A successful sweepstakes promotion is designed to help you build a following and attract new customers. You may be wondering if it’s possible to restrict participants by gender in order to avoid having participants enter who are unlikely to become customers.

Here is what you should know about restricting participation by gender for a sweepstakes.

How Specific Can Your Entry Requirements Be?

The law permits you to limit your sweepstakes participation by age, gender or form of media. In the case of forms of media, this would apply if your company uses direct mail to reach a male audience, for example.

You are also permitted to limit your sweepstakes entrants to a particular trade. For example, you can set your sweepstakes to only be open to licensed plumbers, trade show attendees, wholesales, etc.

How Do I Restrict Participation in My Sweepstakes?

If you want your sweepstakes to be limited to entrants who meet certain criteria as defined above, you must provide the details in your sweepstakes Entry Requirements in your Official Rules.

For example, you can write:

“you must be a male, age 21 or over, and a recipient of this magazine to enter this Sweepstakes.”

to limit the eligibility to that specific group in your Official Rules.

This type of restriction is designed to reduce the sweepstakes audience to specific buyer personas. Discrimination that is otherwise prohibited under law is not permitted in this context and would void your sweepstakes under the law.

A Note of Caution About Limiting Your Audience

When restricting participation in your sweepstakes to a smaller audience, there is the potential to overlook would-be customers that don’t meet your current profile. Therefore, it’s best to leave your promotion open to as many people as possible which will increase its potential to go viral!

Eligibility Restrictions + Verification Requirements

Make sure to mention in the Official Rules that verification of eligibility will be required in order to claim the prize. You may require participants to submit valid proof of age. You can also require entrants to submit proof that they are a member of the eligible group by providing receipts, such as from a subscription payment or a one-time attended event.

Survey Your Entrants

A pool of targeted entrants is the perfect opportunity to get to know your customers better. Take this chance to survey your entrants with additional entry form questions so that you can find out more about how your audience interacts with your brand.

You can also conduct follow-up surveys to learn more about how your entrants felt about your promotion, whether they liked the prizes offered, the pace of the promotion, etc. To thank them for their time, offer a discount or coupon for your product or service.

Need help with sweepstakes or contest management? Call 305-505-5393 or email us with your questions.

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Want to make sure that you have everything you need in your sweepstakes rules before you launch? A crucial component of any sweepstakes is notifying the winners. 

There is a right way to do this to ensure that your sweepstakes ends on a positive note and that you’ve covered all of the necessary legal aspects.

Here is how to handle winner notification in your sweepstakes rules.

Date That Winners Will Be Notified

Your sweepstakes rules should include the approximate date winner(s) will be notified. Specify the exact methods you will use to notify them (e.g. mail, email, phone or SMS). For best results, use more than one notification method to ensure that the winner receives the notice in a timely manner.

The winner notification date should be within no more than a week after your sweepstakes ends so that your entrants will not have forgotten about the sweepstakes. 

How Long Winners Have to Respond

Once you have notified the winner(s), it’s their responsibility to reply to claim their prize within a reasonable timeframe. As a result, your sweepstakes rules should specify how long winners have to respond to a winner notification. If they don’t respond before then, they will forfeit their prize and you will select a new winner. 

Here is an example:

“The Winner will be required to respond to the notification within seventy-two (72) hours indicating whether he/she can accept the Prize. If no response is received within the time allotted, an alternate Winner may be selected.”

The response timeframe can be a few days, a week or more. Once this timeframe has expired, the original winner should be notified that they have forfeited their prize and the new winner should be notified immediately.

Sweepstakes Winner Eligibility Confirmation

After the winner has been notified, they must then confirm that they are indeed eligible to win by providing some additional information. Make sure that your sweepstakes rules mention that the winner must complete these extra steps before you will deliver their prize.

Some examples of extra steps include submitting valid identification for age verification purposes, signing an affidavit/release, and proving their Social Security number for tax purposes.

Notify the “Losers”

Finally, don’t forget to let the non-winners know that a winner has been selected. For the entrants that didn’t win, having a clear and smooth process for winner notification will increase their chances of entering again. With Sweeppea, this process will be handled automatically for you. 

Need help with sweepstakes or contest management? Call 305-505-5393 or email us with your questions.

The post How to Handle Winner Notification in Your Sweepstakes Rules appeared first on Sweeppea Blog.