Sweepstakes and contests are a proven way to generate new leads and add a bit of excitement to your website marketing, especially when tied to online banking and/or bill payment usage (see previous coverage here). 

However, if you are a smaller bank or credit union it may be difficult to justify the overhead necessary to create a contest for a few hundred website visitors. A new service from ePrize, called Caffeine <caffeinenow.com> makes it easy to create your own professional sweepstakes or interactive instant-win game complete with optional discount coupon (see my test sweepstakes mockup above). The service was profiled in The Wall Street Journal today (article here).

The service has no upfront fees, costs about a buck per new user, has attractive templates, and is drop-dead easy to use. A first-time user could easily create an entire promotion in under an hour using the company's web-based tool.  Go ahead and see for yourself, you can create a free account and build a sample promotion (see screenshots below).

The downside is that the prize pool is shared, so your customers may never actually win, and customization options are limited. Check out <myqualitycleaners.com> to see the service in use (screenshot below).  

Using Caffeine
An online console is used to create the promotion in seven easy steps (see below). The company says you can setup a sweepstakes in 10 minutes. From my tests, I'd say that is possible; but the first time through you will probably spend closer to an hour deciding which prize to offer, which theme to use and so on. Subsequent promotions could be setup in five minutes or less.

Here's the process, which requires no technical knowledge or expertise other than access to your company's credit card to pay for it:  

1. Choose from a half-dozen promotion themes
2. Set the background color
3. Enter business info and upload your logo
4. Decide whether you want to giveaway low-dollar instant win prizes worth $10 to $25 each or use a $10,000 sweepstakes prize, then select from several dozen prize choices.
5. (Optional) Choose what type of coupon you want to offer after entering the contest. Unfortunately, the only choices are a percentage discount or 2-for-1 offer, neither of which are particularly good for financial institutions.
6. Create a budget limit, including how many times you will let someone replay the game (0 to 4), and enter billing info.
7. Copy the code for the contest banner and enter it into your content management system.

A dashboard at the Caffeine website allows you to track usage, budget, and registered users. The free tell-a-friend option allows your contest to spread virally.

Cost
The best thing about the solution is there are no up-front costs, it's all variable depending on usage. Here's the basic charges:

$1 per new registration
$0.05 per coupon printed (optional)
$0.04 per email sent (optional)
$0.15 per subsequent log-in to replay the game (optional)

Screenshots
MyQualityCleaners home page with contest banner:

OBR test sweepstakes setup showing the elements I chose for my online game: a $25 blockbuster gift card awarded daily, an interactive scratch-off game, the retro sign, my logo, and other form items:

An optional coupon shown after a user participates in the game:

The billing screen clearly shows the prices for all services and allows business owners to set a weekly budget amount: