Fathead Uses Caffeine Online Promotions to Create a Dialog with Customers

We have been witnessing the rising popularitiy of consumer generated content being created for a chance to win prizes. These online contests invite people to upload videos, photos, essays and even artrwork. Now the next new wave to hit the online promotions world is a very simple and easy tool that enables any type of buisness, no matter the size or budget, the opportunity to offer customers a chance to win.

ePrize launched Caffeine at the beginning of this year...a web-based promotions platform that gives marketers the power to build their own customized online sweepstakes, instant-win and coupon-based promotions on a pay-per-lead basis. They basically have taken the pay per click model and perfected it for use with online promotions. So as a marketer you don't have to pay any up-front costs...just a $1.00 for every person who registers to play. Marketers can set their weekly budget and add or subtract to it at any time. 

When I first heard of this I thought that it sounded too good to be true. So, I had to try it out. In the right side-bar of my blog you'll see a Caffeine-powered promotion that is brought to you by DDC Marketing, my company. There are several different themed prize pools you can choose. Since this is a B2B blog I chose the Technology Giveaway promotion which offer Donna's Promo Talk readers a chance to win a $20 gift card to Office Depot and a Dell Axim with a portable DVD Player.  So, go ahead and click on the banner ad and play.

I like the instant win game over a sweepstakes for my business because it shows off the interactive scratch and win feature, plus it gives people an incentive to come back more that once to play and hopefully read my latest blog posts while they're here.

Caffeine gave me my choice of design templates and I uploaded my logo so that it's featured on the landing page. They even provide you with banner ads in various sizes. This one works the best with the blog template, although I'd rather have an ad that's a bit shorter in length. We'll have to work on that.

Caffeine is being marketed to small to medium size businesses which is a huge market for this service. I have signed up my company, DDC Marketing Group, as a partner and am now offering it to clients. I personally see this as a great opportunity specifically for blogs and thought why not try it out on Donna's Promo Talk.

I recently spoke with Alesya Opelt, Director of Marketing at ePrize to find out how Caffeine is doing now that it's been out on the market almost 3 months. Aleysa said that they are very happy with the initial response and already have signed-up many advertisers in Round 1. Each promotion has the same start and stop date and Round 2 is scheduled to begin the middle of May.

Alesya commented: "It's a very simple concept that people easily understand and it needs to be in order for the small and medium size business to grasp. It doesn't take much time to set up which is great for small business owners who don't have the time to devote to marketing. However, they may visit the builder site 4 or 5 times first before they finally decide to give it a try."

I was then introduced to a current Caffeine advertiser, Fathead, who are currently running the Spin to Win Instant Win Game. Fathead is a manufacturer and seller of dynamic, licensed vinyl wall graphics that cover many professional sports and top entertainment properties. I got to ask Aaron Chestnut, VP of Marketing for Fathead, about his reasons for doing a Caffeine promotion.

Donna: What was Fathead’s objective for doing the promotion?

Aaron:  Caffeine allows Fathead to develop a promotion quickly and easily (less than 10 minutes) and allows Fathead to choose from a wide variety of creative and prizes that fit our users’ interest.  We use the promotion as a way of providing our users with 1)  an interesting experience and 2) a mean of gathering information and permission from them to continue marketing conversation over time.  As we continue to strengthen and broaden our product line, having this permission to communicate targeted (instead of valuable) Fathead news is extremely valuable.

Donna: What was the main reason for doing a Caffeine promotion instead of building your own?

Aaron: Using Caffeine is really easy, budget-friendly and complements our permission-based marketing efforts. It allows us to constantly have a promotion available to our visitors.

Donna: What types of media are you using to drive people online?

Aaron: We use a wide variety of media to drive people to Fathead.com.  TV, search, radio, print, banners, events, etc. all play a part in driving awareness and traffic.

Donna: When did the promotion begin?

Aaron: We first started using Caffeine in November as a beta tester.  We’ve continued using the service since it officially went live in January. Our most recent Caffeine promotion has been up for about a month.

Donna: How successful has it been so far?

Aaron: We've had thousands of registrants and given away many instant win prizes. Plus our email marketing efforts to those individuals that sign up to receive word from us has been strong.

I'll be keeping my eye on how Caffeine is doing and I predict that we'll see more and more of these types of promotions over the course of this year. I plan to give futher updates that will include case studies. In the meantime you can visit the Caffeine web site and build one for yourself (you don't have to make it live) as well as play my game and Fathead's (you can keep the prize for these).

I'm really interested to hear from others in this industry as well as those who are currently using Caffeine. So, please let us know what you think.

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