Tips on promoting Set For Life

A newsagent recently commented about me on a private Facebook page of The Lott retailers. Mentioning me, they said:

he hates Tattslotto, & thinks he’s the king of retailing. He’s a VERY nasty individual, who loves to incite hatred for anything Tatts, or anything not branded ‘newsexpress’. If he had his way we would all become gift shops, selling bug-eyed soft toys, bobble heads, & jigsaw puzzles. Financial reports need to be read in context with what was happening at any given time.

A friend told me about is as I am not in that group.

I reached out to the person who wrote this, to discuss their opinion. They refused. It got me thinking and researching. While I am on the record calling for better, fairer, treatment of newsagents by Tabcorp (formerly Tatts), I am also on the record with plenty of instances of providing advice supportive of the sale of lottery products. I sought to discuss this with the above correspondent, but they didn’t want to listen.

Here is one of many available examples of my support for lottery products. It is from August 3, 2015. Here is my post from then:

Making the most of Set for Life in the newsagency
Mark Fletcher
August 3rd, 2015 · 1 Comment

While I don’t have lotteries in my newsagencies, I have been helping a few newsagents engage with Set for Life to make the most of the launch opportunity. This is important regardless of Tatts also offering it online.

Here are my tips for launching this new game in your business:

1. Know the target demographic. All I have read suggests this game will appeal more to a younger audience than traditional lottery games in Australia. Play to this demo in your marketing.
2. Talk about the game online, on Facebook and other platforms where you represent your business.
3. Tell stories about what the $20,000 a month could mean.
4. Run a competition on how would you spend $20,000 a month.
5. Consider launching with a competition or promotion where one customer wins a $8.40 Set for Life ticket – run this for four weeks.
6. Look for stories from the US where major prize winners have been able to take prizes monthly for many years.

It is not too late to go big and loud in promoting Set for Life as it will take some time to build interest in the new product. It is essential you do more than sell the game across the counter.

I have two points to make in writing about this: 1. Set For Life is a game that benefits from promotion. The above advice is useful today and, 2, I am not against lotteries. Rather, I am against any supplier that treats retailers in the newsagency channel unfairly.