The key to any successful promotion is the advertising you do to drive traffic to your promotion.  Without the right advertising, the best-planned promotion is doomed to fail and will not meet any of your marketing or sales objectives.  So how do you create effective advertising that makes your promotion stand out and grab the attention of your audience? 

The purpose of this post is to provide you some tips and ideas on successfully planning and implementing your next prize promotion.  Here are a few tips to getting the word out about your promotion . . .

Promote The Offer In Store
Make sure everyone passing by your location knows about your promotion. Post banners or window posters that announce your big offer and reel in new customers . 

Make sure your promotion is adequately promoted throughout the store as well. Post counter cards, shelf talkers and other props to spread the word while customers are shopping.

Include a Call to Action
What does your customer or prospect need to do in order to participate? Clearly and succinctly communicate what is required to take advantage of your offer.

If your promotion requires registration, make it easy to do so. Prominently display registration forms or a registration box inside your store. Form partnerships with other businesses to be part of your promotion and place registration stations in their locations as well to draw in a larger audience.

Have Plenty of Stuffers on Hand
For an affordable fee, you can print full color double-sided business cards and postcards at online printing companies such as Overnightprints.com and Vistaprint.com. Print enough to distribute both in your store and to other retailers, as well as public places your targeted demographic frequents.

Rally the Media
Make it easy for media outlets to pick up your story bycreating a press release and “Q & A” that fully explanins your promotion.  If you’re giving away the chance to win big money, your event might be perfect for a radio tie in. In fact, the station might be willing to help you develop the concept and even bring in co-sponsors to offset the cost.

Submit Promotion Information to Online Sources
What are the popular Web sites in your community?   Every community newspaper has a Web site. Contact them directly with information about your promotion. They’re always looking for content, and even if the print version does not have room, they may be able to fit your story in online.

There’s a two-fold benefit with submitting your story to blogs and Webs ites: your story can get you on placed on popular  Web sites, which can then increase your own search engine ranking. Include keywords in your story that describe your product or service. Your story, with your company name, connected to important keywords in a story on a popular community site will give you a better chance to get traffic to your own site.

Promote through and with other Businesses
Is there a business out there that has a huge database of customers that fit your target market? Consider partnering so you can tap into their database and co-sponsor the event. This can work well for shopping centers and malls that benefit from the same traffic flow. The partnership could extend to advertising as well – include their logo on your advertising in exchange for helping you advertise. 

Consider Co-op Direct Mail
You may consider approaching direct mailers such as Val-Pak. There might also be an opportunity to cross promote with some of their other customers. You could offer free dinners, oil changes, etc. from another business as secondary prizes while they could promote your event in their store.

Plan Ahead
The only way to effectively leverage the “wow factor” of a big promotion is by planning ahead so you can mobilize the many outlets available to spread the word. Several months in advance, rally partners, notify the media, gather ideas from friends and family and plan an event that could dramatically impact your business success.

Get Creative!
The bottom line is to have fun and project fun. Your promotion is the perfect opportunity to build that relationship. If you’re a dry cleaner and a competitor down the street has comparable pricing and service, you can differentiate your business by the EXPERIENCE that you create for the customer.

There are dozens of ways you can get creative including decorations, flyers, banners, posters, props, balloons, streamers, audio announcements, direct mail, receipt coupons, on-hold messages, email, and much, much more.

Good Luck!