Create SMS contests as a complement to social networks

SMS contests are part of the strategies of many marketing agencies or companies as a complement to contests that can also be done through social networks. The reason is very simple: these raffles or contests are among those that get the most results.

What are SMS contests?

In essence the idea is very basic. Through these draws, your company will get customers, consumers, or users of your products or services to send a short message to a phone number you will provide to be eligible for a prize or a gift.

With this strategy you will achieve two very clear objectives: first of all that users have a closer and more positive idea of your company, since it is giving them the possibility to access different prizes and, secondly, the telephone number of the participants, which you can later use to carry out marketing campaigns by SMS.

Create different types of SMS contests

Starting from this simple idea you can choose different types of draws to be made through SMS. The most common is to use those in which the codes of participation or raffles are validated by instant win giveaway. Let’s see what each consists of.

1 First bullet Raffle with validation of codes: the requirement to participate in this type of raffle is to send an SMS with the code, which is normally made up of numbers and letters,  that appears on the packaging of one of your products to the telephone number indicated.

Once the code has been validated, prizes can be awarded in different ways:

• You may prefer to draw a raffle at the end of the promotion, so that the winner is not disclosed until the deadline is reached.
  
• Prizes can also be assigned based on the code sent by the user. In this case, it is necessary that the participant receive an SMS response, whether or not he/she has won.

2 Raffle for instant giveaway: similar to the previous type, but depends on the instant giveaway winner instead of the code that is sent. This can be established in different ways: prizes per number of messages sent, a prize every day or hour, prizes for the first participants in the contest only, random prizes until they run out…

This type of SMS contest will bring your company several benefits. Firstly, the satisfaction of the immediate reward is associated with the brand, and this can also go viral if the participants echo each other on social networks, and secondly, you achieve a database of customers’ phones that can later be used for SMS marketing campaigns.