#210: Tactical Tuesday: How Online Raffles & Sweepstakes Can Help Your Business

OVERVIEW:

Jason A. Duprat, Entrepreneur, Healthcare Practitioner, and Host of the Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy podcast talks about the primary reasons your business should consider hosting a raffle, giveaway, or sweepstakes. He also highlights seven steps to follow if you do decide to host an online raffle to help ensure success.   

 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Raffles, giveaways, and sweepstakes help generate traffic to your website or landing page and reward people who have actively engaged with you and your business.
• They work best when you have awesome prizes your audience finds valuable and when you target people already affiliated with you such as proven buyers, email subscribers, or program members. 
• Raffles and giveaways are not ideal for audiences unfamiliar with your business. Generally, these prospects don’t have interest in your product or service - they’re only in it for the freebie. Freebies don't attract the best type of customers.
• There are seven steps Jason recommends for conducting a raffle. 
• First, determine your desired outcome. Building hype for a new product or service, growing your email list, and obtaining reviews are good options. Creating brand awareness or growing your following aren't good options. 
• Next, choose your prizes. Make sure your prizes have monetary or sentimental value. If you have high-ticket prizes, hire an attorney because you may run into issues or legal ramifications.
• Third, set your rules and a deadline to participate, and post these ahead of time.
• Fourth, promote the raffle throughout and one week ahead of time across your social media channels and via email. 
• Next, it’s time to pick the winners. Jason advises doing this lottery-style and conducting a live drawing so participants can see how winners are selected. 
• Once you select the winners, follow up. Also, follow up with participants who didn't win. Consider offering a coupon code or a complimentary 30-minute consultation call to this group.  
• Lastly, track results. Be sure to analyze if the effort was worth it. 
• There’s still time to participate in the HEA raffle! Join the HEA for Digital Businesses Facebook Group (see link in Resource section). Within the group, click the link to rate and review the HEA podcast and your name will be entered into the raffle. It only takes 60 seconds and you’ll have a chance to win a HEA swag bag, a Fitbit, or an Amazon gift card. The first drawing was 9/17 and the second drawing will be 9/24 along with the grand prize drawing. Visit the group page for further details. Jason is giving away more than 4k in prizes!

3 KEY POINTS:

1. Raffles, giveaways, and sweepstakes work best when the prizes are really good and when you invite people already in your audience. However, they don’t really bring in new customers, subscribers, or buyers.
2. There are seven steps for running a successful raffle: determine the desired outcome, choose the prizes, establish rules and a deadline, promote the raffle, select the winners, follow up with all participants, and track results.
3. Start small to test the waters and then up the ante by increasing the quality and value of your prizes.

TWEETABLE QUOTES:

“Raffles...giveaways...sweepstakes can really do a lot as far as creating some buzz...” - Jason Duprat

“Things get a lot more complex when it comes to monetizing any social media platform.” - Jason Duprat

RESOURCES:

Join the Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HeathcareEntrepreneurAcademy/

RafflePress: ​​https://rafflepress.com/

UpViral: https://upviral.com/

SweepWidget: https://sweepwidget.com/

KingSumo: https://kingsumo.com/

 

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