How to Run a Successful Facebook Sweepstakes
Most companies have a Facebook Page. Unfortunately, few are doing anything with them to generate leads or increase sales. One of the most effective social media marketing strategies that I have seen are Facebook sweepstakes.
In this article, I will take you through the steps required to run a successful Facebook sweepstakes.
Choosing the prize
There are a few things to consider when coming up with a prize for your sweepstakes. The first is determining your target audience. Think about who your ideal client is. What would this person like to have as a prize? Is it your product or service or something complimentary to your service? Maybe you want to go a different route and give something away that is extremely popular at the time (like an iPad) or something of high value (a weekend getaway). All of these options can work as the prize is something people want. Note that when you give something away like your products or services, you may not have the same number of entrants as an iPad would bring but the quality of entrants to your business will be higher. For example, if you were a restaurant giving away a free dinner, you may have less people enter than if you were giving away an expensive electronic, but the people who entered are probably a better lead for your business.
You can still get quality entrants if you give something of high value away but you need to be a little more strategic in the way you market to these types of people. A great way we found to market your sweepstakes when giving something expensive away is by targeting your Facebook ads at people who are fans of your competition. The thought behind this is if they like your competition, they will probably be open to learning more about what you have to offer as they have already shown interest in your type of industry / offering.
Choose the right length of time
How long do customers have to enter your sweepstakes? A lot of companies think the longer the sweepstakes the better because it gives them more time for people to enter. This is not always the case. The longer the sweepstakes is, the more expensive it will be to promote, and the greater the chance for people to lose interest before the sweepstakes ends. The person who entered the sweepstakes on week one now has to wait months, depending on how long the sweepstakes is, until they know if they won or not. A lot can happen in 3 months so the odds are that person completely forgot they entered the sweepstakes or they don’t care anymore.
What is considered a long sweepstakes? There is no set-in-stone answer but I have seen the best results for sweepstakes running between 4 & 8 weeks. As with any marketing, gather all the relevant information you can, use best practices, try it out, and measure the results. See when you get the most entrants and when you see the entry rate start to fizzle. You don’t know how long is too long until you’ve tested it out.
A good way to keep entrants interested is by sending weekly update. You could post a status update on your Facebook Page wall stating how many people have entered, what prizes have been given out, how much time is left, and how people can improve their chances to win.
How to promote the sweepstakes
The biggest mistake people make when running a sweepstakes is they don’t promote it. People seem to have this sense that everyone cares about what is going on with their company, when the opposite is true. People are extremely busy and out of the 24 hours in a day they are thinking about your company 0% of the time. So by just creating a sweepstakes, putting a post on your Facebook page, and sitting and waiting, you are going to get nothing.
To run an effective sweepstakes, you should allocate the majority of your sweepstakes budget to promoting the sweepstakes. Below are a few ways to effectively market your social media sweepstakes.
Facebook Ads
Facebook allows you to be very targeted when setting up ads. When setting up your Facebook ads think about the following:
- People in a specific geographic location (if you have a local company)
- People in your ideal age range
- People who share interests in your type of product or service
- People who have shown interest in your competition
- People who are married or single
- People of a certain age range
Email Blast
Another way to market your sweepstakes is through an email blast. I know you already have these peoples’ contact information but if they do enter the sweepstakes, they will have the option to share it with their friends.
Put it on your website
Also, be sure to put information about your sweepstakes on your website. Create a banner that links to the entry page.
Offline Marketing
Be sure to include information about your social media sweepstakes on your offline marketing pieces as well. Some examples might include a sign at your retail store by the checkout counter, on your menu (if you’re a restaurant), on your direct mail pieces, publications, and radio and television commercials.
Encourage people to share
We ran a contest once that gave a prize to the person who referred the most people to sign up for the sweepstakes. This takes a little more advanced tracking but the word got out very fast about this sweepstakes as many people shared the sweepstakes with their networks. By doing this we saw a 900% increase in Facebook fans in 90 days!
Follow up
When done correctly, your sweepstake should have produced a targeted list of contacts and email addresses. Make the best use of this list by putting together an offer for those who did not win the grand prize. I would recommend sending this list an email thanking them for entering and include an aggressive promotion enticing them to try out your product or service. This email should be sent no later than 1 week from the end of the sweepstakes. If you wait too long to send the follow up email some people might have lost interest or forgotten about who you are and what you do. While your company is still fresh in their minds, send the promotional email.
Don’t be a one-and-done
Once you’ve completed your first sweepstakes, take a step back and see how well you did. Answer the following questions:
- How long was your sweepstakes?
- How many people entered it?
- What was the entry rate
- What days had the most entrants?
- How did you promote the sweepstakes?
- How many people shared the sweepstakes?
- How many new customers did it produce?
- How much revenue did it create?
Take this information and put together a plan on how you can do better next time. Things to think about for the next sweepstakes include:
- Should I shorten or lengthen the sweepstakes time frame?
- Should I switch the images at the top of the form?
- Should I add or subtract any fields on the entry form?
- Should I edit the Facebook or Google ads I ran to promote the sweepstakes?
- Should I run more ads on certain days?
- Should I add a prize for the people who referred the most entrants?
- Should I give a different prize?
These questions will help you improve the results of your first sweepstakes for the next time. Remember to always focus on constant improvement when it comes to marketing your company online.
What types of social media sweepstakes have you run? Let us know how it went and if you have any helpful tips by posting a comment below.
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