888-472-3849
Free Shipping
Free Online Proof

How Businesses Can Drive Loyalty and Retention Through Raffles by Micah Mack

How Businesses Can Drive Loyalty and Retention Through Raffles by Micah Mack

 

Raffle tickets offer up unlimited potential in and creativity which can both be multiplied when used in the context of a business. While the initial premise of the raffle tickets can be to raise money, drive exposure or to collect potential customer information, when done correctly, it can also be used to drive loyalty as well as optimize on promotional and messaging strategies among retail and service industries.

Within this new modern age of technology, there are several ways to utilize raffles and enhance upon its traditional capabilities. In the case of a business, a raffle ticket is an asset that ties a potential customer with valuable data that can be aligned with a technological asset, such as a smart phone to allow for data warehousing, message delivery and most importantly, measurable impact.   For example, if a raffle is held either in support of a cause or for a promotional giveaway, those raffle IDs are a gold mine of information. Once respondents sign up for the raffle and the unique ticket identifier is recorded, their personal info can either be recorded manually or electronically (app or tablet sign-up). As they input their information, their ticket ID will be assigned to their profile.  These actions are basically creating a loyalty database. Once the raffle is over and the winner has been selected, there ends up being more winners to be had both from the prospective customer end as well as the business end.  Opportunity exists If by participating in this raffle entitles those who entered, exclusive access to specials, deals and member only promotions, and the key or “ticket” to those deals, exists from that unique raffle ID. And that ID now either resides stamped or barcoded onto that ticket or now easily accessible via their smartphone by which it is always an accessible asset that can be used in during transactions with your business.

While the business now has an exclusive membership panel of potential customers, that doesn’t necessarily equate to loyalty or frequency just yet. As a business, it’s now important to begin to track, measure and segment behavior based on the promotional messaging acceptance, timing and or seasonality of penetration.  By segmenting out your promotional strategies into such buckets such as, Reward, BOGO, Free Trial etc., it allows the business to now track whenever that ID from their initial raffle ticket is either entered into the promo field during online checkout, or scanned at the register.  That information is thus tied back to the respondents’ information and the business can begin to better understand what drives conversion, response rates to particular promo types and regional differences that exist among your shopper base. It also allows for customer segmentation strategies to drive trips, drive higher basket rings and incentivize appropriately. For example, tying back the raffle IDs to the  demographics may tell you that households with children in them in the South are more likely to engage in BOGO ads, especially in the summer vs Millennial households overall are more responsive to 20% price reduction deals especially on the weekends.

This targeted approach makes those promotional tactics more cost efficient and more impactful to the bottom line. It creates a winning situation in that the customer gets what they desire most as well as the business is meeting that need in a more efficient manner. The information allows for the business to pull he strings that matter and to impact those they wish to affect (Example: Improve loyalty on non-loyals and retain loyalty for loyals). As the process becomes routine, it then becomes a scalable course of action by which the company can replicate the raffle in lookalike markets or tweak the raffle type / incentive, or market to attract a certain desirable demographic. Once this process is replicated, the business is essentially already equipped as to how to target and appeal to their potential customers from the previous targeting and tracking exercises.

Raffle tickets are a gateway for businesses to acquire knowledge and optimize their strategy by using those raffle identifiers and extracting the prospective customer details and monitoring their engagement or conversion behavior. Raffles are a continuous path to new and developing capabilities, which in the end; align both the people and business into a stronger connection and a more meaningful relationship.

Help Micah Mack's pursuit of a scholarship award by clicking the “sharing is caring” buttons – click on this link:

http://raffleticket.com/blog/how-businesses-can-drive-loyalty-and-retention-through-raffles/

Contributed by Micah Mack

December 1, 2015