What are your marketing objectives? Can we help you meet them while doing good? Ever want the benefits of running a sweepstakes without the hassle and cost? SweepsForACause by Giving Forward delivers direct response, branding, PR AND CSR impact, simultaneously.
Brands who want the additional PR and Social Media Buzz of awarding a prize should donate one. Brands with low budgets should select Flex Sweeps
Flex Sweeps (we provide the prize)
Giving Forward runs a cash-award sweepstakes where the prize is merchandized dozens of different ways. This is very common in the Sweepstakes world, for example PCH (Publishers Clearing House). Win $4K for a Dream Vacation is the same sweepstakes as Win $4K to remodel your kitchen, and Win $4K worth of Bitcoin.
We simply take your product or service and merchandise it as one thing the winner can do with the cash. They of course may choose to do something else entirely even if they selected your “Flex Sweeps” landing page at the time of entry
Prize Provider
You provide us with your product or service and we create a sweepstakes giving away the product you provided. Your finance team can decide whether to consider the provision of the prize a “donation to Giving Forward, a 501c3, or a marketing expense. Because we provide you visibility and often deliver against marketing KPIs, some accountants prefer to classify the prize provision and setup fees as a marketing expense.
For details see below.
While you may think of providing a prize as a “Sponsorship” we call it being a “Prize Provider” because we act as both the administrator and “sponsor” of our sweepstakes, meaning prize providers and those looking to simply have products and services merchandised as an option in the Flex Sweeps have no legal obligations other than providing/fulfilling the prize. As a prize donor, you simply provide the prize. If you prefer to use the Flex Sweeps, you get many of the benefits of a sweeps (However, you miss out on a winner actually redeeming their cash for the products or services, publicity surrounding the nonprofit the winner selected and therefore all the social media buzz generated by that). If you’ve got the budget to be a prize provider, we suggest that. If you don’t then
Each prize provider agreement includes agreed upon roles and responsibilities for the prize provider and for Giving Forward, Inc., the nonprofit that runs SweepsForACause. But in summary, all you need to do is provide the prize and discuss with us what might be feasible for us to suggest entrants do relating to your brand.
There are many benefits to being a prize provider, including but not limited to (each deal is different)
- Setting the “default” nonprofit cause for that specific sweepstakes (the cause that receives the bulk of the donation if the entrant does not override the default). Even if the entrant chooses another cause (when they do the conversion rate and donation amount are higher), 10% of the net donation value will go to the default nonprofit. It’s a win-win.
- Visibility for your business and brand. The prize is described in language that conveys just how great your product or service is.
- Good publicity for being a prize provider
- A great optional way to engage your current customers to give back to selected nonprofits is by agreeing to match their donations up to a cap for specific nonprofits. For example, Subaru is a huge supporter of the ASPCA and animal causes in general. We could feature animal causes on the sweeps containing their prize (which could be a 3-year lease or could be a car, even a used one).
- Co-registration of entrants into your marketing email list (affirmative opt-in with high level of disclosure to meet regulatory thresholds, see below for a good example of a sweeps that has co-registration)
- Additional entries for visiting or engagement with your social media profiles (some social media platforms have restrictions on incentivized “like” activities, but there are always positive activities we can use.
- Opportunity of the entrants to learn about your brand by watching videos, engaging your social media presence, or visiting pages of your website for extra entries
- Have entrants take surveys
More about Co-Registration:
Co-registration is a method to allow a subscriber (in our case an entrant), to affirmatively opt-in to a third party email list or offer.
Here’s a great example of a sweepstakes entry hosted by NASCAR where the entrant can opt in to additional email lists or offers each fully described with a privacy policy link.
