Lucky Door Prizes - Tips To Make Them Legal And Work For Your Business

Many businesses use competitions and lucky door prizes as a way of generating leads or building their data base. But if done incorrectly you will end up losing customers and could even find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

So how do you run lucky door prizes or competitions that are legal and get you brilliant results?

Top 10 Tips for competitions

1. Work out your intent. You need to know why you are running the competition in the first place. Is it to qualify leads, get email addresses for your database, get a new marketing slogan, and get feedback on your product or some other purpose? Start with the end in mind. When you know why you are running the competition you will adjust the prizes, competition form and process to best match your needs.

2. You need an entry box. A lot of people use clear bowls or fishbowls for people to put their cards into. These don't keep the details private so could breach privacy regulations in some locations. The best option is a solid sided cardboard entry box. You can buy a gift box and cut out a hole or buy a blank entry box from a cardboard box manufacturer. You can of course get one purpose designed and built for you. For online competitions I suggest setting up a separate email account just for each competition to keep your entries separate.

3. Somewhere to lean on to complete the forms. People need somewhere to lean on to fill in the forms. If the table you use is too low or you force people to sit down to complete the forms, many people won'T bother entering. Make sure your table is the right height for people to lean on (and no handing out clipboards with forms isn't the solution. Many people are juggling bags and kids so can't juggle a clipboard as well). Being comfortable also works for online competitions. If your form is tricky to complete you can expect people to click away rather than stay.

4. Make it obvious. Your competition needs to be located at the front of your trade stand or your office. It needs to be clearly and obviously signed so people can find it and are encouraged to enter. Put a banner on your website letting passing traffic know about your competition and where they can find you to enter.

5. Tell people about it. Tell your regular clients about your competition as well as your new clients. You could also tell some of the major competition sites ... where the site collates competitions and lets their members know so they can enter them.

6. Make it worth their while. Giving away a low value item is not likely to generate much interest in your competition. Make the offer enticing with high perceived value.

7. Protect their privacy. You need to make it very clear how you will handle their personal details. Will you pass on their information to other people? Will you contact them to send them marketing material? You need to tell people what you will do with their information. Give them an opt-out box for them to tick if they don't want to receive any further information from you (and respect that tick in the box if you don't want to fall foul of Spam Laws and Do Not Call Registers).

8. Sort out your legals. Many locations have strong rules around the operation of gaming including Lucky Door Prizes.

In Queensland the Office of Gaming Regulation Inspectors check every stand of almost every expo or tradeshow for compliance. You need to download the Guidelines for Promotional Games and comply with items such as retention of entries for 5 years, the order of drawing prizes, written terms and conditions which must include things such as:

a. the name of the person running the promotion
b. Eligibility requirements for players
c. Description and retail value of each prize
d. Closing and drawing dates
e. Order the prizes will be drawn
f. How winners will be notified
g. Whether the results will be published and where
h. What will happen if the winner is not present at the draw
i. Any elimination rounds

It almost goes without saying that of you run a competition you must honour your commitments and actually award the prizes (unless you get no entries at all). Running a competition and not awarding the prizes can see you before the courts.

9. Follow up promptly. If you are using the competition to generate leads or create a data base then follow up on all entries within 14 days of close of the competition. You may want to consider hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) to convert the entries or business cards into a database for you. Pre-book your VA so they have time to do your data-entry when it arrives. When following up remind the person where you got their details.

10. Trumpet the winners. If you can get their consent, get photos of the winners that you can use in your marketing and promote the details of the winners to your mailing list and local media. Most people love the spotlight (and other people love to know the inside of other people's lives). Good news stories are great for business.

If you follow these top 10 tips you will improve the response to your competitions and lucky door prizes and get more "bang for your competition buck."

About the Author

Ingrid Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter with her Brisbane Copywriting Business (Heart Harmony). Ingrid writes a free weekly small business newsletter packed full of articles and tips and Small Business Ideas blog for small businesses. www.heartharmony.com.au

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10 Resourceful Ways to Recycle Digital Or Small-Ticket Products

Have your product sales slowed down?

Do you want to give a new lease of life to one of your digital or small-ticket products?

At home, I've earned the title of 'Queen of the left-overs'. Did you know that left-over spaghetti sauce can be recycled? Add a bit of cumin and chilli, it becomes taco sauce; mixed with a bit of white sauce, you have a lasagna sauce; add a few vegies, wrap the lot in puff pastry and you get a pastie, etc.

Using the same principles, you can recycle a product and market it using a different mix: change your promotion, sell it elsewhere, use it to barter, bundle it with another product, etc.

Start recycling a product using one of the following strategies:

1 - Auction your product on eBay or another auction site. How much are customers prepared to pay for your product? Use this strategy to research your market and to experiment with a new selling outlet. Who knows, people in their bidding frenzy may pay more than you ever imagined!

2 - Reposition your product. Review your promotional and pricing strategies and give your product a new image. Change your sales letter (including words and graphics), add testimonials, increase or lower the price, etc. Now sell your 'new' product.

3 - Offer your product as a bonus with the purchase of another product. Sell the bundle as 'this month's special', 'buy one get one free' or 'value pack'. The bonus should boost your sales especially if you point out the dollar value of the bonus e.g. 'valued at...' and add a sense of urgency 'limited time offer till (date)'.

4 - Give to get. Ask visitors on your website to complete a survey and reward their effort with a gift, your product. Provided your product is relevant to the type of information you are seeking, this should yield a list of qualified leads and supply you with new ideas to create products and boost your business.

5 - Sell your product as a promotional item. This is a strategy I have used very successfully. I've bundled signed copies of my book from my first printing batch into packs of ten. Businesses bought them at volume discount price and gave them as gifts to their loyal customers.

6 - Increase your database by giving away your product for free as an incentive to join your mailing list. Your offer can be advertised for free on the online free stuff sites. When visitors are picking up their freebies, capture their email addresses and you will gain a valuable mailing list. (Note: this database building strategy will only work with digital products or else you will be out of pocket if you have to pay shipping costs.)

7 - Swap your product for things you need for your own business e.g. exchange your ebook for a software or another ebook. Your savings will make up for your profit loss. At a conference, I swapped my book for books from my colleagues.

8 - Organise an online contest and offer your product as the winning prize. This a cheap price to pay for free advertising for your product through online contest directories.

9 - Donate your product for an attendance or raffle prize at non-profit associations' events. In return, the organisation usually promotes your business by giving you an advertising space on their website or promotional flyers.

10 - Approach businesses with complementary products and find out if they would be interested in bundling their product with yours. Build on each other's equity and share promotional costs and profits.

Left-overs are delicious. Recycle your product for a new lease of life.

About the Author

Henriette Martel is a website strategist, author of 200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website and director of the Australian Training Guide, Australia's A to Z Training Database and Resources for Speakers, Trainers & Coaches.

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Top 10 Ways To Get More Prospects Excited About What You Sell

If you want to increase your sales then you must get your prospect really excited about your offer. Not just your product or service but the whole package of benefits theyll receive by being your customer.

Theres a whole bunch of ideas you could use that, added together will mean they can hardly wait to whip out their credit and buy from you.

Try these top 10 ways to get more prospects excited about what you sell.

1. Benefit-packed copy

Load your copy with benefits that meet the needs of your prospects. Turn your features into benefits and pack them throughout your copy. Write your benefits in Whats-in-it-for-me-terms WIIFM to get people excited about buying what you are offering.

2. Back up that reads delicately comparable to you talk

A correct tip here is to be in contact in a conversational tone. Delicately comparable to you are chatting to an being. In specific its a good guidelines to picture a big wig correctly in front of you, sedentary in a chair, and youre chatting to one another. Who is that individual And whatsoever is it that you are expression to themselves Keep in touch in that tone and it will understood such as an exciting 2-way dialogue.

3. Annoyance-calling it quits make a copy

Empathise along furthermore your readers disappointment and let each other get hold of you not certainly comprehend their disappointment but understanding a resolution to their affair.

4. Virtual journey of your style or package

Take your likelihood on a "cruise" via your organization and showcase your process and staff. Or show your make or facility. Contains audio and picture to make a really courageous connection.

5. Show how esoteric recruits taste fared by the use of your type or provision

Come into sight your opening how peculiar staff are accomplishing the solutions they are surfing to get. Its testimony that it goes and contributes confidence that "if it runs for them, itll work for me". So thats bold. You can use tributes or case studies or certainly enlighten a tale and for the certain impact use pictures, audio or movie to showcase valid people.

6. Irresistible award backed up by "excuse why" make a copy

Award so much examine that your chance must hold advantage of it or feel inane if they dont You can give bonuses that worth you precisely immature to bring forth such as without charge related reports, interviews or e-books also costly perceived evaluate. Or side up also a non-contending interest and get an introductory ticket to their services to souvenir to your clientele. Consider to locality a dollar judge on each item so that combined, they add up to and audacious and irresistible provide.

7. Abet possibilities consider whatsoever it may possibly be akin to to own whatever you market it

Paint a envisage. Aid possibilities consider their ideal "fill-in-the-bare". Walk them
via their day. What gets to variation for each other when they own and use your make or service

8. Future Pacing

This is an extra formula procedure where you paint a envisage. Take off along furthermore the business they are receiving correctly now that you can get to the bottom of. Afterward illustrate how by the use of your type or facility will carry each other from where they are "at a loss for words plus that problem", to how it will be for each other trailing the chase every time thats all subsequent to each other.

9. Sell the sensation of your make or package

We all discern that staff buy on emotion. So make definite youre merchandising on sentiment. Enter the articulation where your opening is at. Tap into how they believe regarding the affair you are running to answer and stir up that emotion. Then deliver your solution.

10. Jog her memory chances how they will glance and consider in front of their friends and family unit

Ruminate of the very last time you purchased a new car. Did you want to come into view it off We all required to impress. Its chap wildlife. So jog her memory your possibilities how they will gander and trust in front of their friends and relatives whenever they buy and use your type or package.

So put one or two or all of these scheme into your publicizing and I guarantee you that people will be a lot of additional energized with reference to what you tolerate to award. When youve got each other animated you can get each other to want to respond and carry behavior.


Regarding the Inventor

Quick feedback advertisement counsel Kathleen Ann is the "Advertisement Champion for Small Interest and entrepreneurs". Handing over straightforward way and gears you can use to increase sales and profits. Sign up for her free audio studio

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