How to run an effective sweepstakes

By Megan Johnson|5 min read|Updated Jul 17, 2024

Sweepstakes are an effective way to increase survey response rates and incentivize prospects and customers to engage with your brand.

Incentivizing surveys or sign-ups with a sweepstakes increases the likelihood you'll get a response by between 19-30%. If you’re looking to enhance your marketing strategy, sweepstakes can be a valuable incentive that strengthens your relationship with consumers.

Here’s a breakdown of the powerful influence sweepstakes can carry.

Sweepstakes, sometimes referred to as lotteries, are a type of incentive. These promotional drawings offer prizes that people are eligible to win if they do something first, whether it’s submitting contact information or taking a survey.

Since sweepstakes don’t require a purchase or fee, there’s no risk involved for participants. By providing an exciting prize that creates buzz, sweepstakes encourage participation, even if the chance of winning is low.

While incentivized participation provides every participant with a reward, such as a $5 discount, there are generally only one or a handful of winners for a sweepstakes.

However, the reward is often on a grander scale.

Sweepstakes are exciting, and have the ability to cast a wide net.

Not only do they generate interest in your brand, but they increase web traffic and drive sales.

According to BusinessDIT, an average of over 34% of new customers are acquired through contests.

There are additional rewards for a company that hosts sweepstakes. They allow companies to gather data like customer contact information and useful trend insights that provide a window into what consumers want.

Sweepstakes can also serve as a cost-saving measure. Small, guaranteed incentives provided to every person who provides their business email at your event booth leaves the potential cost open-ended.

If hundreds of people provide their information and you’ve agreed to provide them all with a prize, the costs quickly add up. Especially if you've agreed to give every prospect a $50 or $100 incentive. In many instances, a single, bigger prize is much more cost-efficient.

Keep in mind that sweepstakes need to comply with tricky legal and eligibility regulations.

Since traditional lotteries are illegal unless run by the state, businesses that promote them may be subject to penalties. You can avoid this by creating an Official Rules document that’s concise and easy for participants to review.

When you’re in the initial phase of creating a sweepstakes program, it’s important to nail down your objectives.

For instance, by what percentage are you hoping to increase sales in the month following the contest? What type of engagement are you seeking on social media, when it comes to new followers and likes? Or are you simply trying to drive more people to your event booth to boost brand awareness?

Identify your goals and estimate how much revenue or awareness you expect to gain if you're able to achieve them. This will help to determine how big of a prize you can reasonably offer while still seeing a positive ROI.

Ideate a list of rules for entry in alignment with your goals

The rules surrounding your sweepstakes should be in direct alignment with your company’s goals.

For instance, if you’re hoping to host a sweepstakes that increases your social media engagement, host the sweepstakes on an app that encourages new followers to follow, hit the “like” button, and invite a friend.

But if your goal is to get customer feedback from a survey, focus on allowing participants to enter the contest by providing their email once they’ve completed the survey.

A sweepstakes can be more cost-efficient than a guaranteed incentive. That said, you still want to pick a prize that drums up excitement while fitting into your budget. The good news is that if your budget is tight, sweepstakes allows you to channel your funds into one prize, rather than hundreds of smaller ones.

Knowing your audience is also an essential component of a sweepstakes prize. If you’re a luxury clothing brand with a target audience of city-dwelling women, the sweepstakes prize shouldn’t be a tractor. Cultivate prize ideas that would be of interest to the audience you want to reel in.

When you’ve settled on the parameters of your sweepstakes, it’s time to promote it. But instead of allowing the sweepstakes to remain open ended, create a sense of urgency by enforcing a time limit. If the window is too short, it doesn’t allow participants the proper time to enter. If the time frame is too long, they’ll ultimately lose interest and go elsewhere.

Social media is a powerful tool for driving traffic and interest. In a study conducted by Tailwind, researchers determined that 91% of all of the posts in their study that received 1,000 or more comments were Instagram contests.

Determine which social media platform is used most by your target audience, and think about what kind of message would speak to them. Through the use of engaging content and hashtags, you can increase your visibility, capture leads, and build brand awareness.

Hosting a sweepstakes event will result in a variety of new followers or email contacts. But it’s then that the real work to convert these leads into paying customers begins.

In order to do so, create a solid followup campaign that maintains momentum. Keep posting on social media, and send follow-up emails that reiterate your mission.

If a sweepstakes is too complicated, people won’t want to participate. Everyone’s already swamped with work and daily life. And for the lucky few that win your sweepstakes, claiming the prize should be a simple task.

Every year, around 55 million Americans enter some kind of sweepstakes. But if you’re going to create a sweepstakes, it’s imperative that you consider different factors. Here’s a recap:

Sweepstakes are a type of incentive that provide an exciting prize to a winner who completes a task, like submitting their personal info or taking a survey
Sweepstakes are generally more cost-efficient than other types of incentives
A sweepstakes needs to be followed by sufficient promotion and a follow-up campaign, as well as an easy way for winners to claim their prize

Engaging customers is challenging, but with exciting opportunities like sweepstakes, reeling them in becomes much easier. If you’d like to learn more about how the team at Tremendous can help you launch a sweepstakes program of your own, sign up or take a demo with us.