I do not customarily enter sweepstakes or drawings.

Why?

First, because I already have a lot of nice stuff that I have curated carefully from a crushing overflow of stuff from a variety of stuff sources that I’ve been in charge of discharging into the universe over the last decade or so.

Enough is enough already.

Second, I seldom see a prize that is my heart’s fondest desire. What that emotional circumstance means to me is that – were I to win the prize in question – I might be taking that prize away from someone to whom it might mean a lot more than it would to me. I would consider doing that unethical, therefore I don’t precipitate the possible outcome. I don’t enter.

A couple of days ago, I received an offer from a company whose customer I’ve been over the last several years, AlimaPure. I like their aesthetic. I like their service. I like their stuff. You might, too. That, however, is not the point. The point is a piece of really smart marketing they’ve just implemented.

As of this writing, they are running a sweepstakes called the “WIN YOUR WISHLIST GIVEAWAY.” The game runs thus: you sign in or register, you create a wishlist (using a form page within their site) of at least $200 in products, and you email them that you’ve done so. Easy. Transparent. And brilliant!

Here are 3 reasons this is unusually smart marketing:

• Even if you are a regular customer like me, you may never have made a wishlist, which is really just a disguised shopping list. Their site is smart. When you log in, your wishlist is a menu item right at eye level, and items can go from that list straight into your shopping cart. How many items do you suppose made that trip this weekend since the customer was there anyway and one button away from purchase?

• The $200 requirement compels you to look around a bit to hit the minimum. There’s a good chance that you are going to stumble upon an item that you didn’t know they sold, that you didn’t know you’d love, or that you had forgotten you really need…maybe right now.

• The effort required to get to the $200 minimum subtly demonstrates the price value of the per-item cost of their products. Trust me, it takes a lot longer to hit that mark there than at a lot of places I shop.

I seldom see such well-conceived customer outreach. It is as through-written as an opera. And here’s the best part, the part that will get me and a lot of folks like me to play this time:

If you win, you chose what you win.

You will never wind up with somebody else’s idea of nifty.

It will be

ALL ABOUT YOU

ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMER

Sign me up. This time, I’ll play.