Sales promotions are becoming more creative as simple discounts no longer give consumers the same perception of value they once did. Boost your promotional scratch card campaign with these key principles for success.

A quick history lesson: In 1887, Coca-Cola distributed what is widely agreed to be the very first coupon, offering recipients one free glass of Coke. Throughout the course of the promotion it’s been said that a total of 8,500,000 free drinks were given away, and Coke eventually solidified its position as one of the biggest household brands in the process.

More than a century later and nearly every business, brand, and organisation use similar promotions to broaden their customer outreach and increase revenue. But today’s consumers have grown savvy to these widely used sales tactics, no longer giving the same perception of value they once did.

The very ubiquity of consumer deals, discounts, and giveaways no longer excite customers. More to the point, trying to temp your customers through the doors with impersonal promotions can come across as a lazy and disingenuous way of demonstrating customer value.

This is something we mentioned in our feature about winning customer loyalty with scratch card marketing.

Emotions play an extremely influential role in the success of any kind of promotional campaign. A promotional scratch card is a great way of reframing your campaign as a fun and creative customer experience, evoking the kind of emotional response that endears customers to your brand — breathing new life into a common sales tactic as old as, well, as old as Coca-Cola.

With that in mind, here are 3 key principles of any successful promotional scratch card campaign:

1. Promote exclusivity

When it comes to making customers feel positive about your brand, you have to make them feel truly special. Creating a sense of exclusivity surrounding your promotion is the real cherry on top of the customer experience cake — yes, they’re getting access to something great, but exclusive access is even better!

Whether you’re giving away a free gift or discount to the first one hundred people who purchase a product, or you put a time-limit on your promotion, customers are likelier to seize the opportunity when they’ve been ‘selected’.

And if you are being truly selective with your promotion, it makes sense to go this approach, as smaller print runs with a specific demographic can be more cost effective. After all, it’s better to pick your target audience and market to them thoughtfully than blanket absolutely everybody.

2. Promote urgency

Urgency may be another factor that encourages customers to take advantage of a promotion when the opportunity falls in their lap. The fear of missing out is an effective motivator, especially when a deal is too good to pass up.

Unlike exclusivity-based promotions, however, urgency-based promos evoke emotions way on the other end of the intensity spectrum — a strong sense of eagerness and excitement that can be leveraged to strengthen the bond between the customer and your brand.

3. Promote an element of chance

This probably won’t come as any surprise. Scratch cards are, after all, most synonymous with prize giveaways and other kinds of competitions. But that shouldn’t undermine their overall effectiveness when planning your next promotional campaign.

While consumers are certainly wise to the ways competitions are used by organisations to capture leads, cross-sell products, or broaden brand awareness, there’s still the element of chance in the whole ordeal that most people simply can’t say no to. In other words, the irresistible urge to scratch.

It’s the same kind of emotive response you would evoke when promoting a time-limited deal, but with an added dash of hope and the anticipated ‘pleasure’ of winning thrown in for good measure — a powerful cocktail that momentarily disarms consumers against openly transparent sales tactics.

Of course, it’s always important to distinguish between gifts and ‘prizes’ when running any kind of scratch card competition. You need to be absolutely clear in your messaging, and not for one minute over-exaggerate the recipient’s chances of actually winning.