Sweepstakes have gone cyber. Hoping to lure Web users with the chance to win prizes by simply surfing to their sites, several companies have begun using sweepstakes prizes as bait. Throughout the game, players are exposed to a sponsor's logos and tailored marketing messages. The sites themselves collect information on registered visitors, gathering marketing and demographic information. Sweepstakes sites rent their lists to participating advertisers and sponsors, providing them the opportunity to market to consumers who welcome such messages.
Subscribers then receive e-mail messages only on the subjects they designate.
The services provide more targeted message delivery than traditional mass marketing and yield a valuable database of potential customers for companies seeking new markets, he said. To protect its registered consumers from being overwhelmed with e-mail messages from companies renting the list, Hardigree limits users to receiving a total of three messages per week. In nine months since the site made its debut, WinDough has registered more than 300,000 members who spend an average of 50 minutes per session on the site, he said. Unlike a McDonald's or other retailer's sweepstakes, an Internet-based promotion has no paper costs involved, which lowers the overall cost, Kurland said. Further, the Web site keeps a small window active on the computer monitor.