To understand the unique advantages of Instant Win Promotions, let’s first take a look at the process of entry for a traditional, online-entry sweepstakes: A participant enters their name and email address, clicks a submit button, and finds out days (or weeks, or even months) after entering only if they won a prize.

Traditional sweepstakes are very effective in gathering information for customer databases, increasing web traffic and accomplishing a variety of other marketing goals (for more information, view our “Why Should You Want to Run a Sweepstakes” blog post), but there are two elements missing from most traditional sweepstakes: Repeat Interaction and Instant Gratification. That’s where Instant Win Sweepstakes flex their marketing muscle.

Here are two undeniable facts: People love games, and they love winning prizes. Combine the two and you have a promotional machine that can build buzz for new product releases, create incentive for participants to visit your website multiple times, and provide a promotion that is fun and unique enough for participants to want to share it with friends and family. Let’s break down some of the advantages that are unique to Instant Win Sweepstakes:

Instant Gratification

In today’s world, when the average person wants something, they expect it now. They prefer not to wait for gratification, and therefore instant win promotions can be more attractive than traditional sweepstakes (depending on the goals you are trying to accomplish).

Consider the last time that you played the state lottery: Scratch-off games where you win instantly are great when awarding lower value cash prizes and free tickets, creating immediate excitement for the winner. The biggest payouts come from winning number tickets that are bought and held onto until the numbers are announced. With an instant win sweepstakes, you can get the best of both worlds by giving away a large volume of lower value prizes and then have the big payout and announcement one or a few high-value prizes through a random drawing at the end.

Increased Web Traffic from Repeat Visits

Is one of your reasons for running a sweepstakes to increase your website’s traffic? Then an instant win sweepstakes may be your best option. Instant Win sweepstakes with opportunities for participants to enter multiple times (once daily, unlimited entry, etc.) provide the perfect landscape to increase traffic to your website. Further, if you are offering a prize relevant to your company (one of your company’s own offerings, or a prize closely related to your offerings), those people visiting your site to enter the sweepstakes should fall into your target audience – meaning the traffic you receive during the promotion are exactly the people that you want coming to your website.

Enhanced “Viral” Potential

Having content go viral on the web is one of the best things that can happen to a business. It means that people are working on your behalf to spread the word about a new product, service, or even a promotion. By offering the chance to win prizes that are valuable to the consumer (and relevant to your target audience), and attaching a game or entry process that is unique, creative and fun, you increase the likelihood that participants will share the promotion with family members, friends and their social media networks.

Games / Increased Interaction

Who doesn’t like to have fun? If you can have some fun and potentially win a prize, that’s even better. Incorporating a game into the Instant Win Sweepstakes is a great way to increase interactivity by providing an activity that is more appealing to the public than simply asking them to type in their name and email address into a form. In addition to the allure of a fun game enticing more entries, it can also make participants more likely to share the promotion by challenging friends and family to beat their score via posts on social media.

In addition to the ability to create custom games, US Sweepstakes offers a number of ready to launch game templates that can be tailored to fit any promotion. Game templates include Spin & Win, Match & Win, Scratch & Win, Drop & Catch, and Match 3 (think: Candy Crush). For more information on these templates, and other games that can be incorporated into your business’s next instant win promotion, click here to contact us.

If you’re ready to see how instant win games can be incorporated into your business’s next promotion, click here to contact US Sweepstakes today for a free quote!