We’ve mentioned before that a contest or promotion can be a great way to drive traffic to your site and get customers through your door–here’s a perfect example of that, courtesy of Portsmouth’s own New Hampshire Film Festival.
The NHFF recently announced the winners of their 2011 sweepstakes. The grand prize winner Dan Young received a night’s stay at the Ale House Inn on Bow Street and two VIP passes to the NH Film Festival, and 10 runners-up will get pairs of weekend passes to the festival. NHFF used a combination of on-site promotion, social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter and an email marketing campaign to promote the contest.
This is a great promotion for two reasons–it gets the word out, and it also draws in people who might not otherwise go to a film festival. Some film buffs might not have known about the festival at all, while other casual movie lovers might have thought it wasn’t their cup of tea. If you won a free ticket, though, why not check it out? And because NHFF provides such a quality product–an amazing weekend of film during the beautiful New Hampshire fall–they hook new devotees with these promotions.
The sweepstakes also drives clicks and interest to the Ale House Inn which–you guessed it–was completely booked up for the festival weekend. The Ale House is a small boutique hotel that opened in 2009, and stands to benefit from giveaways like this that generate a lot of online sharing and word-of-mouth. (It’s also the first hotel in the world to offer iPads in every room–how cool is that?)
So, to recap: This giveaway brought attention (and clicks) to two very cool organizations by offering a chance to win free passes and a night at a trendy hotel. Even entrants who didn’t win learned more about the NHFF and the Ale House, and many of them probably turned out to enjoy the festival anyway. Those who did win may have discovered a new favorite fall tradition. This very same principle can work for your business.
We should mention that there are quite a few rules that govern online contests and giveaways, so before you post your giveaway, make sure it’s legal!
