Text to win Sms Marketing Contests are a fun way to drive leads, increase customer engagement or build your SMS subscriber list.

Giving your users an incentive — even the chance to win a small prize — makes them far more likely to engage with you over text messaging. Good prizes might be gift cards to online retailers, popular products, or even discounts or free items that you would otherwise sell yourself.

How To Use TextMarks Contest Feature

To use the Contest feature in TextMarks, click on the Promotion Tools menu under the settings for your keyword:

Then select either “Subscribe to Win” which requires people to opt-in to your text group to be eligible to win, or “Request to Win” which just requires  interaction with your keyword by texting it to 41411.

Subscribe to Win Text Contests

For “Subscribe to Win” contest, select the number of winners, specify the time frame, click the button, and you’ll have the phone numbers of your winners. All you have to do is notify them either by sending a message or by calling them on the phone directly. This is a great way to reward your user base including loyal users who have been subscribed to your keyword for a long time or narrowed down to users who just recently subscribed. This is also great way to encourage people to join your group.

Request to Win Text Contests

“Request to Win” contests allow you to choose only from people who have recently engaged with you over text messaging. This is a good tool to use at live events where you want to give a reward to somebody present but want to allow your existing group members to participate too. Remember that if your keyword is subscriber-enabled, everybody who texts it will automatically join your group too, so this is also a great way to help grow your user base.

One  way to use this feature is to run a contest like “Text KEYWORD to 41411 to subscribe to our text alerts and win a pair of tickets to this weekend’s concert. Winner will be selected from all subscribers as of Friday at 5pm” Then, all you have to do is login on Friday at 5pm, select your winner, and notify them. All the people who entered the contest will be subscribed to your keyword and you can send them SMS marketing messages for your other promotions.

One thing to note is that Sweepstakes and contests, including those conducted on the mobile platform, are among the most regulated of marketing tactics. Here are a few things to consider before creating a sweepstakes:

• All sweepstakes must offer a free Alternative Method Of Entry (AMOE). Allowing participants to enter via mail, internet, fax or Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) via a toll free number are all forms of AMOE, but are not the only forms of free AMOE.
• Anyone running a sweepstakes should seek legal guidance when drawing up rules as federal, state and local laws apply.

Not yet a TextMarks customer and want to learn more about SMS Marketing contests? Contact us and request a demo at 800-696-1393.

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The post TextMarks Tutorial: Text to Win Sms Marketing Contests appeared first on TextMarks SMS Text Messaging.