Sweepstakes and how do they help promote a business

Sweepstakes are promotional schemes or contests with associated giveaways or prizes that are common in the US and very popular with the consumers in the US markets. They are known by different names in different countries. For example in UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc; a sweepstake is known as a competition or a contest. A sweepstake is like a lottery wherein people are asked to submit free entries that give them a chance to win the prizes linked to that sweepstake. The prize varies in value from a dollar or even lesser to millions of dollars. Car sweepstake, cash sweepstake, travel sweepstakes or trip sweepstakes are some of the most eye catching sweepstakes.

How do sweepstakes help?

There are several advantages of sweepstakes and contests. Some of them can be listed as follows.

• Marketing and Promotion – Sweepstakes help in marketing and promoting a brand, a startup or a new product that may have recently entered the market.  For example a tours and travel firm that has recently entered the market may offer trip sweepstakes or travel sweepstakes to grab the attention of its target audience. 
• Market Research – Often the companies ask the customers to answer a small questionnaire that has questions relevant to the company’s products and services. It helps them analyze the market trends and what is it that they can do to improve their products or services. This is also one of the ways that has helped a lot of companies come up with products or features that most of the customers were looking for, but were missing in the market.
• Generate customer interest – It is common for the customers to enter a sweepstake or a contest because of the prize associated with it. Sweepstakes that have a high value prize attached to them generate more interest and excitement in customers than sweepstakes with prizes of lesser value. For example if there is a car to be won in a sweepstake then a lot of people would be excited to know what it is. And since winning a car is ‘a dream come true’ for many customers, they would not mind spending some time understanding about the promotion and the terms and conditions of the sweepstake.
• Helps in database building – Sweepstakes help companies to build a database that can be used for future promotions. Since the customers would fill up authentic details to be a part of a contest companies can rest assure that the customer data is authentic. However, one very important point that needs to be noted here is that companies should make it a point to take customers’ consent before they contact them for any future promotion. Else the company may have to face legal issues also.

These are some of the advantages that a company has of running a contest or a sweepstake. Winning a sweepstake is fun and people would love to win free gifts or prizes. However, it is very important to keep the target audience and the product in mind before launching a contest or a sweepstake.