How SMS Sweepstakes Campaigns Are Helping Boost Business

Sweepstakes marketing campaigns can be an excellent means of promoting brand recognition and awareness, thus bringing customers through your door.

While email marketing may have initially been considered a solution to the unfortunate “junk mail” reputation that has traditionally plagued sweepstakes campaigns, it's a sad fact that we need look no farther than our inboxes today to understand that email is suffering the same fate. While search engine marketing may be the hi-tech answer to some quandaries that traditional marketing cannot solve, sweepstake campaigns, by contrast, may be unique in that most potential customers do not typically seek them out.

SMS SWEEPSTAKES CAMPAIGNS GIVE CONSUMERS JUST THE NUDGE THEY NEED

This is where SMS text messaging sweepstakes campaigns come in, especially for industries like fast food and retail clothing, which draw customers in to their chain of stores on a fairly frequent basis. While customers do not necessarily need to eat their meals at fast food chains or to purchase a new shirt every several weeks, the cost of these small luxuries is not perceived as prohibitively high for most consumers. Hence, it only takes a small amount of brand suggestion to get customers through the door.

One thing that has become a constant necessity in the eyes of most consumers today, on the other hand, is mobile phone access. People carry their mobile devices with them at all times, which is why almost 100% of the text messages people receive are opened and read. That fact makes SMS texting an invaluable strategy when it comes to a successful sweepstakes campaign, especially for industries like casual restaurants and retail shopping that so heavily rely on consumer suggestibility.

RECENT SUCCESSFUL SMS SWEEPSTAKES CAMPAIGNS

Among the companies recognized as carrying out the top SMS sweepstakes campaigns recently are Hooters, JCPenney, and popular bourbon whiskey manufacturer Jim Beam. Hooters' campaign offered consumers the opportunity to win a trip to a destination of their choice. Jim Beam, as part of its nationwide Live Music Series, ran a campaign urging users to enter to win a VIP trip to the last summer concert by opting-in to its SMS program with a special keyword texted to a short code.

Sweepstakes winnings need not be extravagant or expensive, however. JCPenney won its place in the spotlight for its own sweepstakes campaign merely by running an Easter promotion encouraging customers to attend a one-day in-store event to receive a free pair of children's bunny ears. At the end of the day, what it comes down to is that consumers, when left to their own devices, will spend their time and money where and how it needs to be spent; however, they are open to suggestion when it comes to having the opportunity for a pleasurable experience. That pleasurable experience may come in the form of a delicious side of french fries, a new outfit, a free trip, or a festive pair of bunny ears for Easter.

Consumers won't necessarily have time to seek out comfort and fun twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but when a simple text message can remind potential customers just how easy it can be to partake in such pleasures, they are certainly open to suggestion. SMS text message sweepstakes campaigns, therefore, are a great way for companies to put their brands, as well as what those brands can do for consumers, front and center in potential customers' minds.