To push sales for Mother’s Day, Sears Portrait Studio launched the “Everything’s Coming Up Mothers” trivia contest at Sears-Portrait.com on April 1.
The contest, which runs through May 8, asks consumers questions such as “Which Hollywood actress proclaimed, ‘I’ve been through it all, baby. I’m Mother Courage,'” and “Which U.S. president declared Mother’s Day a national holiday?”
Consumers who know the answers to these questions and others can enter a random drawing for prizes from Sears Portrait Studio, Sears Fine Jewelry and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM @ Sears.
There are three levels of winners, including one grand prize winner, six weekly winners and 44 daily winners. Everyone who enters the contest can receive coupons for Mother’s Day gift items, including a special 10 percent off any fine jewelry purchase from Sears.
“We’re trying to continue to build and increase traffic on the site plus offer some great values and fun for Mother’s Day,” said Steve Glickman, vice president of marketing at Sears Portrait Studio, St. Louis. “The goal from the beginning was not to only promote the portrait studio but also to have the family interact with us. We wanted to make a fun site that you can do things on. This does that and promotes the idea that it’s a great time to have a family portrait taken.”
The grand prize includes “The Photographer” Hummel statuette, a spring market basket and an afternoon tea basket. A heart-shaped wreath and the “For Mother” Hummel will be given out weekly. Forty-four daily prizes of toffee in decorative tins will also be given out.
Contests on the site have proven popular in the past. The “Hunt for the Easter Bunny” contest, which is running until Easter Sunday, has had up to 30,000 entries per week. “We don’t want consumers to enter the contest and leave. We want them to come back to see what other new and exciting things are at the Sears Portrait Studio,” said Glickman.
This strategy appears to be working as traffic has increased 100 percent each quarter since the site launched in March of 1997.
Sears promotes the Web site within all of its print media which accounts for more than a billion coupons, print pieces or other impressions offline each year.
Visitors to the site can also print out special offer coupons for individual poses or family portraits, as well as choose from a selection of more than 50 e-mail Mother’s Day cards.
Sears Portrait Studio, which is owned and operated by CPI Corp., a retail services company, has more than 1,000 locations in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
