Sweeps Dos: Tips to Make Your Next Promotion a Winner
DO track consumer trends and develop shopper insights. If you find that your core customers — or your best prospects — respond more enthusiastically to sweepstakes offers than does the general public, that can help you develop sales events that generate excitement, drive traffic and boost volume. In a five-title print campaign to publicize a national sweepstakes, “Remington Face of Success,” the Eric Mower and Associates agency found that the ads in “all you,” the Time Inc. magazine specifically targeting Walmart shoppers, outperformed all their other print media for sending consumers online to enter the sweepstakes.
DO develop a program that’s good for your brand and your key retailers. Because sweepstakes are an indirect way to generate sales, use them only when you believe your key retailers will get excited and support your program with incremental features and displays. Consider developing one sweepstakes overlay that meets the specific needs of your three largest accounts.
DO break down the silos between sales and marketing. Get everyone on the same page by bringing all sides to the planning table. Let marketing represent the brand’s primary needs. Invite sales to speak for the retailer. And allow your promotion agency to suggest which strategies can best reach your objectives.
DO promote your sweepstakes at the shelf and on packaging so that it can do its job — creating a tie-breaker for your product at the consumer’s point-of-purchase decision.
Got an incentives tip to share? Contact Patricia Odell at [email protected]
