Interactive Promotions – Something to Consider

Ron Dinger - September 22, 2008

At some point, we have all engaged in some form of a contest, sweepstakes, or game. We may have registered for a free trip to Hawaii, or collected Monopoly game pieces at McDonalds. As consumers, we noticed some value in these promotions and there was an incentive to engage. In most cases we either provided personal information or made a purchase.

Interactive Promotions are the engagement of consumers with the right incentive/offer to motivate a specific action using sweepstakes, contests, and games. Interactive promotions have supplied positive results for marketers, as they are one of the most powerful ways to motivate interaction on the Internet. By putting the right incentive in front of the right audience you can encourage them to act, which is one of the most successful ways to gather their personal data. This then enables you to begin a dialog with the consumer, which can lead to more relevant information and additional offers.

Various ways to leverage interactive promotions:

– data acquisition/lead generation
– generating sales
– building brand
– driving traffic
– building loyalty
– educating consumers

Marketers are taking notice of the success of this emerging marketing channel and larger budgets are being allocated to this area. Some numbers to help support this claim:

– According to IMI International, 81% of consumers have made a purchase due to a promotion.
– eMarketer noted that 80% of consumers have entered an online sweepstakes.
– In a recent Promo Magazine survey, 43.6% of marketers will increase promotional marketing budgets for this year (another 37.4% keeping same budget).
– Borrell Associates published a report that projects online promotions will triple over the next 5 years, from $8 billion in 2007 to $22.8 billion in 2012 (surpassing all other online advertising categories during that time).
– Jupiter Research consumer survey showed that 82% of consumers are willing to provide various forms of personal info in exchange for a chance to win as little as $100 in prizes.

If your company isn’t currently using Interactive Promotions to expand your business, now may be the time to consider.