Promotion marketing is any message that incentivizes targeted consumers to take action immediately. That action will depend on the goal of your campaign. It may be to enter a contest, learn more about your brand, or buy one of your products.
The point is that promotion marketing drives interaction.
Promotion marketing ideas come in various forms. They’re distinct from traditional marketing in that they cause an immediate change. While conventional methods rely upon several touchpoints, promotions may depend upon just one.
This element is what makes it tricky to run successful campaigns. If you don’t get the brand message precisely right, you might not get another chance.
With traditional marketing, you may have several different ways to lure the client back. However, with promotional advertising, missing the mark may mean missing the sale. If you break the unwritten rules, you run the risk of damaging your brand image.
Let’s look at promotion marketing ideas and how to use them effectively.
The Biggest Mistake That Newbies Make
Running a sweepstakes or contest is a great way to get leads, and it seems simple: pick a prize, knock out a few rules, and watch the leads roll in—right? The mistake most businesses make is that they don’t take it any further than that. Sure, they’ll collect the names and email addresses, but that valuable lead information often languishes in a file somewhere.
Collecting the details is simple enough. Creating an organized list with them is less simple.
One way around this is to arrange the sweepstakes or contest through a professional sweepstakes fulfillment company. Such firms have tools that make it easy to process your data so you can use it for marketing.
Another error companies make is viewing contests as isolated events. The company may bask in the attention for that short period and then move on to the next marketing strategy.
That’s a big mistake. A sweepstakes or contest should be part of the overall marketing strategy for a business.
Think of it this way—you’ve spent that money introducing your brand to potential customers. Now you have a pool of new leads sitting and waiting for you to make the next move. How will you capitalize on this success? How will you follow up with valuable information that proves your business is an asset to the lead?
Work out in advance how to nurture that lead to get a better return on your investment.
Why Does Promotion Marketing Work?
Promotion marketing works because it’s exciting. People love freebies or the chance to win something. One of the best ways to create the maximum buzz is by pairing promotional advertising with a contest or sweepstakes.
The lure of a grand prize at the end of a sweepstakes or contest makes it possible to achieve the results you want while still reining in spending. Forget ordering thousands of pens with the company logo on them. With a sweepstakes, you can achieve far more significant behavioral change.
How to Create a Sweepstakes or Contest Strategy
1. Clearly define your audience
To gain the maximum benefit from the promotion, you should gear your contest or sweepstakes toward your ideal customer. It’s easy to create a contest that everyone wants to enter but be sure to take a long-term view. Who is most likely to buy from you later?
By taking the time to create buyer personas, you can more carefully define ideal client parameters. Then it should be simple to come up with ideas about how to attract these customers.
Build the target persona around demographic and psychographic data gathered from your existing customers. Look at their:
- Age
- Location
- Pain points
- Interests
- Online activity
- Goals
And any other factor that makes sense to you
2. Set your goals
Setting a clear target upfront ensures that, in the end, you will know how successful your strategy was. Without a quantifiable goal, you’ll have no way to measure success.
For example, let’s say you set out with the vague goal of increasing your email base. By that measure, gaining one new subscriber would make your campaign a success. Setting an unclear target makes it easy to achieve, but the benefits to the company may be debatable.
You might even increase your base by 100,000 subscribers and still gain no value if these people won’t ever buy from you.
Instead, clearly define what a successful outcome would look like to your firm. How many new subscribers will you attract? What other actions do you want them to perform?
Setting a clear intention before you start can help you create a clearly defined, effective campaign.
3. Create a budget
Setting a firm budget ties in closely with creating clear goals. What costs are unavoidable? How much can you afford to invest at this stage to make this campaign a success?
If you have no idea where to start, a professional sweepstakes or contest management firm will prove invaluable. They can assist you in narrowing down your most important goals and focusing your budget accordingly, while ensuring legal compliance with promotional law.
4. Plan carefully
Now comes the time to put in the hard work. You understand how your campaign fits into your marketing strategy. You’ve set your company’s goals and budget, so now it’s time to spring into action.
Who will be responsible for the various aspects of each campaign? What are the deadlines for them to get the groundwork done? Is there more research they need to conduct ahead of time?
Establish how the promotion will work and how you’ll determine who the prize winner will be. Consult your sweepstakes administrator’s legal team to draft an ironclad set of official rules and remove any potential loopholes that may expose your company to liability. Your legal team must ensure that the competition meets the requirements of state and federal legislation.
Once the official rules are in place, the time comes for the marketing department to make the campaign irresistible. Set up social media ads, landing pages, and any printed media as needed.
From there, decide the mechanisms for processing the entries and choosing the winner. Then, all that remains is launching your sweepstakes or contest.
Do You Need Assistance Making Your Promotion Marketing Ideas Sparkle?
Be sure to call our team at National Sweepstakes Company by dialing 888-744-3217 to set up your free consultation today or submit a form on our Quote Request page. We will walk you through every stage of the process and provide legal, marketing, and administrative support for your next sweepstakes or contest.