The Anatomy of a Sweepstakes Promotion (Infographic)

Sweepstakes are the perfect promotion for retailers and brands that want to raise brand awareness, acquire and engage customers, and increase sales.  

The following infographic helps you understand how to create and run a successful sweepstakes program along with some innovative ideas to level-up your in-store promotions (see also our post on Sweepstakes Examples)!

WHAT IS A SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION

A contest in which prizes or money or are given to winners picked by chance (by drawing names)

SOME STATISTICS

• 34% - Average number of contest participants that convert
• 33% - of participants are open to receiving future brand communications
• 5.8% - Avg engagement rate on Instagram contests that offer prizes of $1,000+
• Entertainment, Tech & Music - 3 biggest industries for contests
• June and November - The best time of the year to run a contest
• 8x - People are 8x more likely to enter on mobile today than 10 years ago
• 53% - of contest participants are male
• 30 -  Average age of contest participants

THE 6 STAGES OF A SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION CREATION

1. Legal & Compliance (see also our article on Sweepstakes Laws & Rules)
2. Program Build
3. Omnichannel Activation
4. Prize Procurement & Fulfillment
5. Amplification
6. Customer Data Acquisition & Opt-ins

SWEEPSTAKES HELP BRANDS & RETAILERS

• Raise Brand Awareness
• Win Back Lapsed Customers
• Increase Sales and ROI
• Find New Revenue Streams
• Acquire New Customers
• Better Understand Customers
• Improve Brand Engagement
• Build Brand & Retailer Relationships

13 INNOVATIVE IDEAS TO LEVEL UP YOUR IN-STORE SWEEPSTAKES

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE - Make it quick and easy to enter.
2. LET THEM WIN THEIR WAY - Whether it’s in-store, text-to-win, or social media.
3. HARNESS SOCIAL MEDIA - 23% of customers visit brand social media channels to enter contests.
4. OFFER RELEVANT REWARDS - Include prizes your customers value.
5. EMBRACE GAMIFICATION - Add some fun for engagement and a sense of accomplishment.
6. NO PURCHASE? NO PROBLEM! - Use non-purchase sweepstakes to create awareness and excitement.
7. MEMBERS ONLY - Run members-only sweeps to reward your most loyal customers.
8. GO RETAILER SPECIFIC - Partner with retailers to strengthen relationships.
9. MAKE IT SCALABLE - Use customer data to scale, adapt, and optimize your sweepstakes.
10. FOMO FTW - Put a time limit on your sweepstakes to create urgency.
11. LAYER YOUR PROMOTIONS - Add further gratification with instant win or gift with purchase.
12. ENCOURAGE SHARING -  Reward customers who tell their friends.
13. PROMOTE IT! - Advertise your sweepstakes across all customer touchpoints.
14. WORK WITH THE RIGHT AGENCY - Work with experienced sweepstakes vendors

SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION COMPANIES

Snipp Contests, Promotions & Sweepstakes Management Platform can help you create winning retail store sweepstakes that engage your customers and support your marketing objectives. Our services include: 

Best Practices & Strategies

• Having run 1000+ Contests & Sweepstakes across industries & categories

Legal (Compliance)

• Full & abbreviated rules
• Bonding and registration
• Random winner draw /selection
• Winner release forms, affidavits
• Compliance review of POS and
• other marketing materials
• AMOE (Alternate Method Of Entry) / NPN (no purchase necessary)

Program Build & Management

• Concept
• Website build
• Receipt / Image validation technology
• SMS/ MMS platform technology
• Program management
• Customer support

Activation - Omnichannel

• Text
• e-mail
• Website
• API
• Widget
• Social

Prizes

• Procurement - exhaustive rewards catalogue
• Fulfillment - S&H and professional fulfillment

Amplification

• Targeted, omni-channel awareness

Customer Data

• Acquisition
• Opt ins
• Unprecedented first/zero party customer data
• Basket level analysis

SWEEPSTAKES PROMOTION EXAMPLE

Sweepstakes Promotion to Drive Summer Sales and Engagement for Purex

Henkel leveraged Snipp's promotions and receipt validation technology to run a summer sweepstakes program. Snipp developed a register to enter sweepstakes where consumers who landed on the program microsite could simply register for a chance to win one of 6 prizes of a $1,000, as well as 10 secondary prizes of free Purex for a year! Snipp managed all backend development, sweepstakes administration, and prize fulfillment.

HOW TO PROMOTE SWEEPSTAKES OFFERS 
Advertise your sweepstakes across all customer touch points

• OWNED -  Leverage owned media tools like the brand website, social, email, on-pack, blogs
• PAID - Traditional (TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspaper, In-store) and non-traditional (online, social influencers, Sweepstakes directories)
• EARNED - User generated content, social re-amplification, reward sharing

See our guide to Sweepstakes Marketing (with more Sweepstakes examples).

SOURCES

• https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/retail-consumer/assets/achieving-total-retail.pdf The Form Conversion Report, Formstack
• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-contest-stats-infographic?__hstc=20412263.911651b87eb5ea7e417157fe2a753ce8.1653388399860.1660140248746.1660142890560.59&__hssc=20412263.9.1660142890560&__hsfp=812266229
• https://www.formstack.com/resources/report-form-conversion
• https://www.tailwindapp.com/blog/instagram-contest-ideas-that-will-grow-your-followers-70-faster

Put a Fresh Spin on Your Contests Promotions and Sweepstakes - Contact us to learn more