Sweepstakes and Contests: Handle Internally or Hire a Sweepstakes Administrator?

By: Sync Marketing | In: Best Practices, Contests, Legal and Prize Fulfillment, Marketing, User Generated Content

We may be a bit biased when it comes to whether or not you should handle a sweepstakes internally or hire an administrator, but we hope the following tips will lead you in the right direction. Whether you’re a marketing agency or an international corporation, these questions will help you determine if you’re equipped to handle a sweepstakes or contest, or if you need to call the experts.

1. Does your in-house legal counsel specialize in promotion law?

Promotion law is very specific. Just recently, Facebook changed its policy to no longer allow entrants to share on Facebook that they’ve entered a sweepstakes or contest in order to earn extra entries. Using a legal team who specializes in promotion law will allow you to stay up to speed on these types of changes so that you know you’re running legally-compliant promotions. You can read more about the policy change here.

2. Does your creative team know how to design mobile-optimized websites?

These days, a lot of consumers enter sweepstakes through their mobile devices and it’s important that your site is mobile optimized to provide the best consumer experience. More importantly, you must have a creative team that understands how to design for a mobile optimized site to ensure your site will run smoothly. It’s also important to know the difference between mobile-friendly, mobile-optimized and responsive sites, and determine which one is best to use for your sweepstakes or contests…but that’s for another post. 🙂

3. Does your ideation team know the difference between a sweepstakes and a contest?

It is not only imperative to know the difference between a sweepstakes, but it’s also important to know which one to run to achieve your goals. Are you looking to obtain user-generated content or are you looking for data capture? To learn more about the differences between a sweepstakes and contests and which one you should run, check out co-founder Julie Link’s article on the very subject, here.

4. Is your accounting team set up to handle winner paperwork and issue 1099’s at tax time?

Whenever the total ARV of your prize is over $600, you will need to obtain a W9 from your winner and then 1099 them during tax season. Your accounting team will need to gather this information during the year, submit the information to the IRS and answer all consumer calls that come after you send the 1099. Co-founder, Jennifer French, has a lot to say about this topic, here.

Hopefully we have helped make the decision of whether or not to handle a sweepstakes internally or not, a little easier. And if you have decided to hire an agency, please give Sync Marketing a call! 323.596.7962.