Sweepstakes are a great tool for marketing teams to create campaigns with much higher engagement rates. Due to the more interactive & incentivised nature, sweepstakes are a very interactive tool that draw the attention of the consumers further in, allowing brands to prolong the duration of engagement that occurs between the brand & the consumer. This also allows consumers to be more accepting & susceptible of follow-up marketing actions to be taken by the brand such as targeting & retargeting these prospects.
- Contest emails have an average open rate of 8.8%. That is 5.5% more than the general average of commonly used email marketing campaigns.
The highly engaging & always in-fashion nature of sweepstakes campaigns allows brands to fill both brand loyalty targets & new consumer generation targets as well as building awareness & liking through this mechanism. Thus, proving to be a multi-purposed, versatile and efficient marketing action.
Brief Explanation of What Sweepstakes Are
Sweepstakes are giveaway campaigns where a random winner is picked by chance from a pool of contestants. The chance & equal distribution of winnability aspects of sweepstakes is what makes them fully fair and equal in the eyes of the consumers. Sweepstakes can come in many different forms. Some require consumers to make an action like purchasing, whilst some sweepstakes mechanisms only require consumers to input personal information in order to participate.
- On average, of total sweepstakes participants, 62.13% share the promotion with a friend in order to suggest that they take part too.
Sweepstakes stand out compared to some other campaign mechanisms because;
- They have a low barrier to entry, since the effort that consumers have to put into participation is minimal.
- They’re fairly quick & simple to set up, since you only need an entrance mechanism (such as a registration form or an action to enter) and a prize.
- They’re timeless, consumers don’t really get sick & tired of getting a chance to win a prize for a low effort entry which allows brands to run multiple sweepstakes back to back.
- They’re a great P2P marketing tool, consumers are more likely to share the campaign with their friends & family due to the prize aspect.
Why Digitalise Your Sweepstakes?
Digitalisation adds to the plethora of existing benefits that sweepstakes have. Through digitalisation, brands can significantly simplify the campaign journey which leads to a huge increase in consumer satisfaction. Brands can also create massive time & cost efficiencies through digitalisation, as they would be cutting costs for red tape fees & 3rd party actors (agency fees, retailer fees etc.). Sweepstakes are already fairly quick to set up, however digital sweepstakes are even easier and quicker to set up due to the online nature & less tasks needed to take on.
Different Types of Digital Sweepstakes
Purchase-Based Sweepstakes
With this method, consumers purchase your product then validate their purchase, then after validation they receive an entry to a sweepstake. Brands can really benefit from purchase-based sweepstakes by turning consumer interest & desire into action, thus improving market share.
Purchase-based sweepstakes can be both omnichannel or fully digital. Consumers can buy the product in-store or online, then validate their purchase through an online platform.
- Sweepstake CTA’s have a 3.73% higher conversion rate when compared to other CTA’s.
Loyalty Sweepstakes
This method is sort of a variety of the purchase-based sweepstakes. Additionally to turning interest & desire into action, loyalty sweepstakes are an exceptionally effective tool to enhance brand loyalty & customer retention. With this method, consumers purchase your product & then validate their purchase; however they don’t instantly receive their entry to the sweepstake, instead they’re expected to reach a cumulative goal (i.e. “x€” amount of purchases or “x” amount of products purchased) and they receive their sweepstake entry once they’ve reached the target amount.
Non-Purchase Sweepstakes
This method can be a great tool for lead generation and creating awareness & interest to attract potential consumers. With this method, the consumer doesn’t have to purchase your product in order to gain eligibility to enter the sweepstake. They simply just fill out a form to enter and maybe share the campaign with their friends to gain eligibility.
This method can be very effective for a brand to extract PII data to then target & retarget a database of prospects. Brands can utilise this data to then turn the consumer’s awareness & interest into action.
- 33% of contest participants are open to receiving information about the brand and partners.
Influencer Sweepstakes
Using influencer marketing can help a brand attain the characteristics of the influencer to itself. Using this property of influencer marketing for sweepstakes can be very effective in terms of turning awareness & knowledge into liking & preference. With this method, influencers create the communication for the brand to invite consumers to join the sweepstake campaign.
Consumer content can be used as well, such as asking consumers to create content to gain eligibility for the campaign to create a mini social media trend. This can help the brand reach an even larger audience with its marketing campaign.
“Purchase Validation Sounds Like a Key Component, So How Can I Set Up A Validation Automation?”
Well, one of the key components to creating a well-built digital sweepstake campaign is the purchase validation aspect. To implement a fully automated purchase validation mechanism can really improve the campaign journey as well as the set up for the brand. Justsnap’s receipt processing technology is the perfect mechanism to provide these benefits. Justsnap’s receipt processing technology allows consumers to simply upload a photo of their receipt or e-receipt (PDF file) in order to automatically validate their purchase within a matter of seconds. This automation allows brands to achieve a smooth UX as well as multiple cost & time efficiencies. Receipt processing also allows brands to collect consumer PII data & shopper insights that portray shopping behaviour of entrants.
How to Ensure a Transparent Sweepstake with Fraud Protection?
Fraud & trustworthiness are two of the biggest issues brands face when creating sweepstake activations. In order to protect the integrity of your digital sweepstake activation, you must ensure to use a digital validation tool that has a reliable fraud detection component. Justsnap’s receipt processing has a built in 8 layer fraud detection system that will ensure the integrity of your activations against any type of fraud attempt.
Another key component of trust in a sweepstake is transparency. Justsnap’s fully transparent online sweepstake mechanism allows witnesses from the brand to view how the winner is selected at random through automation; thus building further trust through full transparency.
