Working with Third Party Brands for a Contest
You should approach working with third party brands in a contest or sweepstakes with caution. Giving away highly sought after prizes like trips, electronics or gift cards, or running promotions on social platforms, may seem like a great idea to garner interest and new followers for your brand. However, if you are naming a specific brand name other than your own as part of your contest, you may need to ensure you are using best practices for using that third party brand. Ask for permission It is a good idea to obtain permission prior to offering third party products … Continue reading
#Hashtag Contests 101
The buzzword in contests right now are hashtag contests (or hashtag sweepstakes). These types of promotions are easy to run, less expensive than setting up a contest web site, and don’t require a lot of lead time. The simplicity and low cost appeals to a lot of businesses anxious to expand their social channels, but you will still need to follow some best practices to ensure that you don’t run into any issues. What is a hashtag contest? A “hashtag contest” or “hashtag sweepstakes” is a promotion that requires users to post to a social channel using a unique hashtag. … Continue reading
Social Contest Platforms: Inexpensive, Easy…and Risky
Today I was sent a link to an article touting Platforms for Social Contests that will “launch and track your contest with ease.” The article then went on to list eleven platforms, all relatively cheap – well, really dirt cheap or even free – and all the wonderful features each one had. If I were looking for a way to run a contest and I didn’t know any better I would think that this contest business should be this inexpensive. Cough up a couple hundred bucks and we’re ready, right? But hold up. I know better. And you get … Continue reading
How to Contact Winners in Social Media Contests
Running a promotion on Twitter or Instagram or other social platform is fairly easy. You basically follow the social platform guidelines, post rules, collect entries and select winners from valid posts or tweets or pins. The hard part can be contacting and clearing winners. In a traditional contest where a form is used to collect data you typically collect address and phone or email so contacting winners is easy. A small prize can easily be mailed straight to an address. A winner of a larger prize can be called or emailed. But in a social promotion all you may … Continue reading
50 Reasons to Run a Sweepstakes or Contest
Looking for a reason to run a sweepstakes, contest, instant win game, rewards program or loyalty campaign? Here are 50 of them! To create an email opt-in list. To create a mobile opt-in list. To give away your products. To build your brand. To encourage brand loyalty. To encourage product try-on. To encourage product usage. To encourage product trial. To reward your loyal customers. To introduce your customers to a new product or service. To launch a new campaign. To gain new customers. To create a mailing list. To encourage user reviews of your products and services. To have … Continue reading
2015 Digital Marketing Survey Results
In May of 2015 we ran a Digital Marketing Survey and asked respondents to answer thirteen questions about their company’s digital marketing practices, both current and in the near future. For completing the survey, we offered a chance to win $100. Our survey winner was Ruby L. Congratulations, Ruby! A few things we discovered that we weren’t expecting: 1. Snapchat may be big, but brands aren’t ready to jump on the bandwagon just yet. Only 5% of our respondents said they used Snapchat – and only 5% were even considering using it for their brand. Why this surprised … Continue reading
FTC Updated Guidance for Social Contests
Last week the FTC updated their guidelines for endorsement. This included a small, but very important, piece on social media contests. You can read the full updated “What People are Asking” question and answers here: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking The part most relevant to contests and sweepstakes is the Social Media Contests part: ********************************* SOCIAL MEDIA CONTESTS My company runs contests and sweepstakes in social media. To enter, participants have to send a Tweet or make a pin with the hashtag, #XYZ_Rocks. (“XYZ” is the name of my product.) Isn’t that enough to notify readers that the posts were incentivized? No. It’s likely that many … Continue reading
Promotion 101 for Non-Profits
I cringe every time I get emails from some of my favorite charities that offer “raffles” and “incentives” in conjunction with their fundraising. Not that providing an incentive is a terrible thing; I love getting a freebie from a legal promotion every once in a while. But frequently the incentives and promotions are NOT run legally. I worry that my favorite charities will one day get their hands slapped by regulators and lose those precious funds that could have helped out their cause. As a non-profit tasked with raising money and providing incentives, here is a simple hit list … Continue reading
Run a Sweepstakes to Make Small Business Saturday A Big Win
Five years ago American Express started promoting a new concept: Small Business Saturday. The idea is simple: consumers are asked to spend their holiday shopping dollars locally at small businesses, and American Express provides incentives to those shoppers. In just those five years, the concept of shopping locally the day after Black Friday has become a holiday tradition. So how can your small business make this the best Small Business Saturday ever? American Express offers a toolkit for small businesses. This handy kit provides images and signage options for bags and posters and point of sale. It also has … Continue reading
Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter Changes You May Have Missed
This month there has been a lot of buzz about how some popular social platforms have made a few changes. Here is the latest as of August 2014. Facebook to Disable Like-Gating Last week, Facebook announced that like-gating will be disabled as of November 5, 2014. This gives you three months to finish out any current campaigns that require a “like” of a brand page in order to access special “brand follower content.” Although Facebook is still allowing and encouraging incentives in the form of sweeps and contests, all like-gates will stop working on that date so you can’t … Continue reading
Our Services
Recent Articles
- 12 Reasons to Run a Holiday Promotion — 12 Days of Christmas Style
- Cyber Monday Promotion Ideas to Bring Customers to Your Online Site
- 6 Things NOT to Do When Planning a Holiday Promotion
- Customer Loyalty Program Ideas
- Name Your Halloween Promotion! Use Our Super Scary Formula….
