What is the most suitable promotion for achieving your goal?

Start from the objectives you want to pursue to define the best promotion for your needs.

For the purpose of a successful promotion, it is important to start from the objectives you want to pursue, on the basis of which you will choose all the other aspects such as the mechanics, the choice of prizes, the number and value of the prize pool and the communication.

#1 – Brand awareness, stimulate engagement, increase followers

If these are the goals of your promotion, you can choose one of the following types of contests.

📱 Contest on Instagram and Facebook

Instagram is the social network par excellence if you want to engage your target.

The two types of Instagram contests that can be activated are:

Mention&Hashtag: the participant must post content accompanied by the Hashtag of the contest and a mention;
CommentContest: the consumer must post his or her own comment to participate under the post dedicated to the contest with a dedicated hashtag. This mechanic can also be implemented on Facebook.

To decide the winners of an Instagram contest you can choose between:

final random drawing among all the participants: method to be preferred when participation takes place through simple comments or interactions;
jury that chooses based on the correspondence with the criteria established in the regulations: the jury is particularly suitable in “Mention&Hashtag” contests because it lends itself to the awarding of deserving content. Relying on chance, in this case, would not favour the commitment of the participants.

To learn more click here: Prize-Promotions on Instagram

📸 Online contest with gallery and voting

This mechanic allows you to maintain a “dialogue” with your followers.

Ask users to create photo or video content on a specific theme: to participate they will simply have to register online and upload the contributions that will be visible in a single gallery. To increase engagement, you can implement a voting mechanism that allows the most voted entries to participate in the final prize draw.

#2 – Communicating with your target audience – building loyalty

If you need to get in touch with your target to talk about the new products, promotions or even simply to consolidate the relationship and build loyalty, you can organise a contest of any kind but particularly suitable is the use of the online channel.

💻 Online prize promotions

They are those contests that allow participation by connecting to a mini-site where it will be possible to participate even with mere registration or by responding to some specific requirement of the contest (uploading content, answering questions, etc.). They are very useful from a marketing point of view because they give the promoter the necessary space to communicate directly with the participants and are appreciated by consumers because participation is easy and immediate, even from smartphones.

The methods of awarding prizes can be the ones you prefer based on the mechanics implemented:

Final draw
Instant win
Jury (if the competition is of the UGC type)

An online contest is customisable in various aspects, from the data to be entered in the form to the possibility of integrating other activities within it.

Some integrations that the public really likes and that we recommend because they allow you to increase interactions with the target are:

Promo-game: online games such as “memory”, “puzzle”, “search and find”, and many others.
They can be used as simple entertainment or linked to participation, for example, through a ranking with the scores obtained by each player or by binding participation to a correct execution.
Find out more about the minigames (advergames) that we can activate for your contest
Quizzes and surveys: suitable for engaging and gathering useful information for your subsequent marketing campaigns and also to obtain feedback on your products or services.

Promosfera creates mini-sites to host your promotion and safely manage the data collected. It is able to create your customised promo-games and implement the quizzes and surveys of your interest.

#3 – Increase sales

If your goal is to increase your turnover, you must organise a contest in which, in order to participate, one has to first purchase the promoted products and prove their purchase.

🛒 Online contests with purchase

In online contests it is possible to prove that one has made the purchase in two ways: using the purchase receipt or by entering unique codes belonging to the promotional products (a different one for each product).

Participation can take place in several ways, for example:

Asking for the entering of the unique code in the specific form;
Having participants upload the receipt online on a dedicated mini-site after registration;
Photographing the receipt for sending via WhatsApp (particularly interesting mode because it is quick and instant).

In the case of an Instant-win mechanism linked to the purchase, the choice to request the receipt data rather than the unique code is at the discretion of the promoter, who will have to make an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of one rather than the other:

– the use of a unique code offers greater security for the promoter, however it is a more expensive solution and the code is not always applicable on the packaging;

– the use of the receipt has no additional costs for the promoter but offers less security, among other reasons also because it lends itself to falsifications.

📄 Contests using cards

Contests using cards is an evergreen always loved by consumers. It is particularly suitable for mechanics in the point of sale and allows direct contact with customers through the staff of the point of sale.

The card can be of three types:

scratch cards: buy the product in store, receive the card and find out immediately if you have won;
- to be filled in: buy the product, receive the card at the checkout and complete it in store or send it by mail to a dedicated address together with the receipt;
- with unique code: discover the unique code on the card you receive at the checkout, go to the site dedicated to the promotion, register and play the code to participate in the contest!

Most used winning mechanics:

final draw
- instant win
- combination instant win + final draw of a super prize

🎁 Gift with Purchase Promotion

A Gift with Purchase promotion is a promotional initiative that provides for a gift to be given to everyone who buys or sells a product or service.

This promotional category also includes short collections, Loyalty cards and trade incentive activities.

They are types of promotions particularly suitable, not only for increasing sales, but also for:

building loyalty
letting people try different products

Also for these types of promotions, it is good to check that the regulations of each country allow them and that there aren’t any particular limitations involved.

In some countries, in fact, there are constraints that may concern, for example, the value of the item that is offered as a gift compared to the promoted product or the type of prize or the minimum purchase threshold. In Japan, for example, some formulas such as the distribution of gadgets within a store can be considered illegal.

💸 Cashback

Returning money from a purchase is a very effective way to reward customers and incentivise the purchase of certain products.

In particular, the fact that an actual and direct refund is paid after the purchase is perceived in a very positive way by consumers.

A cashback campaign can be activated for any product and market sector through a special online platform.

Find out how to organise your cashback on our dedicated page!

Promosfera can offer you secure software for the collection of data and receipts both for the purposes of contests and cashback; it can take care of the production of screened cards with unique codes and winning results.

#4 – Collect new leads

If your company’s strategies require the acquisition of leads for the sending of marketing communications, newsletters, updates and so on, a contest is the most effective incentive to convince your interlocutor to release his or her data.

📝 Contest via online form

In these cases, the best channel to use is that of an online contest that allows the acquisition of data:

In a secure way and able to guarantee a correct processing of personal data
With a degree of completeness that can be modulated according to your needs

“Subscribe to the newsletter and try to win…” is a simple and immediate invitation, which quickly and effectively achieves the goal of acquiring new enrolled persons.

It should be emphasised, however, that the effectiveness depends very much on the communication of the initiative for which, based on the characteristics of the target, social media can represent a very interesting support.

#5 – Launching a new product or service

One of the most frequent needs of any company is to bring its target to awareness of new products or services to support their launch on the market. Also for this purpose, there are promotions that, more than others, offer effective solutions.

In order to make your product known effectively, you can use social media to associate communication posts with rewarding interactions for your potential customers. You can strengthen these initiatives:

By creating a collaboration with some influencer who, by presenting your product, can help you overcome any initial resistance from consumers;
By implementing viral mechanisms among participants.
Tester activity

What could be better than “letting people test” your product to make it appreciated?

More and more initiatives of this type are spreading in which you can recruit testers among persons in your target audience by inviting them to apply to receive the product for free.

In these cases, recruitment takes place through an online form in which it is possible to implement selective criteria through the proposal of questions, the request for comments or otherwise.

Testers, after receiving the product and using it, must leave a review.

#5 – Strengthening the relationship with your customers

If you want to keep your customers involved for a longer period of time than just participating by creating engagement, you need a contest that builds loyalty to your community.

✅ Multi-step contest

It allows you to surprise your customers by creating a series of windows or periodic appointments (daily, weekly, monthly or as you see fit) with an always new surprise suitable for renewing the emotion of the participants every time.

At each appointment you can reserve a different surprise, games, videos, discounts, information, quizzes, vouchers and much more. You can match an appointment with a win and/or create a leaderboard based on the points earned in each challenge.

The multi-step contests can be created to accompany the public towards a holiday, create expectation for an event or for an anniversary of the company.

In addition, they lend themselves very well to online designing/publishing calendars, on the model of the Advent Calendar.

This activity can also be linked to a contest with a final draw in which all those who perform one or more specific actions can participate.

– Create a memorable experience through a recurring appointment with your customers –

It is an action that lends itself well to being spread through social networks to make it known and to start new relationships.

Promosfera offers you a complete service by putting you in a position to reach your target with a personalised promotion designed for you in every step.