January 24, 2020

• The Chadds Ford Business Association will have its February meeting on Thursday, Feb. 6 at Crozer Keystone Brinton Lake. The guest speaker will be Dr. Linwood Haith, the director of Crozer’s Nathan Speare Regional Burn Treatment Center. Networking begins at 11:45 a.m. with luncheon at noon. Cost is $25 for CFBA members, $35 for nonmembers. To pay online, or to RSVP to pay at the door, go here.

• It’s networking at noon for the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Jan. 30 at Hartfeld National Golf Course. The event is from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For more information or to register, go here.

• Historic Kennett Square announced the appointment of Bo Wright as its new executive director, effective Jan. 27. According to the announcement, Wright brings a wealth of experience and insight in the areas of town planning, place-making, communications, and economic development from his position as Development Director for Strong Towns, a national media and advocacy organization leading a movement of people who are working to make their communities strong and resilient.

• The Delaware Center for Horticulture and the Delaware Nursery and Landscape Association will be holding a job fair where DNLA-member businesses and employers will be looking for qualified workers for the 2020 season. The job fair will be Monday, Jan. 27, from 4-7 p.m. at the DCH headquarters, 1810 North Dupont Street in Wilmington. DCH will also be accepting applications for its 2020 Branches to Chances Green Jobs Training Program for unemployed, underemployed, and/or previously incarcerated men and women in Delaware. For more information on BtC, visit thedch.org.

Contests and sweepstakes are great ways of generating interest and expanding your reach to a target audience. If you want to increase site traffic, reward customers, and/or gain some new leads to add to your marketing efforts, then you might want to consider having a contest or sweepstakes giveaway.

Many people use the terms “contests” and “sweepstakes” as if they were the same. Technically, however, sweepstakes are prize giveaways where the winners are chosen by luck.

Contests, on the other hand, draw a winner based on some merit. The person must enter something such as the funniest picture with logo, most moving essay, tastiest recipe, or whatever will be chosen as the winner.

Sweepstakes or contests can promote your product and company, expand your current customer base, and gather contact information of potential customers for future marketing. The premise is simple – offer a prize that will entice your preferred target audience to give you their contact information and allow you to communicate with them. I say preferred target audience because sweepstakes and contests also attract people that may not be your target.

I recently entered a sweepstakes for a $100 gas card. I was willing to give my name and email address for the chance to win. The rules stated, “The sweepstakes is open to residents of the United States and Canada, age 18 and over” and “Only entries received via the official web entry form will be included in the drawings.”  This sweepstakes followed good form with the rules easy to find and read.

The sweepstakes were clearly aimed to increase new visits to an attraction by people some distance away and encourage them to stay overnight. However, I am not a target customer. I already visit the attraction regularly, and I will not be purchasing overnight accommodations. It was by accident that I found the sweepstakes when searching for something else.  But this is still a success because it engaged me and delivered the message about the weekend and overnight accommodations available.

Designing your own contest or sweepstake

When you choose to conduct a sweepstakes or contest you will have many choices to make and will need to follow some basic rules.

• You must define who can participate and who cannot.
• What is your prize?
• What time period will your promotion run?
• Who are you targeting?
• What information will you gather?
• And, have you met all the legal requirements?

Rules

In the United States, every state establishes its own set of rules for contests and sweepstakes.

The main law you need to be aware of when you run a contest or sweepstakes in any U.S. state is the “no purchase necessary law.”  This law states that you cannot require users to make a purchase or provide other forms of consideration to enter a sweepstakes where winners are randomly drawn.

States have their own rules about what sort of contests or sweeps are legal. This is where the “void where prohibited” clause comes in. The statement gives the company blanket protection against running an illegal contest, without having to research the law in each state.

Since social media makes it easier to run contests nationwide, and even internationally, make sure that you are stating exactly where the person must live to enter.

Additionally, there are Federal Trade Commission rules about collecting information from children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) limits and restricts information that may be gathered and how it may be used. “If you operate a commercial Web site or an online service directed to children under 13 that collects personal information from children or if you operate a general audience Web site and have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information from children, you must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.”

So, plan your contests carefully. Check out other contests and their rules, check your state’s rules, and get some professional advice if you have any questions or concerns.