We get it. Running a new business probably takes up all of your time, and you don’t have a lot of extra energy to think about marketing your business. Running a simple sweepstakes, however, could be the way to meet your new business marketing goals.
By running a 30 day simple sweepstakes with a high value prize you could achieve one of the following five new business marketing goals:
- Get new followers on social.
Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and SnapChat are all platforms where you can run a sweepstakes, as long as you follow the promotion guidelines for each of the platforms. Once you set up your brand page on a platform, or more than one platform depending on your brand and demographic, you can run a sweepstakes on those platforms, and increase entries with tactics like ad campaigns and asking followers to share about the promotion.
- Get a mailing list established.
If you don’t already have a mailing list for your clients and customers, a sweepstakes can be leveraged to ask people to opt-in to receive updates and offers from your company. With the new privacy laws in California and soon in other states, your customers legally have to opt-in to receive emails from you, and a sweepstakes with a chance to win a prize may be the way to get customers to opt-in the right way.
- Increase sales.
Contrary to popular belief, you CAN ask people to buy your products and services in return for an entry in a sweepstakes. The trick is you must also offer a no purchase necessary or AMOE method of entry so that you have the same chance of winning without purchase. A well designed sweepstakes can help you achieve your sales goals by encouraging purchase, and still be legal.
- Get people to try your products and services.
You can run a sweepstakes where you ask people to try out your products at an open house at your store location or by sending out coupons or trial size products. However you do it, if you offer a prize in a random drawing from all those who took part in the trial, especially if the prize is something of high value, you will get more trials. And guess what happens if people try you out and end up liking your products? They will buy them again. Win-win.
- Get feedback on your new business.
Asking for business or product reviews in exchange for an entry is another sweepstakes tactic that could help your business. Good reviews will help your products and services rise to the top, and as long as you offer that alternate means of entry so you aren’t requiring people to purchase anything in order to give a review, offering a chance to win something of value in exchange for a review could be the way to make your brand stand out.
Keep in mind that when starting out, you should focus on one of those goals, not all five, and build your promotion around that goal. For example, if your new business marketing goal is to build your social presence, you might want to build your sweepstakes around asking people to follow your social account, and collect entries on social channels using hashtags. If your goal is to get people to try your products and services, you might want to give people an entry for a chance to win each time they buy or stop in at your store, with the appropriate alternate means of entry as appropriate to make your sweepstakes legal. You also need to make your sweepstakes rules official, and have a targeted ad budget to ensure you get the word out to your potential customers.
Once you select a marketing goal for your new business, contact us and we can help you plan a sweepstakes around your goal and help you meet it! And consider running a sweepstakes for Small Business Saturday in November!
To read more posts by Marden-Kane, please visit our main blog page or subscribe to our email list.