Another sweepstake catch

One day, I found a story about sweepstake.

It is about a man that found a copy of a Reader’s Digest book in his mail. He noticed there some a line which reading: “Free, Select Edition”. Besides, there is a notification of a sweepstakes. "You will automatically be entered once for the prize offered in this mailing... Money Sweepstakes #940". What’s more, there is a detailed description about the sweepstakes. Of course that all above is not the most attractive part, the most attractive part is here: "you get a selection approximately every 2 months for Select Editions...no obligation to buy!"

The man had never ordered a Reader's Digest subscription. But he was on a number of mailing lists.

He may not the only one of those who has received such “gift”. Obviously that is a catch. Anyone who has such experience can share so that people can be avoid being cheated.

Define Your Target Market

Every business has its own target market. Generally speaking, “target market” is a business term that refers to the market segment to which a particular god or service is marketed.

A product focusing on a specific target market contrasts sharply with one following the marketing strategy of mass marketing. A target market is mainly defined by age, gender, geography, socio-economic grouping, or any other combination of demographics. It can contain people or companies which a business targets with their promotion, the ideal audience for a business promotional effort, a specific audience or demographic group that a targeted promotional message is designed to attract, etc.

It is important to you to define your target market. Because they are the group of persons who have interest in your product or service and have the need that what your offer can fill.

Your real target market includes people who are seeking a solution, either product or service that you provide to fill their need; they have the might to make the decision to pay for what you provide and they can afford it. In order to define your own target market, you should check if they meet the requirements. Only when you aim at your own target market can your business grow better and better.

How to Improve Your Chances of Winning Sweepstakes

Some people seem often to bring home lots of sweepstakes prizes, while others win nearly nothing. Many people think it completely attributes to luck, and frequent winners use smart tactics to gain more winnings. Entering sweepstakes intelligently by creating a plan, you can dramatically increase your chances to win. The following list show you five tips which to improve your chances of winning sweepstakes prizes.
First, Focus Your Effort.
Maybe you have noticed that there are more contests running than you could possibly enter on any sweepstakes listing. It's a good idea to make your efforts on prizes that you really want to win. Don't pay your attention to entering for those prizes if you know you won't be able to attend a concert across the country. Instead, focus your energy on the giveaways with prizes you really want to win.

Second, Enter as Many Sweepstakes as Possible.
Try to enter as many different sweepstakes as you can. If you enter a single giveaway, you'll have to get a lot of luck to gain the winnings. But if you enter hundreds of different prize competitions each month, the likelihood of a win soars. So, enter many different sweepstakes as possible.

Third, Emphasize Sweepstakes with Lots of Prizes.
The more prizes a sweepstake offers, the better your chances to win. It will be much easier to win a giveaway that is awarding 100 prizes than a giveaway with a single prize. Even if some of the prizes are smaller in value, you'll feel encouraged when you receive the notification that you have won the prizes.

Fourth. Look for Sweepstakes that Restrict Entries from Other States.
Since each state has its own rules governing sweepstakes, some sponsors will prohibit entry from residents of particular states. Some states, like Florida, New York, and Rhode Island, are commonly excluded from large sweepstakes. However, California and Utah are rarely included in sweepstakes sponsored by wineries or beer breweries. Because of more expensive shipping fees to the states Hawaii and Alaska, they are often left out.

Fifth, Prioritize Sweeps with Restrictions by Age or Gender.
Some sponsors have strict requirements on specific age ranges or genders when participate entries. For instance, most sweepstakes allow entry by people over 18 years of age, but some restrict entry to above 21. The restrictions cut down your competition and increase your odds if you are above 25 years of age.

How Sweepstakes Scams Work

Sweepstakes is a type of consumer sales promotion in which purchasers of a particular product are given an opportunity of winning attractive prizes; winners are chosen purely by chance. People use contests and sweepstakes to defraud people. In order to recognize the signs of a sweepstakes scam, it's helpful to know the most common goals of scammers. Tell you some of the most common aims of contest and sweepstakes scams.

One of the common goals of sweepstakes scams is outright theft. Generally, the scam artists try to convince you to send those cash under false pretenses. Modus Operandi is another usual way. The way this sweepstakes scam works is that you are informed that you won their sweepstake or contest, and that all you has to do to receive your prize is to wire them money to cover taxes.

Legitimate sweepstakes do not need any form of payment identification. They do not place strings on their prizes. You won't have to pay taxes to anyone but the IRS. Some sweepstakes sponsors require social security numbers, however; this is a legitimate question to ask before releasing a prize.

Promoting your website through sweepstake

Among various marketing methods, sweepstake is an effective but not expensive way to drive traffic to website if carried our properly.

There are many benefits for those websites that offer a give-away. Take one for example; it is a free advertising for those sites. There are a number of sites provides websites lists for sweepstake enthusiasts. In order to retry visitors’ interests, the content of the lists is updated daily. The largest of these sweepstakes directories get many thousands of visitors daily.

Before starting sweepstakes, you should select a prize, usually, the larger the value is, the more interest your sweepstake will generate. If you are on a budget, you should start small and if your initial sweepstakes is successful, you can increase the prize value the next time and see if the traffic is proportionally increased.

Another important factor is that you should make the prize relevant to the interest range of your audience. If visitors click though to your website and register for the sweepstake then leave the sites without paying attention to the content of your website, the traffic directed this way is not useful. If the theme of your website is fashion, for example, a fashion book or fashion gadget will ensure that you attract only those visitors who are likely to be interested in what you are offering through your site.

It is also important to think about how you tent to present sweepstakes on your websites and what information is required for sweepstake enthusiasts to fill in. Usually the basic information that is needed is the emails address for next step contact. In most cases, the less information you need, the more entries you will get. It is wise for you if you put the form in a content page rather than on a page by itself. If the form is on its own page, the link that only direct visitors to the form without seeing the content of the site.

If you have not the experience of sweepstakes, you’d better begin with looking at other websites that carrying out sweepstakes. After studying on others, you will have a much clearer idea about how to incorporate them into their content. And you will know what is best suiting your site.

Instant Win Sweepstakes

Unlike regular sweepstakes, in which you have to wait until the giveaway ends and a winner is drawn before you know whether you will receive a prize or not, in instant win sweepstakes, you will know the result as soon as your entry goes through.

After your entry, if you are an instant winner, the winning message will pop immediately on your computer screen. Comparing with the regular sweepstakes, the instant win sweepstakes can keep the entrants’ high enthusiasms and a lot of people think they prefer this kind of sweepstakes, which can make them feel more excited.

Besides, many instant win sweepstakes let entrants play games before they find out whether they've won or not. But in fact, entrants’ performances in the game will hardly affect the result of whether they will win or not. The games are only exist to make the sweepstakes funnier and more exciting. So you can skip the game if you like, which won’t affect your choice of winning.

As for how the instant win sweepstakes run, usually the sponsors will pick a random winning time for each prize and the first person who enter the sweepstakes after that time has pass will win the prize.

Last but not least, be sure to read the rules carefully, which may help you get the idea about how to enter such sweepstakes better.

Sweepstakes marketing

Many company put marketing at the first place for their industry development. They spare no effect to do that. But most of them only know the importance of marketing and they do not have a clear mind of how to operate. In the most of times, they are busy doing their marketing without any detailed plan and long term goal. Of course, it turns out that all their efforts gains little profit.


Sweepstakes marketing is taken as a very effective way to promote brand image and product sales. Nowadays sweepstakes are extremely popular in retail industry.

Sweepstakes are used in retail industry simply as one of many promotional tools that retail companies use to market their goods, their company, and their brand. Many reasons account for the popularity of sweepstakes among retail industry, such as publicity potential and the enthusiasm they can generate. Especially with development of internet, the online sweepstakes springing up everywhere and take a great in number. Used wisely, a single sweepstakes can benefit a retail organization in a number of different ways long after names have been drawn and prizes have been awarded.

Nowadays there are many professional companies which lay out and implement sweepstakes campaign for different customers. An administration team will first help you determine whether a sweepstakes promotion is a good fit for your target demographics.

Usually, a sweepstake company serves the best from beginning to the end: including sweepstakes administration, setting up sweepstakes rules and regulations, planning and obtaining sweepstakes bonding and registration and all the important marketing, agreements, processes and details that go into creating a successful sweepstakes promotion.

Tips for Taking Part in a Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are a specialized form of consumer promotion where the incentive offered in exchange for the consumer’s entry is awarded in whole, or in part, through the operation of chance or random selection. This contrasts with Contest promotions which award the incentive or prize as part of a bona fide competition involving intellectual knowledge, skill or physical prowess according to objective criteria and in which chance does not play a role in winner selection.

When you take part in a sweepstakes, you should fill in the sweepstakes form. Your sweepstakes form should be simple, specific and clean, especially that it should be easy to read in order to avoid misunderstanding and possible legal problems. Make sure that the form is compliance with all state and federal statutes, because some states require registrations, surety bonds, insurance, etc.

There is something that you must be paid attention to. You should always avoid statements like "You are a winner". On the sweepstakes entry form, a complete set of official rules and P-O-P displays should be included and also an alternate means of entering for entries without a product purchase. Disclose all requirements for eligibility, deadline date and mailing address for the entries. You should indicate where the promotion is void (states) and the odds of winning on the form. You should also make the list of winners available upon request and award all prizes timely to avoid bad publicity.

Why Do Companies Hold Sweepstakes and Contest

Recently more and more companies or businesses use sweepstakes or contests as a useful promotion way to enlarge the Popularity of their products and services. sweepstakes and contests are really win-win situation for both sponsors and entrants: sponsors can get more customers and of course gain more profit, while entrants can get various prizes even for free. Usually sweepstakes and contest can help companies in the following ways:

Create “buzz” about a product or service: Behind every customer, there may stand hundreds or even thousands of potential customers. The most effective way of promoting a product or service is by word of mouth. So sweepstakes and contests can encourage people to talk about the sponsors and their products.

Bring traffic to the website: Online sweepstakes and contests can help the sponsors to gain much more traffic to their websites. You will never have the chance to sell your product to someone who even doesn’t know your product existence. So as long as the visitors know your products or service, they may become your clients in some day.

Build an email list for the company: Usually all the online sweepstakes and contest ask the entrants to leave their email addresses, which will be valuable resources for the sponsor to use in the future. With the email list, the company can easily promote its new products and services, in forms of newsletters, for example.

Provide market research result: Many sweepstakes and contest will require the entrants to answer optional or survey questions. Thus, the sponsor can get the information about how its potential customers think or what they need. This can help them take action more efficiently.

Anyhow, sweepstakes and contests are good ways for companies to promote themselves.

Strategies of Winning Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are a specialized form of consumer promotion where the incentive offered in exchange for the consumer’s entry is awarded in whole, or in part, through the operation of chance or random selection. Sweepstakes use the value and attractiveness of the prize incentive offered to create excitement, interest and engagement with the Sponsor’s products and services and to build the largest possible entry database. Sweepstakes promotions can use cash, products and/or services of any value as incentives and do not have to have any relationship to the products or services of the Sponsor.

Before you entering a sweep stakes, you should do some preparatory work. You should buy cards, paper, envelope, pens and a clipboard. Entering a single sweepstakes at one time is highly recommended. In addition, one can also take part in a lot of online sweepstakes. It takes a considerable amount of time to track down sweepstakes to ender. Many of the online sweepstakes do not have a deadline and they offer less attractive prizes. Most of them are only allow one person to enter one sweepstakes.

Entering as many as sweepstakes will increase the success rate, but it’s better to enter many sweepstakes copious times than entering copious sweepstakes one time each. It is statistically the best chance to win sweepstakes to get the odds in one’s favor. Generally speaking, one should enter those sweepstakes which are technically more favorable.

Firstly, one should enter the sweepstakes of numerous valuable prizes. Then, you can try the sweepstakes shown in radios and TV. Another good idea is to take part in local sweepstakes. Very attractive prizes are offered by a few of those local sweepstakes. If one is good in freehand writing or cooking, he is also encouraged to enter a contest, because these contests have far less entries than sweepstakes.

Both general sweepstakes and online sweepstakes are becoming more popular day by day. Act smart while participating in these sweepstakes so as to increase their chance of winning.