Free Online Sweepstakes for your Web Business by Sweepstakes.com

Sweepstakes are associated with them. At the very minimum, players must simply 揹rop their name into a hat?in order to be eligible to enter to . At the end of the game, one or more winners are selected at random from all of the entries that have been submitted. The primary purpose of free sweepstakes and the prizes are to generate attention for the product or service that you are offering.

One important thing to make clear up front is that when executed properly, sweepstakes are NOT gambling. Gambling requires that a player risk some form of consideration (i.e. money). For example, in a gambling game, a player may puts $5 on a roulette table and never get it back, depending on where the ball lands. Real sweepstakes cost nothing to enter meaning players can enter for free to win.

In a properly executed sweepstakes there is NO monetary consideration and no chance that the player risks or loses money. I am sure that you are familiar with the common saying: 揘o Purchase Necessary.?Well, that is the marketer抯 way of telling you that this is a legitimate free sweepstakes. In fact, if you read the fine print, you have every right to enter any sweepstakes (depending on eligibility) and win the prizes without making a purchase.

You know that McDonald抯 Monopoly promotion they run every year? Well, you can simply walk into a McDonald抯 and ask for a ticket without buying anything. If they made you buy something, then it would be deemed 揷onsideration?and therefore gambling. McDonald抯 certainly doesn抰 want to be thought of as a casino...

The main flavor of sweepstakes is picking one or more winners from the pool of entries. In this vanilla version of sweepstakes, there is a guaranteed winner. 揝omeone is going to win a new car!?Another very popular flavor is the free lottery. A free lottery is the same as a real lottery, except that players do not pay any money or risk anything in order to have a chance to win. A major difference between free lotteries and simple sweepstakes is that in free lotteries there is generally no guaranteed winner with each draw. If the numbers match, there is a winner. If not, then everyone waits until the next draw. Another flavor of free games are online 揷ontests? In a contest, the sponsor of the game picks a winner according to the rules set in advance. For example, a contest winner might be that entrant that produces the most entertaining online video.

As stated above, sweepstakes are marketing promotions designed to drive attention and awareness to the product or service that you are offering. There are billions of web sites and pages out there today covering every conceivable content category. Let抯 pick one category as an example: Travel. If you put the simple term 搕ravel?in Google, it shows you that you have no less than 2 billion results to choose from. How can one site differentiate its offerings from the next, and so on and so on, until you get to two billion? One way, that offline (and now online) companies have chosen to try to grab a share of attention is to offer a prize, or more specifically, a sweepstakes.

Offering a luxury travelsweepstakes that has real, tangible and exciting value to the visitor can be the differentiator that incentivizes the web searcher to go to Joe抯 Travel site instead of Moe抯 Travel Site. Since the beginning of the Internet, people have flocked to anything free or anything great prizes (money, cash or otherwise) that they could win. That hasn抰 changes and will never change. Once Joe has gotten the player to visit his site, it is up to his site to sell his products, services or collect key contact information.

That prizes are highly attractive to online web surfers shouldn抰 be news to anybody. Web sites have been offering free games for cash and prizes for many years. What is more interesting is how unique and creative the prizes can be. You can find sweepstakes of all shapes and sizes online. There are $10 million dollar cash sweepstakes, one million dollar cash sweepstakes; sweepstakes that pay out every day, every week, month or year; and there are sweepstakes across many content categories: sweepstakes to have your student loans and tuition paid for, your bills paid, house remodeled, mortgage paid, groceries paid for, food cooked for a year and on and on; and there are experiential sweepstakes where you can win luxury travel, sports tickets, concert experiences and other unique once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

While constructing a great prize is important, it is critical that you not forget the original purpose of your sweepstakes which is: to get people to pay attention to what you are offering on your site so that they will consider purchase. Joe抯 Travel site may have the coolest sweepstakes around, but if he doesn抰 take advantage of each new visitor to his site, then he has lost a great marketing opportunity. This is where a professional sweepstakes administrator such as Sweepstakes.com can help you construct the experience that optimally balances a quick and fun entry with product exposure and data collection, all resulting in the most positive outcome.

So a visitor is very interested in the prize Joe抯 Travel Site is offering and will enter the sweepstakes. But he is not necessarily going to purchase anything that Joe is offering on his site. How can Joe still take advantage of that visit? Well, Joe should make every effort to collect information from that person when they enter the sweepstakes. While sweepstakes are always free to enter it is very reasonable and normal to ask players to provide certain information as a requirement for entry.

To start, you should collect each player抯 name and contact information in order to contact them in case they win! After that you should be sure to collect email address. As you know, email is a cheap and easy way to keep in touch with prospective customers. Perhaps you can follow up when you have another sweepstakes, new site content, or something else you think that visitor might legitimately be interested in. Be careful here - you need to be sure you understand all of the laws and regulations surrounding email communications, in particular, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, before you get started.

You should also ask a few questions that can help you run a better business - actionable information. For Joe抯 Travel Site, perhaps there is great value in his knowing the last place that the visitor traveled, or what information is most important to them in their travel research. Or to inform his next sweepstakes, he may ask players about their dream trip. Since sweepstakes sponsors do not require payment is it fair for them to be able to ask for additional information as a requirement for being entered into the game. (Note: A Sweepstakes Sponsor, is the person paying for the prize; a Sweepstakes Administrator is the person who manages the nuts and bolts of the game including the rules, bonding, prize fulfillment, etc.)

Another consideration is eligibility. You can define eligibility in any manner you want. If your business can only sell to residents of the United States, then there is no value to allow residents of Italy to enter your game. Additionally, if your business doesn抰 sell to children, then you may choose to make those under 18 years of age ineligible.