U.S. instant ticket product managers were surveyed by La Fleur’s Magazine on what is most important for a holiday scratcher to maximize sales. The results follow below:
- “Most of our holiday Scratchers have a To:/From: area that supports ‘The gift of Holiday Scratchers’ holiday campaign. This campaign focuses on giving holiday Scratchers by using a Golden Greeting, an eye-catching card, that conveniently holds your favorite Scratchers for that special someone. Great gifts made from scratch!”—Michele Tong, Assistant Deputy Director of Sales and Marketing, California Lottery
- “Colorado believes having the right inventory levels for each of the holiday games is of utmost importance for a strong holiday sales season. While it would be easy to over print the holiday games, the Colorado Lottery tries to print just enough holiday tickets to get us to the week before December 25. By selling the holiday games out prior to the holidays, consumers looking for our holiday games as last-minute gifts will in-turn purchase other games thus helping to turn over older inventory which allows the Lottery to move up the launch of new games.”—Todd Greco, Scratch Product Manager, Colorado Lottery
- “Advertising plays a critical role, as do visually appealing games with a seasonal look, however there are two critical factors that are going to make or break holiday Scratch-Off sales. Simply put, inventory availability and product activation. It’s my job to make sure we have more than enough holiday Scratch-Off inventory to get us through the season. Our sales team does an exceptional job of making sure our retailers have all of our new games available for sale within 72 hours of launch and that the product remains in stock through the holiday season. The fact that they have installed more than 110,000 additional facings since FY 2015 at retail makes inventory order projections a challenge, but it’s a good problem to have!”—Justin Rock, Director, Product & Research, Florida Lottery
- “To maximize sales, we try and put together a strong holiday campaign to create buzz around the holiday line up via television and radio. We also amplify our POS and focus on our retailer newsletter to get the excitement going. For this specific ticket, we also made the overall odds some of the most impressive odds we have out there at 2.62. Lastly, we launched this $25 holiday game first, without the rest of the holiday lineup, to pique player’s interest levels and get the chatter going for what’s coming up next!”—Lucas Gangone, Director, Research & Product Development, Georgia Lottery Corp.
- “From both a graphics, marketing and PR standpoint, we play up the gift-giving potential because so much good content naturally flows from these games. Also, fully integrating the campaign in mass media and in social media gets people talking about their holiday lottery traditions, creative ways they use scratch-offs during the holidays or the reasons why lottery games make good gifts.”—Susan Clayton, Products Director, Louisiana Lottery Corp.
- “To capture the interest of new or light players and to capitalize on the ‘gift giving’ opportunity, it’s important to have a combination of both whimsical designs at the lower price points, while at the same time satisfying needs of the core players by offering cash themed holiday games with features such as multipliers. Of course, it never hurts to have an exciting second-chance contest and marketing campaign to support your program, and we have both this holiday season!”—Leslie Mitchell, Instant Ticket Product Manager, Maryland Lottery
- Concept research, prize structure, advertising support, and full market penetration. Same as always.”—Glenn Strong, Instant Game Product Manager, Michigan Lottery
- “We’ve found that using special printing techniques for the holiday games has had a positive impact at retail, adding extra value and making the games great for gift-giving. Our messaging focuses around Scratchers gift-giving throughout the holiday season.”—Bill Burton, Instant Product Manager, Missouri Lottery
- “The most important thing for a scratcher to maximize sales is for it to be on sale and in the customer’s face at retail! If the customer can’t see it, it won’t sell. The second most important is that the lottery warehouse does not run out of the holiday games before Christmas! We would rather see books returned after the holiday selling period, rather than running out beforehand.”—Kelley-Jaye Cleland, Director of Sales & Product Development, New Hampshire Lottery
- “In North Carolina, we have had success by including all of our holiday games in a 2nd Chance Game. Players can enter any of the holiday games in the promotion for a chance to win prizes up to $200,000. New and lapsed players who just buy holiday games are driven to our website and encouraged to sign up for our official lottery players club, Lucke-Zone.”—Ben Bauman, Director, Product Development, North Carolina Education Lottery
- “With all of the holiday advertising in retail we have to make sure that our holiday games stand out and attract the player’s attention. This is the reason we went with the Sparkle™ print technology.”—Ron Fornaro, Instant Ticket Product Manager, Ohio Lottery