Is this e-commerce launch promotion a winner or loser?

I'm thinking of offering 3 x $50 gift certificates for the first order received from each of the 52 states. The product's range in price from $69.00 to $139.00. Winner or loser?

from the context you are providing so far (more details about your market would help), I agree with Joseph that this type of promotion is most probably not going to motivate buying behavior.

You want to evoke chain reaction where people who try and buy will refer your product to their networks of friends, family, colleagues. You should think about the promotional mechanism how to reward those who refer the product for doing so. Also give them some tool to encourage their friends to try.

This could be also supported by communication. Constantly encouraging your existing customers to refer the product for further benefits. You can consider territorial launch as well. (instead of invading all the 52 states at once, roll it out state by state)

Sounds like a losing launch promotion to me.

Too shallow to be of much benefit or to motivate.

The main problem I can see is that the incentive essentially only lasts a day. After that people will think (correctly) that they are unlikely to win anything after that.

I would have say 100 gift certificates to give away in the first month. Its also better to have one or two higher prizes than lots of smaller ones.

ie.

one $500
five $100
ninety $10

Assessing the viability of an individual promotional activity outside of the context of a marketing plan is like assessing the line a line code for quality without knowing the desired function.

This might be a great promotion. Whether or not it is the best use of $7,800 is difficult to evaluate.

This is the additional information I would need to understand in order to assess the validity of the proposed launch promotion:

• What type of advertising or marketing would be wrapped around the promotion to support it?
• What additional marketing is being done?
• What are the gift certificates to -- and how does that related to your market?
• Have you confirmed the validity of the offer in all 52 states?

My gut tells me that this would not motivate buying behavior. If I am going to order I will order. The resulting gift certificates would be an added bonus on the back end. If i assume that others are like me -- then I would presume that the dollar investments would be better spent on other elements of the overall marketing plan.