Tag: Sweepstakes
First Book has partnered with the WWE on this year’s the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. New for 2016 is the WrestleMania Reading Challenge Sweepstakes that we are administrating and hosting on their behalf. We’ve been working directly this year with First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise that has distributed more than 135 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The sweepstakes encourages families to read together for 15 minutes every day, then visit the promotional website, wrestlemaniareadingchallenge.com, and submit the number of minutes they read that day to receive an entry. 
Once submitted the site then plays the video of the week that features a WWE Superstar thanking and inviting them to share on social media that they’ve taken the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. This one features Sasha Banks who says to “read like a “Boss” and join the WrestleMania Reading Challenge for a chance to win a trip to WrestleMania 32!”.
Two grand prize winners will each receive a trip for two to WrestleMania 32 which is scheduled to be held at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, TX, on April 3. The prize package includes round trip airfare, 3-night hotel accommodations in Dallas, two tickets to the event, ground transportation and $300 in spending cash. Four first prize winners will have 1,000 books donated from the First Book National Book Bank to each of the winner’s designated beneficiary school or program and 10 second prize winners will receive a replica WWE World Heavyweight Championship Title belt.
The WrestleMania Reading Challenge is ending this Friday, Feb. 19. As of this morning there are over 40,000 entries and thousands of minutes have been pledged. A huge social media campaign was also added this year to help get the word out. First Book and WWE have been actively posting on their social media accounts throughout the challenge and have held several Twitter parties using the hastag #WWReads. WWE helped to kick-off the challenge by creating this PSA that has aired during live TV events including Monday Night RAW and SmackDown.
WWE is also taking part in a Local Book Wish campaign in the Dallas area leading up to WrestleMania 32. Educators are encouraged to submit “book wish” requests to First Book to enter to win books from WWE for classrooms and programs from Feb. 1 to 19. One school will be selected to receive a visit from WWE Superstars, a Reading Celebration and a 1,000-book donation to their school!
“WWE is proud to partner with First Book and continue our long-standing commitment to education and literacy initiatives through the WrestleMania Reading Challenge,” said Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer, WWE. “Together, we are providing a fun and engaging experience to encourage children of all ages to read.”
So hurry up and take the challenge today. You only have a few days left to help increase that total reading pledge!
Collecting user data if the number one reason that marketing folks run sweepstakes and contests. Most of these types of promotions use an online entry form that includes a variety of fields entrants must fill out in exchange for a chance to win. Once marketers have someone’s email address, or mobile phone number, they can then add that person to a list and begin a dialog. As long as you provide a way for that person to unsubscribe in the future you are good.
When we create a promotional micro-site or a Facebook tab page we mainly do this by using the Shortstack application. I’ve written here on this blog about many different promotions that we have created with this app. When building these sites we normally recommend the required fields on an entry page to include the entrant’s first and last name, email address, mailing address and phone number, along with a check box that states that they have read and agree to the Official Rules.
So you need to decide what data you want to collect and what data you need in order to make your promotion run smoothly. A mailing address is definitely needed if you have secondary prizes with low value which then enables you to just ship out these prizes to the winners. A phone number comes in very handy when we are trying to contact a winner to notify them that they are a potential winner. When using just an email address you run the chances of ending up in someone’s spam folder, or just getting deleted. And if you’re building your mobile list, then of course you would ask for their mobile phone number.
The team at Shortstack recently published some findings from the many sweepstakes and contests that have been created utilizing their application regarding the types of data that is collected. They analyzed a database of nearly 1 million promotion forms that brands from around the world have created. I found their findings interesting and pretty much in line with the data collection we recommend. They also listed some key insights that they gathered from these findings. None of these insights surprised me, but it’s always good to have the documentation to back it up. To view the entire article with the findings and insights visit Shortstack’s website here.
A rising trend in the industry is running a sweepstakes or contest on social media utilizing a hashtag. Entrants may be invited to post a tweet on Twitter or upload a photo on Twitter or Instagram utilizing the promotional hashtag. Many marketers like these types of promotions since it creates buzz and makes it easy for entrants. However, they do not collect data on the entrants since there is no entry form to fill out. It also can make it a little more difficult to contact winners. So it all depends on what your main objectives are for running the promotion.
In summary, Shortstack concludes that marketers continue to run sweepstakes and contests and promote them on their social media channels. This allows them to gather valuable data about their audience. Email addresses are still the most important data that they collect. Also, Facebook has become less critical for brands when running these types of promotions. In addition to utilizing Facebook less, successful sweepstakes and contests are giving away prizes that are high value and relevant to their audience. Thanks Shortstack for the information.
I included a summary of the promotional guidelines from the various social media platforms that I had presented in my recent session at the BlogPaws Conference in Nashville in last week’s blog post. So in keeping with some of this presentation content I thought I would share here the question that we get asked quite often….what is the difference between a sweepstakes (giveaway) and a contest and why chose one over the other? So here goes.
Why Run a Sweepstakes?
First of, sweepstakes are a game of chance, a random drawing, and are also referred to quite often as giveaways. Sweepstakes can help create awareness and excitement around your brand, company or organization. They can help to reach your desired objectives by just running on their own or acting as an overlay to your overall marketing program.They are a great way to easily build or grow your database via email or mobile text messaging by collecting user data.
Sweepstakes are highly measurable and can be very effective when integrated with the right incentive. Therefore, an effective sweepstakes will not only offer participants the chance to win great prizes, but can help you reach some of the following objectives:
– Build and expand your database: entries capture user information
– Drive traffic to your website, social media channels or to your physical locations
– Keep your prize budget manageable, you set the prize package up front
– Reinforce the features and benefits of your brand/service/company through themed sweepstakes and prize tie-ins
– Entice consumers with hard-to-get prizes: leveraging existing partnerships and sponsorships and your own products
Here’s an example of a sweepstakes that is running now for Joffrey’s Coffee that we are administering. It’s a simple random draw that will award one lucky grand prize winner a Disney World vacation by just filling out and submitting the online entry form. Joffrey’s is the official coffee of Walt Disney World so this is a great example of how they are utilizing their partnership with Disney to promote their brand.
Why Run a Contest?
Like sweepstakes, contests also generate buzz and awareness and are a great fit for offering a chance to win a great prize. Unlike sweepstakes, contests are defined as a game of skill, not chance. A contest must be judged based on a degree of skill or uniqueness, and this judging criteria must be stated in the official rules. In a contest you are asking people to do some work to enter, therefore you may receive fewer entries for a contest then from just a random-draw sweepstakes, however they will be more likely to be higher quality.
The most common types of contests today include user-generated content such as photo, video, essay, recipe and design contests. Submissions are then judged or evaluated based on the contest theme and judging criteria and in some cases open for public voting. If you run a contest that invites participants to submit a photo or video you increase the chances that they will share their submission on social media.
So if your marketing goals are as follows, here is why contests are the better tactic:
– Reinforce your brand attributes: customers’ photos, videos and essays highlighting your strengths speak volumes
– Elicit user-generated content that can then be used in your future promotions
– Your engaged followers will help spread the word for you, especially through social channels
Pictured above is an example of an ongoing photo contest we’ve been assisting the team at Rail Europe with. They have been running this monthly on their Facebook page as a way to engage with their followers and build a nice database of photos of iconic Europe scenery.
Sweepstakes and contests must both follow the lottery laws which state that any purchase or payment is not allowed in order to enter. If so, then an alternate means of entry without purchase must be included. Contests however can include a purchase if it’s required to create the submission that will be judged. If you’re interested in discussing your needs and what may be the best tactic for your marketing efforts, please feel free to contact me.