Prize promotions are a cost effective way to launch a new product, create a brand buzz, generate more sales and followers, reward loyalty or simply leave your customers with a warm, positive feeling about your brand. I could go on, but I’ll be here forever! If you’re an in-house marketing team, you’ll more than likely have an overarching promotional marketing strategy – but have you ever considered running a prize promotion? Competitions and prize draws are an incredible way to help you achieve, and even exceed, your promotional marketing goals.
Promotional marketing campaigns are designed to capture your audience’s attention and spread knowledge about the brand or products. They aim to incite action from a potential customer, build widespread brand awareness and ultimately increase sales. You may have come up with a new product or service, or even re-branded, so now it’s time to tell everyone about it. That’s where promotional marketing comes into play.
It’s a busy, saturated market out there for everyone – promotional marketing is key for making sure your brand stands out in the crowd. A promotional marketing strategy not only helps you to position your brand, but it’s a necessary tactic to make your target audience aware of your brand, products and services.
Prize promotions grab attention, create a buzz and make that all important splash. They are designed to be highly visible, making them the ideal way to get your brand and products in front of an audience. Even better… the right audience. Prize promotions give you the opportunity to attract your target audience.
10 reasons to add a prize promotion into your promotional marketing strategy
No business is too big, and no brand is too small to run a competition or prize draw – we’ve worked with huge corporates, and small start ups – the outcome can be as effective for both. Here are my top 10 reasons to run a prize draw to promote your brand:
1. Attracts the right audience
You don’t need to speak to everyone, you just need to talk to the people who want what you offer or sell. Prize draws are the perfect mechanism to do this. Choosing a prize that resonates with your audience – or even an entry method that does, means you’ll be in front of the right people for your business.
2. Unrivalled engagement
The main thing that sets prize promotions apart from other activities is their ability to engage an audience. A competition is often distinct from the usual content that a brand puts out. There’s also an opportunity for creative entry methods and user-generated content which helps make the experience incredibly memorable – and gives the brand stand out.
3. Incentivises action
Brands need to fight through the noise, and prizes encourage an audience to interact with you because they want to have fun and potentially win something they really want.
4. Stand out from competitors
In a saturated environment, with a huge number of different brands trying to promote themselves, prize promotions are a unique and creative way to interact with a target market. Bespoke prize promotions mean you’re offering something your competitors aren’t, making your brand stand out from the crowd. Given the choice of a brand offering an on-pack prize promotion with a chance to win £10k, or a pack offering nothing but the sell by date, take a guess at which one is more likely to sing from the shelf.
5. Create a memorable buzz
Getting people’s attention is harder than ever right now, but there’s not much that compares to the excitement of someone hoping to win a prize they really want, or winners sharing their glory across social channels – there are very few better examples of buzz in motion .
6. Reward customer loyalty
Rewarding customers for their loyalty is the cornerstone of customer satisfaction. Running an exclusive prize promotion for your customers, will make the feel valued and rewarded.
7. Drive customers online for deeper engagement
Prize promotions provide the opportunity for you to guide your customers where you want to engage with them. Simply set that channel as a means of entry; whether that’s on your website, signing up your app, these online platforms allow for even deeper brand engagement going forward.
8. Increase social media following
Prize draws can be used to incentivise customers to follow you on social media, and if the prize is right, spread the competition further so their friends and family do too. In fact, according to research commissioned by us (Prizeology), 35% are more likely to enter a prize promotion if it’s shared by a family member and 31% are more likely to enter if a friend alerts them to the opportunity.
9. Controlled ROI
For smaller brands with even smaller budgets, prize draws can bring exposure and brand awareness for just the cost of the prize and some time. They’re especially attractive compared to bigger budget promotional marketing strategies such as experiential events. Having said that, even with a bit of budget, there are a myriad of options including text to win campaigns, bespoke mechanism development, luxury prizes or big prize pools with the ability to attract thousands of entries and potentially new customers. Ultimately, you can control the spend from the start, by strategically planning and setting prize values from the outset.
10. Encourage trials of new products
If you want to give customers a little extra encouragement to try your new service or product, look no further than a prize giveaway. You can simply enter everyone who makes a purchase into a draw to galvanise your sales.
Prize promotions are leveraged by some of the most successful brands – large and small. They’re a hugely popular marketing tactic to amplify a brand, gain new customers, promote products, and re-engage with old customers.
If you feel inspired to run a prize promotion as part of your promotional marketing strategy, Prizeology can help you make it happen – just give us a call on 020 7856 0402 or drop us a line at hello@prizeology.com.
Sophie Robertson is Prizeology’s Senior Project manager.
