Guest Blogger: Marla Altberg on Prize Promotions – “As You Like It”!
This week I am delighted to have Marla Altberg, CEO of Ventura Associates, and one of my oldest industry friends, as a Guest Blogger:
Come on… admit it… you check your Facebook account at work at least once a day. Well if you’re a direct marketer, I say “keep up the good work.” Why? Increasingly marketing, and direct marketing in particular, is being conducted through social media. And why not? It is an extremely low cost medium, a stellar lead generation device and a “no brainer” research tool. What’s more, the viral buzz is practically free.
Sweepstakes and contests are playing an important part of the consumer engagement. Better yet, they work on a smaller scale too, much smaller. Gone are the days when it took a multi-million dollar prize structure to generate a consumer response. By way of example, Ellery Homestyles’ Sound Asleep™ Comfort Pillow ran a very successful sweepstakes that grew its Facebook fan base 20 fold by offering a weekly prize of an iPod Nano plus one of its pillows. Small prize—large results. According to Cheryl Morse, Director of Digital Commerce and Marketing, “We firmly believe that sweepstakes executed on Facebook are a great way to grow and engage your fan base. This in conjunction with a targeted blog outreach and a PPC Facebook ad are sure to provide steady fan growth and continued engagement over time.”
However, with the ever changing landscape of government regulations and privacy stipulations, not to mention Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, et al constantly changing the compliance playing field, you need guidance. Don’t think you can copy and paste another marketer’s legal copy. Don’t assume the stock set of disclaimers from your app provider meets your company’s needs. Get help. One false move can shut down your social media page for what seems like an eternity.
Most importantly you need an ironclad set of official rules. These define the eligibility, the prize terms, what the consumer must do to enter and what your obligations are as the sponsor to fulfill. Next, consider the value of your prize structure. If it’s over $5K the sweepstakes must be registered and bonded. Enough about legal…on to the buzz.
Before you begin consider all the ways you can organically maximize the promotion’s exposure at little or no cost to you, the marketer. For example, once the consumer enters your sweeps via a Facebook app, you can encourage her to invite her friends, making it easy for her by popping up a list with their profile pictures. Don’t forget to give extra chances to win when these friends enter. Tell her to post the sweeps to her Facebook page too. If anyone enters from her link, boing! …her chances increase again. She can Tweet, Pin, you name it. Your consumer becomes your very own Wonder Wall.
With a well thought out prize promotion you may just experience results like our other clients. They used a variety of media from traditional direct mail, to email blasts, banner ads and social media. Just take a look:
▲97% click conversion to email capture!
▲8%~12% call-in response!
▲800,000 new site registrations!
▲100% improvement in new email enrollments in the first week!
▲170% growth in Facebook fans
▲$100,000 in incremental revenue!
Let us know what happens in your case. I hope to be able to add your results to our next blog post!
Written by Marla Altberg, CEO, Ventura Associates Intl. LLC, an NYC- based national and international sales promotion agency handling the development and implementation of sweepstakes, contests and games in all media online and off.
Phone: (212) 302-8277 ext. 3003 Email: maltberg@sweepspros.com
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