Almost everyone loves to win things and your AP customers are no exception! Contests are a great way to get your customers excited about buying our products. There are so many ways to do contests that I will only cover some basic ones but the sky is the limit as to how many you do and what kind you choose and what prizes you provide.
How to Have a Successful Contest:
Plan ahead. Decide what contest you are going to do and what prize(s) you are giving away. Ideas for prizes: a % off their order, FREE shipping, an AP item (if you ended up with an extra item and couldn’t sell it, buy it and give it as the drawing prize), a certain amount off their order ($5 or $10). Give something to everyone who qualifies or just to the drawing winner. Give away an item that you learned about in a training webinar and promote how great it is so customers will want to qualify to win it!
Give your customers plenty of time to participate. Make sure to post your contest on Facebook, send out to all customers on email, send a text, let your customers know when they pick up their order from the previous month by telling them verbally and/or handing them a flyer explaining the contest.
Remind your customers about the contest and how they can qualify. Do this several times throughout the two-week order period so all your customers know about it and can participate if they choose.
Announce the winner(s)! Once the winner(s) have been chosen, advertise who they are and what they won. Make a big deal about it! Get your customers excited for your next contest by seeing that people they may know have won something!!
Ideas for Contests:
CUSTOMER BINGO – Whether you choose a certain time frame to run your Bingo game or have it run until a certain number of people get Bingo, make sure it is very clear how many winners there will be. IDEAS: The first customer to get Bingo? Everyone who gets Bingo on Catalog #4? The first 5 who get Bingo? Find a Bingo card and more ideas for using it here: AP Bingo
EARLY ORDER CONTEST – Use this type of contest to encourage customers to get their order to you sooner than the last day! Have a different prize each month – FREE shipping, $10 off next order, FREE item, etc.
$100 CLUB – Customers qualify for this drawing when they order $100 that month or when their accumulated orders reach a $100 increment. You could give customers one entry for every $100 they order that month too. Give away one item of your choosing or let the winner choose one item up to $10 they would like to have. You could even have a box of 5-10 items they can choose from.
FIND AN ITEM – This one is fun because you can choose any item in the catalog that you want to give as the prize and then you give your customers the item number and they have to find the item and tell you what it is and what page* they found it on when they place their order to get entered to win that item. (*Ask them to provide the page number so they don’t just look it up on the website and never look through the catalog to find it.)
3-MONTH CONTEST – To qualify for this contest, your customers would need to place an order each month for 3 months in a row to qualify. I usually offer a larger prize like a case of Flat Iron Steaks for this contest to make it something customers will want to win by ordering 3 months in a row. I also usually require an order of at least $25 to qualify. **This contest is a good one if you have a lot of customers who are only ordering every other month or every three months. It could help them to start ordering every month.
$50 ORDER DRAWING – Choose an item to give away and for every $50 a customer purchases, they get one entry to win the item. This encourages bigger orders from your customers.
SPICE CLUB – (or Frozen Veggie Club or Frozen Soup Club) This contest encourages customers to buy more of that particular product line and when they have bought 10 items, they could get one free. Create a punch card for your customer to present each month or keep track yourself. (VistaPrint has business cards you can order that have a punch card template on the back or you can create your own.)
CUSTOMER REFERRAL DRAWING – Offer a larger drawing prize to all customers who refer a new ordering customer. They would get one entry for every new customer they refer. This could cover one month or 3-6 months so there are more chances for customers to enter. *It would be a good idea to have extra catalogs for customers to share or a flyer with the company website listed so potential customers can go and look at the online catalog to be able to order.
Depending on the type of contest and the prize(s) you offer, it will cost you to do them but please remember that you are investing in your business when you do these and the prizes that you give away are a tax write-off for your business. Give these contests a try and do them for more than one month. Sometimes it takes a couple of months for customers to catch on that someone is going to win!!
Please contact your RSM if you want to do a contest and need ideas or want to run your idea by them.
Good luck!! Becky Price, RSM
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