If you’re an online retailer, you should think about incorporating sweepstakes into your marketing strategy. They’re an efficient marketing channel for expanding your business, generating more leads, promoting your brand, and increasing sales.

A sweepstake is simple and inexpensive to run, and the benefits are far greater than those of many other marketing methods when done correctly.

Email subscribers, new customers, and increased followers on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. Increased brand exposure and awareness can all result from a single promotion and increase sales.

Planning and Construction

Sweepstakes are a low-cost marketing promotion method that can have a significant impact on growing an audience and building a business. However, before running sweepstakes, you must plan it out so that you have a road map for success with a set of predetermined goals.

Many businesses believe that by giving something away for free, they will receive a flood of new visitors, email subscribers, Facebook likes, and sales. Unfortunately, without a well-defined goal and a solid marketing strategy, this is rarely the case.

To start creating your roadmap for a successful giveaway, plan out each step of your promotion until you reach the goal that you want to achieve. You can begin building your sweepstakes once you have a clear roadmap.

Marketing

Setting up your sweepstakes is a good start, but if you want to accelerate your sweepstakes and meet your goals, you’ll need a solid marketing plan.

Here are 14 different ways sweepstakes can bring real and measurable results to marketers:

1. Make a blog post 

Writing a blog post about your sweepstakes is an excellent way to notify customers and prospects that you have a promotion going on. Your post should include a brief description of the promotion, how to enter, what prizes are available, and when it will end. Bonus points if you can explain how winning the sweepstakes will benefit the reader’s life.

2. Send a newsletter via email 

Send an email to your list announcing your sweepstakes and providing a direct link to the entry page. Even if these people are already on your list, you should still promote them because if they enter, they will share the giveaway with their friends and family (Facebook and otherwise)

3. Share it on Facebook

Make a post about your giveaway on your Facebook timeline. Include an image of the prize that will catch people’s attention, as well as a brief description of what they can win. Finally, in your post, include a direct link to the giveaway.

4. Share it on other social media portals

In addition to Facebook, promote your giveaway on Twitter by sending a tweet with details about what people can win as well as a direct link to the giveaway page. Pin the giveaway to Pinterest, and share it with your audiences on Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Instagram as well. 

5. Make use of video 

Creating a video is no longer a difficult task, thanks to the power of smartphones. You can easily create short video clips to promote your sweepstakes using Vine, Instagram, or YouTube. A good starting point would be to make a short video clip showing the prizes available.

6. AdWords by Google 

If you’ve set aside money to promote your sweepstakes, Google AdWords can be an effective way to reach your target audience. It enables you to target specific keywords that people are looking for and have your promotion appear in search results.

7. Blogger promotion

Bloggers are always looking for great content to share with their readers. Make a list of 10 or 20 bloggers in your niche and send each of them a personalized email about the sweepstakes you’re launching and how you believe it would be a good fit for their audience if they’d be willing to promote it for you. 

8. Collaborate with another company

Collaboration with another company on your giveaway is a great way to increase the number of prizes and gain more exposure. Contact companies that are related to your niche but are not direct competitors to see if they would be interested in offering one of their products as a prize in your giveaway. If they agree, you now have another company to help you promote the giveaway. It’s a win-win scenario.

9. Publish a press release

Use a service like PR web, Pitch Engine, or PR Newswire to create a press release and schedule it to be sent out on the day the promotion goes live.

10. Incorporate a message into your packages

Tossing a little card inside each package telling them to enter the promotion is a great way to get people to enter your sweepstakes if you ship out physical products. Remember that just because these people are already customers does not mean that they will not refer their friends and family to you.

11. After transaction communications

If you sell a product, including a link to your sweepstakes after checkout can be an excellent way to collect entries. Because these people have already purchased something from you, they will most likely be delighted to have the opportunity to win something.

12. Collaborate with YouTube channels

Some incredibly popular YouTube channels may be the ideal partner to help promote your giveaway. Look for channels in your niche with many subscribers and make sure their videos have many views.

To get them to promote your sweepstakes, you may need to offer some form of compensation (either monetary or in the form of a gift- many of them review products for their audiences).

13. Banner of your sweepstakes on the business website

Most visitors to your website’s homepage will be unaware of your sweepstakes unless you notify them. Make an image that can be displayed on your homepage and links directly to your giveaway.

You can also use a simple service like Hello Bar to notify people on your homepage that you are running a giveaway. It appears simple, but many businesses simply do not realize it is an option. 

14. Offline marketing

Social media and digital media aren’t the only ways to publicize your giveaway. If you have a physical store, consider how you can use walk-in customers to raise awareness for your competition. Here are some offline promotion ideas:

• Tossing a little card or flyer inside each package telling them to enter the promotion is a great way to get people to enter your sweepstakes.
• Make a check-in contest to encourage people to visit your physical store.
• Promote the contest at local events and communities in which you are involved. Create a banner or say something about your giveaway if you occasionally organize events. Using QR codes generated by a QR Code Generator is a good idea.

Conclusion

If you want your giveaway or contest to be successful, you must promote it frequently and on all available platforms. Make a page on your website for the giveaway, include details in your newsletter, and regularly spread the word on social media. Change your phrasing and timing on social media and monitor the response rate as you do so.

You may find that more people are willing to participate in the evening when they have “distraction time” and are winding down for the day. Contests, like any other marketing activity, can always be improved.

RewardPort sweepstakes can increase sales by up to 200%. Encourage customers to buy your products by offering them the chance to win big. Sweepstakes are ideal for brands seeking to introduce new items and boost trial numbers. Nothing beats sweepstakes to get users to buy your products.