When looking to understand how and why successful digital promotions worked, the first place you should turn to is the prize strategy – a small and often overlooked piece of a digital marketing strategy for the promotion.  The incentives placed behind engagement are typically the key drivers of consumers taking action.  

Traditionally a largely physical effort, recently we have seen a shift towards digital prize options across many of the promotions we have run. 

Entering for a chance to win a big ticket item or once in a lifetime experience there is tried and true proof that these traditional prize strategies work. As a matter of fact Netflix & LG’s “B&Binge” campaign amassed national attention in 2018 as users submitted short stories for a chance to win one of three all inclusive trips. 

Looking now at a different promotion, Burger King’s 2019 Winter Whopperland Promotion. By layering both high-value and low-value digital, instantly awarded prizes on top of physical prizing they were able to award more prizes to more winners and draw in more consumers. 

As the technology that powers digital promotions advances, so does the technology that delivers prizes to winners. Across sweepstakes, contests, and instant win fulfillment here are three ways that RTM has seen and echoed capability to power digital fulfillment to enhance the customer experience. 

1) Everybody Wins

 

As consumers are pulled in more directions online by brands trying to win their attention, a “chance to win” appears less

and less valuable. Brands can, however, layer “everybody wins” and giveaway elements on top of traditional sweepstakes fulfillment that add further incentive to entry.

One easy way to deliver a prize to everyone who registers for your promotion and drive purchases is to give away a discount code for their next purchase. Layering these codes into your engagement strategy awards consumers a chance to win, but by providing them a discount code you are driving them to purchase from your brand. 

2) Real Time Game Plays, Real Time Fulfillment

Leveraging dynamically generating, programmatic emails RTM is able to go a step beyond traditional fulfillment companies. By cutting out the supply chain and fulfilling prizes in-house we are able to instantly award digital prizes to winners. 

When you win a digital prize your immediate assumption is that you should be getting it within 24-36 hours – at most. Especially valuable with instant win game promotions, where players find out if they win instantly, having a secure, tested, and real time prize fulfillment management system is key.

Once the capabilities are in place, by awarding digital prizes to winners instantly, the user experience can be seamlessly extended while a brand is still top of mind. Using this momentum to extend the length of customer interactions powerfully impacts KPIs and the consumer-brand relationship. Additionally, quickly and efficiently awarding digital prizes results in a lower volume of customer service inquiries. 

Learn more about our instant win game technology and how it can be used to spark engagement

3) Gift Cards, PromoCodes and More

If it’s a digital property, we can fulfill it. 

Prizing and fulfillment can be a key layer of your digital engagement strategy by using it to funnel back to owned properties. Mentioned earlier, the end goal of many digital promotions is to incentivize action across owned digital channels. 

A surefire way to accomplish this goal is to create a prize strategy that brings winners back or extends the experience after they’ve registered. For instance, if you make a sweepstakes prize a digital code or gift card then you’ve just given your consumers a reason to come back and interact with your digital property.

Realtime Media has helped brands fulfill millions of digital prizes:

  • Digital Gift Cards
  • Product Vouchers
  • Instant Download Codes (Music, Movies and More)
  • Promotional/Discount Codes
  • Secure API-Powered Cash Prizing (PayPal)
  • & More

The power of digital prizes is that if it can be included in an email (either as a link, download or alphanumeric code) it can be fulfilled digitally. With every fulfillment project, we provide programmatic, back-end support to make sure all prizes are delivered to winners correctly and on-time.

Conclusions

Whether it be sweepstakes, instant win, or contest fulfillment, layering digital prizes into your promotion strategy is a surefire way to increase engagement and drive action. With near-instant gratification for awarding prizes brands can deliver a more rewarding custom experience and lead users to return.

As industry leaders for full-service digital promotions, we understand the importance of a solid fulfillment strategy. With support for procurement, kitting, shipping preparation, player support, Realtime Media is here to help provide a smooth consumer experience. To learn more about how Realtime Media can help, check out our fulfillment management page.