Selecting a Sweepstakes Management & Administration Company

What is a Sweepstakes Management Company?

A sweepstakes management company (or sweepstakes marketing agency) can simplify the process of handling giveaway marketing promotions - offering services such as development of contests, prize fulfillment, and sweepstakes administration.

In addition, they may also offer services for other games and incentives such as,

• Contests
• Instant Win Games
• User-Generated Content (UGC) Promotions
• Loyalty Programs
• Support for Agencies (including White Label partnerships)
• Or Legal Services for Promotions

These types of promotions drive consumer engagement that meets different goals. A 360-degree sweepstakes promotions agency has both the technology and agency service that keeps up to date on the newest digital promotion trends.

Sweepstakes are great customer acquisition engines that can energize a brand and delight consumers. There are a number of goals you can achieve by offering a compelling, exciting prize to new and current customers.

Sweepstakes marketing creates an exchange of value between you and your customer, creative incentives on both ends: As consumers engage for a potential prize, you gain valuable data about your audience and marketing efforts.

How Sweepstakes Support Your Goals

Knowing what services are offered by sweepstakes management companies is a great start, but what about deciding if a sweepstakes will be effective for your marketing goals?

Sweepstakes leverage the core aspect of a promotion: The chance to win a prize.

This incentive encourages consumer actions and retains or reactivates current customers. In addition, can drive participation and registration rates, drives traffic, boosts awareness, and encourages sales.

Unsure if a sweepstakes fits your goals? There are plenty of methods a simple sweepstakes can encompass to take a strategic approach at your goals, including:

• Learning About Your Customers - Sweepstakes provide an interactive and fun outlet to gather data and insightful actions for your brand. A sweepstakes uses incentives to strategically gather data and market research, creating a foundation for collecting rich insights about your audience.[rtm_standout]Shoe manufacturer Clarks saw over 65,000 registrations with their sweepstakes[/rtm_standout]
• Purchase-to-Win - Sweepstakes can be modeled to drive sales. For example, consumers can use their purchases as entries via point-of-sale, loyalty cards, or receipt validation methods.
• Referrals - Did you know that researchers found a 10% increase in word-of-mouth efforts translated into sales lifts up to 1.5%? If you’re aiming to increase word-of-mouth marketing efforts, digital sweepstakes can encourage consumers to recruit their peers for additional entries.
• Boost Ratings & Reviews - 72% of consumers don’t take an action until they read reviews, and displaying reviews can increase conversion rates by upwards of 270%. Consumers are well-informed and seek to hear other people's experiences about a product or service before making a decision. However, sometimes consumers need a little incentive to leave you rich reviews that can guide others through their purchase decisions. Adding a chance for your consumers to be rewarded for reviews allows you to build authentic feedback for your brand.

Overall, sweepstakes can be a simple way to boost key metrics of a larger campaign, while providing incentives for consumers to take actions.

They can even take place exclusively on social media within comments, @mentions, and posts, encouraging user-generated content. Other sweepstakes implementations include your brand’s app, at point-of-sale systems, or the homepage of your website.

Sweepstakes management agencies can help iron out the details to fit your needs.

When a Sweepstakes Management Company Can Help

In most cases, a sweepstakes management company is best suited for high-traffic marketing needs. These agencies support your marketing goals throughout the length of the sweepstakes, from development to prize fulfillment.

There are several core areas to a well-rounded sweepstakes management company: Service and Development, Legal Compliance, and Prize Fulfillment. The best sweepstakes company can use its expertise in these areas to deliver a seamless experience with packaged, actionable results.

A worthy sweepstakes agency typically consists of these core traits:

1. Campaign Type & Development - By aligning with your goals, a sweepstakes management company can help select the best avenue and add-ons for ensuring your marketing goals are met. In addition, they can counsel you on other options such as user-generated content (UGC) campaigns, or instant-win promotions.
2. The Right Add-Ons - Additional features that can be added on to your sweepstakes to enrich the experience or provide extra media channels. These features can drive your audience to your promotion and encourage repeat engagement. These can include: text-to-enter sweepstakes, receipt validation, and more.
3. Legal Administration - Sweepstakes laws can vary on many factors. Instead of dealing with the headache and risk legal ramifications for errors, trust that a sweepstakes agency to handle topics such as:
   • Drafting of Official Rules
   • Insurance and Indemnification
   • Bonding & Registration of Prizes
   • Prize Winner Tax Forms
4. Prize Strategy - Make the most of your budget by getting expert advice to develop a worthwhile prize pool. In addition to developing prizing strategies, a capable sweepstakes company will handle all fulfillment and/or shipping of prizes.

If you’ve decided that a sweepstakes makes sense for your marketing objectives, it’s time to select the best helping hand.

To get a better idea of what type of services and results you can expect from a sweepstakes management company, be sure to seek out the recent work or case studies published by the sweepstakes agency.

Full-Service and Development of Sweepstakes

The bread and butter of it all, a strong sweepstakes agency can offer multiple options for developing your promotion -From custom, full-service build-outs, to templates that are quick-to-market.

At Realtime Media, we offer both custom builds and our very own PromoPick solution. Our PromoPick templates can accommodate tight deadlines and be ready-to-launch within 5 days.

Your brand might plan a promotion long before it goes live, and quick deadlines sneak up. In any case, when working with a sweepstakes manager, double-check that their team of promotion experts can keep up with all your needs before you start a relationship with them.

Campaign support, a dedicated project manager, and robust analytics are some of the many features that should be included by the sweepstakes management company you work with.

Your sweepstakes manager should be prepared to make sure you’re delivered the metrics that matter most to your business. It’s important to find a sweepstakes partner with the technology to gather user data and connect it with your back-end systems.

In any circumstance, you should anticipate a sweepstakes agency to guide you through core promotion areas:

• Legal Administration and Compliance
• Strategy and Concept Development
• Incentive & Prize Strategy
• User Experience Enriching Add-ons

Sweepstakes Law & Legal Services

A sweepstakes management company can also provide administration for any prize promotion. Legal compliance is critical when building a promotional experience. Some challenges sweepstakes agencies can resolve or plan include:

• Full & Abbreviated Official Rules
• Legal Review of Promotional Materials
• Insurance and Indemnification
• Social Platform Compliance Consulting
• Alternate (Free) Means of Entry (AMOE) and “Mail-to” Addresses
• 1099 & 1096 IRS Forms, Winner Affidavits
• State Bonding & Registration
• Winner Drawing & Verification

Sweepstakes must comply with both federal and local laws to avoid fraud, abuse, or deception. In addition, each social networks has unique terms of use agreements. At Realtime Media, our dedicated project managers handle these fine details to ensure everything is up-to-par.

A sweepstakes agency will help you navigate the pool of sweepstakes laws to ensure you can deliver the best experience from your brand. Running a giveaway should be seamless and exciting, not concerning.

Your promotions partner should handle all legal compliance to mitigate any headaches before the promotion rolls out and to prevent legal conflicts after the promotion is live. In addition, these agencies will be up-to-date with the ever-changing FTC guidelines and aid you in creating your official sweepstakes rules.

If your sweepstakes involves minors under 18, the best sweepstakes agencies will be able to provide you with the best COPPA Compliance guidance to parental consent and minor participation.

For more questions regarding legal parameters, see our FAQ.

Prize Fulfillment

As your promotion comes to a close, prize fulfillment may seem like a minor detail that can quickly approach. In most cases, awarding prizes to customers is the most rewarding aspect of any giveaway, but contacting the winners and distributing prizes can become challenging and time-consuming.

Before teaming up with a sweepstakes company be sure they can manage prize fulfillment.

Drawing a winner, screening and supporting contestants, logistics and packaging can all be an unexpected hassle. Be sure to ensure to choose a sweepstakes company that can handle the fine details and give your team one less task to worry about.

In addition to prize fulfillment, a great sweepstakes company will be able to provide input on what prizes would be best suited to your customers and budget - whether it’s your own product or a getaway adventure, the best sweepstakes company will uphold the credibility of your brand by delivering its prize promise.

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Conclusion

Whether you’re building a unique campaign or looking for a quick-to-market solution, a sweepstakes management company will have the expertise to deliver an experience that benefits your consumers and your business goals.

Perhaps you’ve decided to independently develop your own sweepstakes or promotion - In any case, legal compliance is arguably one of the most important components of running a sweepstakes or promotion to ensure your brand and assets are secured.

Only the best sweepstakes company makes creating the promotion simple while also giving you legal peace of mind. A sweepstakes can invigorate your brand, and offset the challenges and effort it takes to craft a well-developed, engaging experience for your consumers.

At Realtime Media, we work hard for your brand to create an exciting promotion that engages your customers and make your life easier. We’ve been in this business for over 20 years, and we’re ready to power your next promotion with our cutting edge technology.