Purchase-to-Enter Sweepstakes: How to Use Receipt Validation for Your Sweepstakes
Receipt validation is a key component to motivate your customers to participate in Sweepstakes.
In a Sweepstakes contest, customer receipt validation encourages sweepstakes participants to upload a picture of their purchase receipt as a method of entry for a chance to win the grand prize. By offering a prize, you are cultivating customer loyalty with your brand and obtaining useful information that can potentially drive engagement, build brand loyalty, and increase potential purchases.
Here we will cover important aspects of how to run a sweepstakes with receipt validation and their importance.
What is a Purchase-to-Enter Sweepstake?
A purchase-to-enter sweepstake is a contest in which one of the entry methods encourages customers to validate a purchase receipt to qualify for the sweepstake contest. However, have in mind that all purchase-to-enter sweepstakes must abide by the No Purchase Necessary Law in order to keep the contest legal . We highly recommend that you hire a sweepstakes or giveaway company. They will provide you with the legal tools you need to run a sweepstakes contest smoothly.
What is Receipt Validation?
As we mentioned previously, receipt validation is a very important component of a purchase-to-enter sweepstake. It’s extremely important because it is a way to reach buying consumers. By using receipt validation, you give consumers a low time consuming task such as uploading a receipt for the benefit of possibly winning a grand prize.
The two types of receipt validation are:
1. Physical Receipt Validation: Customers take a photo or scan their receipt and submit it digitally using an app or send it through text.
2. eCommerce Receipt Validation: Customers forward their eCommerce receipts to a designated email inbox.
For the purpose of this blog, we will be focusing on Physical Receipt Validation. Physical Receipt Validation is usually done through apps that use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to validate the sweepstakes participant’s receipts based on the official rules established for the sweepstakes contest. Another method for physical receipt validation is sending the images through text to a stipulated number.
The physical receipt validation process usually has the following steps:
1. Customers take a clear picture of their purchase receipt and they submit the image through the stipulated method . It is important to mention that all participating purchase receipts need to be properly uploaded and legible per the official rules to be considered as part of a valid entry.
2. The receipt is validated if it complies with the contest rules.
3. The customer will receive a text or email with a registration link.
4. The customer clicks on the link and completes the form provided requesting first-party data.
5. They complete their information. This gives you access to privileged information about your customer. You can later use this information to incentivize future purchases or send marketing information.
6. Once the sweepstakes period ends, it is time to do a random drawing from all the qualified valid receipts.
7. A winner or more than one is chosen and notified.
8. Finally, it’s time for prize fulfillment in compliance with the established official sweepstake rules and all state laws.
Why is Receipt Validation Important in Sweepstakes?
The first answer that comes to our mind when we ask ourselves this is: “Because it is the method of entry for the contest that will give the participants a chance to win a grand prize”. This is correct. However, A receipt accompanied by first-party data obtained through a form or profile (i.e.: name, phone, address, etc.) can provide the organization hosting the contest with important information that can help create customer loyalty opportunities (like Sweepstakes, punch card programs and giveaways) and increase potential purchases.
How to Use the Data Obtained in the Sweepstakes Contest?
Before implementing any strategy, your organization needs to determine what data they want to collect and how they will use it. Example: If you decide to collect your customer’s birthdays, you can use that to send birthday discounts or coupon codes.
Another important aspect to look out for when deciding what data to use is what products are your customer’s mostly using. This could bring you insight on future product ideas, future benefits, or even give you an idea on what product communications to send off during marketing efforts.
How to Enrich Data?
When thinking of first-party data, a good point to consider is how to enrich and add more specificity to the data. The more data you have, the more you can customize your communications with your customers. Examples of enriched data are communication preferences, gender, birthday, and other behavioral data.
There are a variety of methods that can be used to enhance or enrich data. The most commonly used is adding lightboxes during sign up. These can be used to get customers to sign up for marketing communications. When implementing data enrichment methods such as lightboxes, make sure you always offer a benefit in exchange for the information that the customer is providing.
As mentioned previously, the data obtained from receipt validations is extremely valuable. When implemented correctly, it can help create customer loyalty experiences that increase purchases and build brand loyalty.
How to Use Loyalty Experiences such as Sweepstakes to Obtain Valuable Data?
Customers are motivated to be loyal to a brand or an organization when they are offered incentives. Receipt validation offers the opportunity to facilitate that. The data obtained from these incentives (e.g.: sweepstakes, giveaways, loyalty programs, etc.) creates engagement. This allows brands and organizations to identify consumer behavior such as what motivates repeated visits and purchases.
The Bottom Line: Receipt Validation is a Valuable Tool For Obtaining Data When Hosting Purchase-to-enter Sweepstakes
When a brand hosts loyalty programs such as Sweepstakes it is important to consider receipt validation as an important entry method. Not only because of the convenience this offers consumers, but also for the valuable information it provides the hosting brand.
Receipt validation used in Sweepstakes can provide the brand hosting the contest with important information that can help create customer loyalty program opportunities (like Sweepstakes, punch card programs and giveaways) and increase potential purchases. Incentives motivate Brand Loyalty. The data obtained from these incentives allows brands to identify consumer behavior such as what motivates repeated visits and purchases.
As a Sweepstakes Company, we encourage our customers to consider receipt validation for their sweepstakes. Not only your customers will thank you, but you will have valuable information at hand.
