Striking it rich on the Web
A contributed article from SCA Founder and Chairman, Bob Hamman

As the days and months go by, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the multitude of Web site advertisers, all of which are competing for the time and attention of your potential customers. But drawing attention to your site doesn’t require a million-dollar advertising budget or saturation of the airwaves. Rather than pin your hopes on advertising messages, why not draw users to your site with an exciting promotional contest?

On-line promotions include contingent prize contests, games and sweepstakes. These can take a number of forms, such as lotteries, bingo games and number match contests. Virtually any theme can be enhanced with an on-line promotion. For example, sports-related sites can benefit from a prediction game related to the outcome of an upcoming golf tournament or professional sports championship. Entertainment sites can offer similar promotions that predict winners of high-profile awards, like Grammys or Oscars. According to Forrester, between 50 percent and 70 percent of total Internet marketing budgets will be spent on promotions over the next five years, up from just 15 percent in 1998. So why are Web marketing executives directing more resources toward promotions? Simple promotions accomplish more marketing objectives than alternatives. In the past, the number of page views for a Web site determined whether it was successful.But now, Web site savvy is also measured by the amount of time users spend on a site, called stickiness, as well as return visits and the ability to capture customer information.

Web promotions do more than simply drive traffic to your site. On Web pages featuring promotions, users spend time entering a contest or playing a game, which vastly increases stickiness. Promotions also encourage users to register with the site, create branding and product awareness, entice prospective customers with a call-to-action and reward existing customers. Web sites that utilize promotions can accomplish, what for many is a primary Web objective, to create an opt-in customer-marketing database.

Promotions achieve all of these goals, resulting in stronger customer relationships. This makes the Web sites on which they reside more popular with site owners, users and advertisers.

SCA Promotions can provide all or part of the services needed to create and implement your promotion. SCA has developed proven products sure to draw potential customers’ attention. And since we are experienced in on-line promotions, we can develop and field new or customized products in a short time frame.