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The holidays are here! Brands everywhere are launching holiday sweepstakes in order to foster holiday spirit and customer loyalty. For some brands, sweepstakes and contest promotions during the holiday months are a special holiday tradition that companies have established with their fans and loyal customers.
This is why brands that run sweepstakes, contests, and raffles during the holidays tend to attract hundreds, even thousands of sweepstakes participants. In fact, a retail industry study found that the holiday season accounts for up to 30% of a brand’s annual sales.
turn Holiday Sweepstakes into an Annual Holiday Tradition.
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To help you get started with creating a sweepstakes plan for your holiday sweepstakes, read on to learn how you can turn sweeps into an annual holiday tradition. We’ll also explore tips on how to run a holiday sweepstakes and ensure that the promotion generates quality user-generated content (UGC) that you can use in your holiday marketing.
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Article Contents
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- How do you do a holiday sweepstakes?
- How do annual sweepstakes create holiday spirit?
- How to choose a sweepstakes for holiday marketing?
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Holiday Sweepstakes Never Too Early to Start Planning for Next Year
After Black Friday Cyber Monday ends, at some point in the next week, the holiday promotions start to appear. Brands unveil their best holiday deals for the year’s end while others do promos to get their audiences in the holiday spirit. Realistically, now is the time of the year to start delivering your holiday sweepstakes or do some last-minute sweepstakes marketing.
However, it’s never too early to start planning your annual sweepstakes for next year. Now between November and mid-January are the best times of the year for ecommerce sales. At this time of the year, with so much shopping activity taking place online, brands can build a captive audience for a sweepstakes that is highly engaged.
Fans and customers also are interested in deals and freebies during this time of year and want promotions to explore. With shopping volumes up as consumers spend money for gift giving with friends, family, and colleagues, it’s the perfect time to run a sweepstakes.
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Holiday Sweepstakes to Maximize Audience Reach
A holiday sweepstakes allows brands to maximize audience reach. The holidays are the best time to reach your audience segments en masse via an omnichannel giveaway promotion. The majority of ecommerce shoppers prefer to make the majority of online purchases during the holiday.
A well-designed holiday marketing strategy can help to inject a boost in sales. Holiday shopping is expected to be worth more than $807 billion this year for brands, with consumers spending on purchasing gifts or other holiday-related products.
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Give Back Through Holiday Marketing as a Company Annual Holiday Tradition
While holiday traditions vary from place to place, one thing all consumers have in common is that they want the brands that they work with to have a strong desire to give back. They also want brands to recognize them and offer special promotions to make their lives easier during this stressful time of the year for ecommerce shoppers.
With the end of the year, customers are more willing to experiment and try new brands. The brands that launch exclusive sales, discounts, and end-of-year promotions and follow these new social norms for brands, make consumers pay attention.
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Holiday Sweepstakes Checklist for Holiday Marketing
Plan your holiday marketing with a holiday sweepsatkes checklist. A holiday sweepstakes creates excitement and holiday spirit for your audience. However, there is still real work that needs to be done to make your holiday sweepstakes a success.
As you follow this holiday sweepstakes checklist, keep these important considerations for successful holiday sweepstakes strategy. Most of all, the success of your annual holiday sweepstakes depends on the right martech stack. But first, it all starts with planning.
Add these holiday sweepstakes checklist items to your giveaway strategy:
Step #1: Design Your Holiday Sweepstakes
An annual sweepstakes strategy should be your reference for your holiday sweepstakes planning, along with a sweepstakes marketing plan. Leverage typical holiday occurrences that align with the ecommerce shopping experiences, such as:
- Setting a budget for holiday spending
- Making a list of gifts to be purchased
- Holiday deals lists for sales and discounts
- Creative gift ideas
- Unique holiday experiences
Overall, the key to a successful holiday sweepstakes is that it has to be relatable to your entire audience. The most successful holiday marketing campaigns also leverage social media and ecommerce trends. In addition, there are also multiple types of sweepstakes to choose from for holiday sweepstakes from text to win to instant win games, spin-to-win wheels, scratch-off games, and more. A sweepstakes company can help guide you in the right direction.
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Step #2: Consider Customizing Your Martech Stack
While your holiday sweepstakes might be as simple as promoting a single grand prize across all of your social media channels, UGC sweepstakes and contests are quite complicated. If your holiday sweepstakes involves UGC, it’s a good idea to allow extra time for planning and customize your martech stack to incorporate tools to manage UGC licensing, the delivery of the sweepstakes promotion, social media marketing, last-minute sweepstakes SEM to attract more participants, and more.
Step #3: Get Quotes From Sweepstakes Companies & Martech Companies
You will need to set a budget to ensure that all of the tools that you need to run your holiday sweepstakes are in place. In addition, make sure that you get quotes from sweepstakes companies for help with legal compliance concerns, including drafting official rules, winner notification, prize fulfillment and more. Holiday sweepstakes are run at one of the busiest times of the year for vendors. This is why it’s a good idea to start planning for next year’s annual holiday sweepstakes right now!
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Step #4: Create a Holiday Sweepstakes Timeline
A holiday sweepstakes timeline for your team can help you to stay on track of all of the holiday sweepstakes planning events and setup activities. These are the sweepstakes requirements that your team needs to organize or complete before your sweepstakes launches. Overall, creating a holiday sweepstakes timeline should involve the sweepstakes company and your marketing team together to ensure that everything stays on track and organized.
With legal requirements for holidays sweepstakes, such as drafting official rules, registration and bonding, and organizing vendors to deliver the perfect customer experience, you need to start early. Sweepstakes laws vary across the USA and Canada and the required steps must be completed in time to run a legally-compliant holiday sweepstakes.
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Holiday Marketing Tips to Generate Quality Holiday Sweepstakes UGC
Here are a few tips to make sure that a UGC sweepstakes generates quality holiday marketing assets:
- Use video marketing to go viral. Want your holiday sweepstakes to go viral? Video campaigns have been proven to increase conversions given that 64% of consumers report making a purchase after watching a marketing video.
- Make sure that the unboxing experience for your sweepstakes prize is exceptional. Regardless of whether you give away small prizes such as gift cards or merch or expensive sweepstakes prizes, make sure that the unboxing experience for the sweepstakes winner is amazing.
- Send promotional products to influencers in advance. You can prerecord UGC to premiere during your sweepstakes launch to take the customer experience to the next level for your holiday marketing. Your customers will also appreciate free gifts.
- Make the sweepstakes winner’s circle like a dream come true. By making the experience of winning a sweepstakes seem like the most amazing thing ever, you’ll be able to increase the excitement that your fans and customers have around the event. This will make them more likely to engage with your brand and share the sweepstakes with their friends.
- Giving back by donating and spreading the holiday spirit. Make sure that your holiday sweepstakes incorporates ways to give back this holiday season. From small daily tips for giving ideas for the holidays to brands donating to community organizations, it is possible for all brands to do this. This is another way for your holiday sweepstakes to create the holiday spirit.
- Countdown to the sweepstakes launch. This can help to foster a serious #FOMO feeling among your fans and customers. Combine this with some last minute deals, tips, and holiday spirit to entertain to get instant sales and engage your loyal customers.
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Why Do Fans Love Holiday Sweepstakes? Get Started
Sweepstakes promotions that really resonate with fans during the holidays include promotions that are thoughtful, personalized, quality experiences that sweepstakes participants can enjoy in the company of other fans and customers. Holiday sweepstakes promotions not only make fans and customers feel appreciated and loved, personalization also helps make them feel special.
A brand that consistently runs unique holiday sweepstakes and contests will continue to delight and surprise their fans each and every year. This is how brands can turn annual sweepstakes for the holidays into a holiday tradition to share with consumers.
Getting into a festive and joyous mood during the holidays is the perfect way to end the year on a positive note as a brand. However, a successful holiday sweepstakes promotion needs to connect with your audience needs during this time of year to be most effective.
Learn your customers’ needs during this holiday season. Then, use the data collected to drive your annual holiday sweepstakes marketing strategy.
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