collecting flavor-filled rewards.  

How it works: When consumers download the mobile app and become a member, they earn a stamp every time they visit Mad Mex at any location. Once consumers collect 10 stamps, they’ll unlock the ultimate reward of one free meal. The consumers can even track the number of stamps collected right in the app. 

6. Instant-Win + Sweepstake Contest by Boost  

Here is another example where Snipp helped Boost drive engagement and immersive experiences that hooked customers on the shelf against their competitors.  

Snipp created an exciting instant-win game contest with a sweepstakes management overlay for added consumer engagement and gratification where users can earn multiple plays by completing various activities including uploading qualifying purchase receipts, referring a friend, sharing on social via the website or just entering their email.  

Snipp’s turnkey contest marketing solution took care of reward procurement and fulfillment for prizes. This included daily instant win prizes ranging from digital rewards to exciting physical goodies and three grand prizes.  

Want to get your game face and let the competition begin? Here’s the way to find out.

Does Your Brand Utilize the Power of Contest Marketing?

Contest marketing campaigns deliver valuable results from boosting your social media followers, gathering User-generated content, or creating buzz around a new product launch.    

These six contest marketing examples serve as a wellspring for inspiration for your next campaign. From captivating instant-win social media contests to digital rebate programs and sweepstakes, each example showcases the power of contests in capturing consumers' attention, driving brand awareness, and fostering engagement.   

With careful planning, strategies, and execution, your next contest campaign can achieve a remarkable result. Snipp is here to help you embark on your contest success journey!