Advantages of Sweepstakes and Why Companies Run Them

Today, every business is striving hard to get a better hold of its consumer base through different sources. With the advent of social media where people have millions of options to choose from, the stakes have never been higher. To get attention from the right audience, businesses are moving more and more away from the conventional methods of marketing and trying their hands at more innovative solutions.

Here, the online sweepstakes and contests enter the fray. Nowadays various companies are using sweepstakes to increase their customer engagement as they are a way of engaging the audience in which people get a chance to get involved in the company message rather than just listening to the message from outside.

So right away, online sweepstakes is a fun way to engage existing as well as new customers.

Let us see some of the advantages that companies have when they go for an online sweepstakes campaign as one of their marketing tools –

Creates ‘Buzz’ about the Products

Online sweepstakes give people a compelling reason to talk about a company and its products. If in the marketing strategy of the company it’s included that a contestant needs to share the page of the company on his or her social media platform, either as an entry requirement or to increase the chance of winning, automatically the word on the brand spreads.

Moreover, if some people do win the sweepstakes, they will naturally spread the brand through texts, emails, or social media posts. This in turn will allow more people to engage with the brand.

Even if the company makes it mandatory for people to tag others while they are submitting their entry, as long as the sweepstakes are genuine, the company will indeed get the best word-of-mouth marketing, even in this digital age.

Increases Website Traffic

Sweepstakes are an effective way to increase traffic on a company website as contestants tend to visit the website more often to look at the rules of the game, what prize does the sweepstake entails, or to see whether they have turned out to be the lucky winner.

A successful way to increase more traffic to the company website is to create a landing page, especially for the sweepstake contestants. On this landing page, the company can put more links to the internal workings or other services and products that it has on offer, and in doing so, the brand can entice the visitors to spend more time on their website.

Helps in Building an Email List

A personal point of contact to every customer is what a successful company always looks for. It’s a big challenge, but sweepstakes and giveaways have made this incredibly easy and possible. All a company needs to do is make the subscription to their newsletter mandatory at the entry level.

As a contestant fills the entry form with their email address and personal information, it gives the organization access to the person, whom they can convert to a potential buyer by sending him or her the news of an upcoming event or a new launch.

Boosts up Sales

As the number of visitors to a company website increases, it’s more likely that the number of sales will also go up. The key lies in the brand’s active interest in hosting online sweepstakes. The more subscribers and visitors stay engaged, the more is the chance that they are receptive to the company’s products or services.

The principle idea behind contests and giveaways is to generate brand awareness and grow effectively. To make the sweepstakes even more engaging, a company can direct a buyer to the contest after purchase by giving him or her a chance to win a prize. Also, in order to encourage sales, an additional discount attached to a sweepstakes contestant can prove to be extremely effective for the sales strategy as well.

Valuable Market Research

Sweepstakes can provide a company with an excellent opportunity to learn a bit more about customer preferences and choices. It can provide a company with useful information on how the contestant has come to know about the brand or which product on the line intrigues them the most or which one is their most favorite.

A successful company learns a great deal about its customer base from these kinds of interactions and if all these data are put to use effectively, there is no doubt that the company will gain a lot in terms of sales and brand awareness.

Advertising at Reasonable Price

Successful companies are using sweepstakes and giveaways for customer engagement as well as for a cost-efficient advertising tool for their brand.

Many companies have become innovative in asking the contestants to come up with a jingle for their brand or a product or even shoot a short commercial for them in order to get a chance to win big at the sweepstake.

This not only encourages the contestant to engage with the brand but also helps the brand to advertise itself without hiring an ad agency to do the same, albeit, at a hefty fee. The money that was allotted for the ad firm goes directly in terms of prizes to the customer. So, it’s a win-win for the sweeper as well as the company.

Also, as much as a consumer engages with a brand, organically the PR around the brand gets circulated among the masses without much cost that would otherwise go into the same process. So, on the one hand, sweepstakes is cost-effective, on the other hand it’s highly profitable.

Conclusion

An online sweepstake can be a very simple but innovative solution for increasing customer engagement with a brand. The most valuable facet of this marketing tool is that the company itself gets priceless information on the customer’s buying needs and preferences. So for next time, it enables the company to reach its audience at a much more personal level. Although online sweepstake contests are not the only way for a brand to market itself, one must include them as a tactic in their marketing campaign. With more and more social media users flooding the internet every single day, sweepstakes is a surefire way for any successful company to increase their customer engagement as well as sales by tenfold.