Products, such as lottery tickets, are often spur-of-the-moment purchases. These types of products benefit greatly by having broadly distributed buying opportunitites. States who have flat or too-slowly rising lottery sales can experience better returns on their marketing investment by funneling more funds into retailer recruitment programs vs. other areas. Of course, this doesn’t mean that states should not create new lottery games or that states should not advertise their lotteries, but ignoring retailer recruitment can greately diminish their overall ROI.

Effective retailer recruitment programs should involve more than just telemarketing efforts to bring in new retailers. Marketing research focusing on geographically segmented demographics and buying habits should be an essential component of the program. So should investments in POS materials, training, and other support mechanisms. Even coordinating targeted advertising can be part of the overall program.

Domus is a full-service advertising and marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. We have been very successful in implementing lottery retailer recruitment programs, and see this as a continued growth avenue for state lotteries.