Driving User Engagement: A Roadmap to Online Sweepstakes Success

Before you embark on your journey to a successful online promotion, take some time to map out the checkpoints that will help you along your way! A solid roadmap in the form of a scoping document is crucial to the overall success of your promotion and will ensure your arrival at your intended destination without lost time and money.

• First, figure out where you’re going – what are your success metrics? Is the goal of your promotion to increase page views? Click-throughs? Average length of time spent on the site? Are you looking to gain more Facebook friends and fans? Would you like to see increased user engagement with your brand? Gauging your company’s expectations before you hit the road will help your chances of arriving at your destination successfully.

• Don’t throw up roadblocks – create an entry method that is as straightforward as possible for your consumer. Make it easy to use, but relevant and engaging.

• Yield to pedestrians– too many steps, difficult rules and boring content will deter through-traffic from entering. While the overall aim may be to increase brand awareness, avoid utilizing a direct sales pitch to your consumer, keep it subtle to keep their interest!

• Offer exciting new vistas to your consumer – the site experience should be fun! Not copy heavy, but rather like a road sign: direct and to the point. Provide the required legalese, no more and no less on the entry site but be sure to point the user in the direction of the official rules/terms and conditions.

• Determine what is the carrot driving your horse – is there something unique/different about your promotion? Is the prize relevant to your brand? Is the prize something a consumer would be interested in winning? Turn on the high beams; make sure it’s clear for all to see why they want to be involved in your promotion AKA, what’s in it for them. Whether it’s fame or fortune – it should be fun!

• Detour regular traffic to your entry site – use media outlets your target audience interacts with on a daily basis. If your target demographic uses social media such as Facebook and Twitter, it will serve you well to advertise your promotions directly on those platforms.

• Get their plate number! – collect all of the information necessary for you to contact the winners. Some agencies believe that collecting "PII" (personally identifiable information) such as mailing address or phone number will discourage users from entering but asking a user to provide additional contact information assures that they are entering a legitimate promotion and will not be spammed. Provide a link to your privacy policy so entrants can see how their information is being used. Complete contact information will make notifications and prize fulfillment more timely and cost efficient down the road!

• Signal before changing lanes – include relevant messages throughout the experience such as thanking entrants for coming as they exit the site. Remind them that they can come back anytime, whether it is to enter again tomorrow or check back for a new content and features.

• Never take your eyes off the road –just because your promotion has launched does not mean you can operate on cruise control. Select backseat drivers to champion the QA effort throughout the promotional period. It is a good idea to have mechanics on-call should the entry site malfunction after-hours.

• Watch your speedometer – use market data you collect daily to measure your promotions performance.

• Check your blind spots – work off of your market data to optimize the promotion’s goals. If your promotion is not meeting your expectations, jump start it with a PR push through your company’s social media channels or remarket to those who have already opted-in. Offer additional entries for every new friend, fan or follower referred by your original entrant to drive traffic to your entry site.

It is important to run diagnostics for your promotion after it has completed its journey. Be sure to backtrack through this roadmap during your project evaluation to gauge your mileage. Did you meet your final destination? If not, where were the bumps in the road? This debriefing process will help you better navigate any challenges your next promotion may experience.

MK calls “Shotgun” on your next marketing adventure!

Guest post by Jenna Hanlon, Promotion Coordinator in Marden-Kane's NY Office. Jenna can be reached at jhanlon@mardenkane.com

What was cooking at this year’s PMA Law Conference

Recently, I attended the PMA Law Conference at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.

The conference itself was very Digital/ Internet/ Mobile focused, with traditional sweepstakes and contests placed on the back-burners. One presentation however, given by Linda Goldstein (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP), offered a “what if” look at a merge of the old and new.

Surrounded by one-click solutions and “There’s an app for that.” messaging, Linda’s presentation showcased a hypothetical “Promotion Risk Assessor App” – push the button, input some specs, and voilà: a quick and easy recipe for a legal promotion is served. A tour of the App gave some insight into its different features: laws, regulations, and even a smart function that would create the entire promotion for you…just push the button.

The idea was intriguing to say the least. Being in the industry, it’s easy to fantasize about how much time could be saved if all we had to do was drop in a few details, sprinkle in some eligibility, and add a dash of winner announcement. In a microwave world, authoring rules (and the successive versions thereof until they’re “FINAL”, “FINAL_REV”, and, of course, “USE THIS ONE_FINAL_REV_REV”) can sometimes feel like crock-pot cooking.

In the end though, everything boiled over when Linda pushed the button – it turns out there was a glitch in the program. The fictional App had created a promotion that was completely illegal (on a number of fronts) and would surely end up with the Sponsor in some hot water.

The moral of the story: “There is no App” for promotions. Promotions require knowledge, guidance, and experience. Each new ingredient has the ability to change the entire flavor of the promotion; and knowing how to combine those ingredients so that everything mixes together correctly is critical for all parties involved. Now, here at Marden-Kane, we’ve been cooking for over 50 years making promotions our bread and butter.

Guest post by Matt Bonatti an Account Executive in Marden-Kane's NY Office. Matt can be reached at MBonatti@MardenKane.com.

“Cash for Clunkers”

Quite a buzz has stirred up recently about the Federal Government’s new “CARS” program, affectionately known as “Cash for Clunkers”, where motorists are given cash incentives to trade-in old or obsolete cars for new, efficient ones. Sadly, the marketing and promotions industry has been undertaking its own cash for clunkers program for some time. In this case, the cash is thrown AT the clunker, in the form of a faulty execution of what are often very solid promotion concepts.

How many times have you seen a promotional budget blown to bits for a clunker of an execution? Messaging bogged down by creative that wasn’t thought through, confusing entry forms, website code that crashes browsers or sloppy rules missing information regulators require? And when it comes time to fulfill the offer, how many times do the ugly effects of miscalculating projected response and fulfillment costs rear their heads?

In this day and age, marketers simply do not have the budgetary margins of error if something goes wrong. And regardless of the state of the economy, the monetary costs of a poor execution pale in comparison to the damage done when an otherwise enthusiastic customer turns sour trying to make his way through a clunker. A confusing form that wont load or receipt of a premium months late and damaged means an unhappy customer, at best. A lost one, at worst.

To avoid turning an otherwise fantastic promotion concept into a clunker, it’s important to recognize the need for strong and professional resources to provide the support necessary to make sure your promotional execution shines. With budget pressures higher and higher, there is temptation to take a “do it yourself” approach. But agencies like Marden-Kane not only take the work off your hands. They possess the expertise and experience necessary to ensure your promotions are executed properly and efficiently. They guide you through the possible pitfalls, legal and execution ally to ensure concept meets reality with great results.


Post via Richard Fascianella, an Interactive Account Director in our NY Office. Rich can be reached at RichardF@MardenKane.com.

A Seat at the Table

As most promotion professionals will attest, no two promotions are created the same. Even a "simple" sweepstakes has unique variables, such as:

• Relevancy to target audience
• Duration
• Prize pool
• Seasonal factors
• Means of entry
• Awareness vehicles
• Mobile
• Social Media extensions....

Too often, clients ask "how will our promotion do?" when the concept has been fully baked (by others) and collateral is about to hit the marketplace. As such, it is important that clients engage their promotion partners at the earliest phases of the planning process (e.g., ideation, brainstorm, etc.) and include them on discussions on possible media tactics / mediums.

While the industry has yet to provide meaningful benchmarks to help derive promotion success (due to what I believe is the hesitancy on clients to provide proprietary data), promotion agencies (such as Marden-Kane) have the implementation experience (and battle scars) to help guide the discussion.

In presentations to clients, I always include a "Field of Dreams" slide to remind clients that just because you launch a promotion, that in and of itself, will not guarantee participation. Clients need to utilize available media (paid and unpaid) and tools to drive awareness for what is really a brief moment in time. Technology has enabled brands to bring the promotion to where their target resides (think Facebook Fan Pages). Furthermore, viral extensions, such as virtual branded gifts (with embedded content), can help engage your target audience and prompt pass along to friends and family.

Promotions do not need to be complicated. They just need to be relevant , timely and smartly executed.