WO2005022434A1

WO2005022434A1 - Marketing method and system using lottery coupons

Info

Publication number: WO2005022434A1
Application number: PCT/KR2004/001071
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jung-Joo Kim
Original assignee: Jung-Joo Kim
Priority date: 2003-08-29
Filing date: 2004-05-10
Publication date: 2005-03-10
Also published as: KR100473838B1

Abstract

Marketing method and system using lottery coupons are disclosed. The marketing method and system includes the first step of after inputting purchase information by a purchaser that access a operator server through a wire or wireless terminal, selling coupons (including the coupons obtained by purchasing products) to the purchaser in accordance with the purchase information, the second step of drawing winning numbers in accordance with the operator server, the third step of announcing the winning numbers through the operator server or transmitting the winning numbers to the wire or wireless terminals of the purchasers, the fourth step of transmitting mails or messages having predetermined information to the coupon purchasers in accordance with the input purchase information, the fifth step of determining the orders in which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages in accordance with the times at which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages, and the sixth step of determining winners by confirming that the winning numbers coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or messages.

Description

MARKETING METHOD AND SYSTEM USING LOTTERY COUPONS

Technical Field The present invention relates to a marketing method and system using lottery coupons on the Internet, and more particularly, to a marketing method and system using lottery coupons, which members purchase coupons and activates the use of coupons by checking specified mails containing coupon information. Coupons are allotted to have certain values and the use of coupons by the above process enters the members to a drawing for various prizes. The marketing method and the system encourage the members to check for the specified mails to increase the marketing effectiveness of having sponsor's advertisements inserted into the specified mails.

Background Art In a conventional Internet lottery system, after lottery tickets have been sold through the Internet, winning numbers are drawn and announced in public or to the purchasers of the lottery tickets through mails. In such a conventional Internet lottery system, after the lottery tickets have been sold, the winning numbers are drawn and the order of prizes is randomly selected at the discretion of the administrators. Therefore, transparency is not guaranteed in selecting prizewinners. Also, since the number of prizewinners and the amounts are previously determined regardless of the number of lottery tickets sold and the number of purchasers, when the number of purchasers of the lottery tickets is small, the profits from the lottery may decrease. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of the lottery ticket purchasers, when there is no prizewinner from a large pool of lottery ticket, there is a problem in that large number of lottery ticket purchasers may be dissatisfied with the lottery. As mentioned above, according to the lottery using the conventional Internet lottery system, it is difficult to secure and maintain a sense of fairness between the lottery administrators and the purchasers of the lottery tickets and to estimate profitability.

Disclosure of Invention In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a marketing method and a system using lottery coupons to sell coupons to members or to business to be given out to their customers who have purchased their products, so that the coupons can be used by members or customers by checking specified mails. Coupons are allotted to have certain values and the use of coupons by the above process enters the members to a drawing for various prizes. The marketing method and the system encourage the members to check for the specified mails to increase the marketing effectiveness of having sponsor's advertisements inserted into the specified mails. In order to achieve the above object, a marketing method using lottery coupons according to the present invention comprises the first step of after inputting purchase information by a purchaser that access a operator server through a wire or wireless terminal, selling coupons (including the coupons obtained by purchasing products) to the purchaser in accordance with the purchase information, the second step of drawing winning numbers in accordance with the operator server, the third step of announcing the winning numbers through the operator server or transmitting the winning numbers to the wire or wireless terminals of the purchasers, the fourth step of transmitting mails or messages having predetermined information to the coupon purchasers in accordance with the input purchase information, the fifth step of determining the orders in which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages in accordance with the times at which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages, and the sixth step of determining winners by confirming that the winning numbers coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or messages.

Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a marketing method using lottery coupons according to the present invention; and Fig. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the marketing method using lottery coupons according to the present invention.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention Hereinafter, a marketing method and a system using lottery coupons according to the present invention will now be described with reference to the attached drawings. Fig. 1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a marketing system using lottery coupons according to the present invention. Basically, an operator server 1 , a wire or wireless terminal 2 of a purchaser, and a settlement server 3, are connected to each other through the Internet 4. An operator terminal 5 is connected to the operator server 1 and has a fire wall 15 for preventing hacking. The operator server 1 comprises a purchaser management database 11 having one or more purchaser contact information having personal information of purchasers, addresses or mobile telephone numbers, the number of coupons purchased by each purchaser, desired winning numbers, information on selected settling means, and amounts to be settled; a mailer counter 12 for determining the orders in which purchasers checked mails or messages in accordance with the times at which the purchasers checked the mails or the messages; a mailer 13; and an operator database 14. Here, the above-mentioned purchasing of the coupons includes a case in which businesses purchase a predetermined number of coupons from an operating company and provides the coupons to the customers who have purchased their products. At this time, it is required that the customers who obtained the coupons through the business access an operator server and register the obtained coupons. The mailer counter 12 receives information about the time at which each purchaser checked the mails or the messages from the terminal of each coupon purchaser, calculates the number of time each coupon purchaser checked the mails or the messages from the entire coupon purchasers who have checked the mails or the messages, transmits the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or the messages to a recipient managing portion 131 of the mailer 13, checks the orders in which, the times at which, and the number of times which the purchasers checked the mails, and transmits the same to the operator database 14. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the mailer 13 comprises a recipient managing portion 131 for managing the setting of mail recipients and information transmitted from a mailer counter containing the orders and times at which the mails are checked; a purchaser contact information managing portion 132 for managing the contents of the mails sent to the purchasers and for monitoring mail transmission status so that purchaser's additional contact information is searched and checked to thus modify the contact information when the mails or the messages are not received by the purchasers of the coupons; an operator managing portion 133 for managing the transmission of the mails or messages based on a purchase management database, analysis and report of monitoring contents, reporting, and environment settings, for drawing the winning numbers and the prizewinners from the database to thus constitute contents, and for transmitting such contents to the purchasers or the prizewinners; a customer database managing portion 134 for managing the personal information and the mail addresses input by the customers; a template managing portion 135 in which a Dhtml editor is mounted, for saving and calling the template; and a statistics managing portion 136 for taking statistics on the transmission per each domain such as the number of transmissions, the number of failures, and the failure ratio after the mails are sent and for taking statistics on the receipt confirmation of the mails or the messages sent and the responses of the customers. The purchaser contact information managing portion 132 are be set to send out mails at a predetermined time to prevent the mails from being sent repeatedly. As such, when the mails are sent, the transmitted times and methods are displayed on the terminal of the operator. Here, monitoring the transmitted status means indicates the states of transmitted mails or the messages after the mails are sent to targeted purchasers. For example, the mails or messages that fail to be transmitted are distinguished from the mails or messages that are successfully transmitted based on the total number of mails or messages sent, and the causes of the failure are analyzed with respect to the mails or messages that fail to be transmitted so that, if the contact information is wrong, additional contact information input by users such as information on mobile telephones capable of receiving additional mail information or SMS messages, and information capable of receiving instant messages or the purchaser management database previously stored in the operator's database, is searched to retransmit the mails or messages. Also, information on the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails, which is transmitted by the mailer counter 12, can be sent to the purchasers by the mails or the messages. For example, when if a purchaser is the 150^th recipient who checked the mail at a specific time clicked, the message indicating "XXX was the 150^th to check the mail" is displayed on the screen of the recipient. The names of the recipients, mail addresses, whether or not the mails are transmitted, whether or not the mails are checked, and the times at which the mails are checked, which are consecutively numbered in the temporal order, are aligned and displayed on a database. Administrative operators can access the server or use an outside terminal in order to inquire the list of the coupon purchasers categorized and analyzed in accordance with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or messages. After determining the prizewinners by comparing the winning numbers previously drawn by the operator server with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails, which are transmitted by the mailer counter 12, information on the winning numbers and corresponding prizewinners is automatically generated and is provided to the operator, and the mails or messages having information on the prizewinners are sent to the purchasers. Also, when the purchasers purchase the coupons, the purchasers can settle the amounts for the coupons through the settlement server 3 via an online deposit, a mobile telephone, or a credit card. The steps of performing lottery mail marketing services as mentioned above will now be described with reference to Fig. 2. The marketing services using lottery coupons according to the present invention can be realized by announcing the number of coupons sold and the sales period on the operator server or on a home page connected to the operator server and by having users accessing the operator server through a wire or wireless terminal. The present invention includes the first step S1 of after inputting purchase information by a purchaser that access an operator server through a wire or wireless terminal, selling the coupons to the purchaser in accordance with the purchase information; and the second step S2 of drawing the winning numbers by the operator server by summing up the number of coupons sold. Here, the sale of the coupons can be restricted to a certain amount or a certain period. As mentioned above, the third step S3 of, when the winning numbers are drawn, announcing the winning numbers through a specific site accessing the homepage an operating company or the operator server 1 is carried out by the main operator server. At this time, the announcement of the winning numbers through the operator server and the transmission of the winning numbers to the wire or wireless terminals can be simultaneously performed. Then, the fourth step S4 of transmitting the mails or messages having predetermined information to the respective coupon purchasers in accordance with the input purchase information is performed by the mailer 13. In the fifth step S5, the mailer counter 12 determines and records the orders in which the respective coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages. In the sixth step S6, the prizewinners are determined by confirming that the winning numbers coincide with the orders in which the respective coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages. In the second step S2, the winning numbers are determined by the operator server 1 based on the total number of coupons sold as mentioned above. In such a case, the purchasers select and directly input desired winning numbers, and the winning numbers are determined if the numbers input by the purchasers coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails. At this time, the expected winning in the lottery when the number of winners is one or more, are divided by the total number of winners within a limited range. Here, in order to establish fairness and consistency between the total number of sold coupons and the expected winning, the operator server 1 reveals and announces particulars related to the sale of coupons such as the IDs of the respective purchasers, identification/serial numbers for the purchased coupons, and specific keys set in during the member registrations. This process prevents the expected winning from being reduced by any unscrupulous concealment and allows the purchasers to verify the coupons that they have purchased. In the above- mentioned fifth step S5, the purchasers confirm the orders in which they checked specific mails while checking the mails. This also allows the purchasers check the lottery process via mail until the winning numbers are drawn. At this time, the purchasers can check the mails as many times as the number of coupons they have purchased and can also confirm the orders in which they have checked the mails. Furthermore, the operator server or the mailer counter checks the purchaser's IP address when mails are checked and restricts the access and checks by another IP address within a predetermined time. In the above processes, predetermined information included in the mails or the messages can be in various forms such as advertisements, bills, and bulletin notices of sponsors or supporting companies. At this time, in the predetermined information, the contents of the advertisements are exposed to the purchasers as many times as the number of coupons, purchased so that maximum effects from the advertisement marketing can be achieved. Also, operating companies can forecast and estimate their profits from providing predetermined information in the mails transmitted to the purchasers by marking an agreement with supporting companies such as advertisers, financial institutions, and sponsors. Some of the operation profits can be used to increase the expected winnings of the winners. Additionally, billing statements can be eliminated by encouraging the coupon purchasers to settle their bills on-line by providing the purchasers with extra coupons. The elimination of off-line billing statements allows the operating companies to generate further income by making appropriate agreements with the supporting companies who can significantly reduce expenses since the bills are transmitted on-line. The purchasers benefit from having the expected winnings increased and from free coupons provided by the support from the sponsors. The purchase information input by the coupon purchasers may comprise one or more information selected from the number of coupons sold, desired winning numbers, selected settling means, and one or more contact information having personal information, mail addresses and mobile telephone numbers that is recorded in order to register as a member. This provides information about the purchasers under target conditions so that the above-mentioned sponsor companies can carried out target marketing under specific required conditions. On the other hand, when the transmitted mails or messages do not reach the coupon purchasers in the fourth step, the step of searching and checking additional contact information of the coupon purchasers and re-transmitting the mails or messages, is preferably included. According to the present embodiment, the basic lottery information such as the price of a coupon, a method of ranking the winners and corresponding winning amounts, a period in which the coupons are sold, and the time of drawing the winning number are announced in the operator server or in the Internet homepage connected to the operator server. For example, the coupons that are sold from Monday to Friday, the number of coupons sold, and the amount of winnings determined to be in a predetermined ratio to the number of coupons sold, can be announced on Saturday. In this case, different type of coupons can be used and a marketing method appropriate for type of coupon used can be implemented. Purchasers who have read the information on the coupons, which is announced by the operator, can purchase the coupons after inputting the purchase information which comprise one or more information selected from the number of coupons sold, desired winning numbers, selected settling means, and contact information having one or more personal information such as mail addresses and mobile telephone numbers. The purchasers of the coupons can settle the payment by using a credit card through the Internet or by a mobile telephone settlement method. When it is determined that the payment process is performed through the - in ¬

payment server, mail addresses or other contact information input by the purchasers are stored in a recipient managing portion. After the sales of the coupons are completed, the operator checks the number of coupons sold and the winning numbers, announces the same through the operator server, and directly to all coupon purchasers. The winning numbers can be drawn by the operator server in accordance with a random number generating function. Also, the purchasers can directly select desired winning numbers during or after the coupons have been purchased. For example, when a purchaser selects the number 789 and registers the same in the operator server, the purchaser wins the lottery when he or she is the 789^th person to check the mail transmitted by the operator. In this case, the same number selected by another purchaser cannot be registered in the operator server if some other purchaser has previously selected and registered the number. After the winning number is determined, the operator transmits the mails or messages. Advertisements for selected products can be included in the mails. Since the mail recipients are exposed to the advertisements at the moment they click the mails, an effective advertisement can be realized. After the operator sends the mails or messages, the coupon purchasers can check the mails or messages through their wire or wireless terminals to confirm the contents of the mails or messages. At this time, information on the times at which the respective purchasers checked the mails or messages is transmitted to the mailer counter of the operator. The mailer counter obtains the information transmitted by the terminals of the respective purchasers and determines the orders in which the respective purchasers checked the mails or messages. A technology of transmitting the information on the times at which certain users checked the mails or messages to the server, can be easily realized by implementing a conventionally known message receipt confirmation technologies with the wire and wireless Internet or a mobile communication network. When the winning numbers are drawn or determined and the orders in which the respective purchasers checked the mails or the messages are determined, the winners are selected based on the same. In determining the winning numbers, when the winning numbers are drawn by the operator server, the purchasers are determined as winners if the winning numbers drawn by the operator server coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or the messages. When the purchasers have previously selected and input desired winning numbers, the purchasers are determined as winners if the desired winning numbers selected by the purchasers coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or messages. The details of determining winners are recorded and stored in the operator managing portion. When winners are determined, information on winners and winning details can be announced through an operator terminal. In the above marking system using lottery coupons, a certain percentage of total amount generated from the sale of the coupons up to the closing date, is set and utilized for the winning amounts, and the possibility of drawing a single winning number is based on the total number of purchasers. For example, if coupons costing 1 ,000 won each are sold to 50,000 purchaser, a winning number such as "4950" is drawn from a range of 1 to 50,000, and 50% of the amount generated from the sale is allotted to the first-place winner. In this example, 25 million won from the total amount of 50 million won goes to the first-place winner, and the information announcing the winning number "4950" is sent to the purchasers via mail or messages. The purchasers then check the mails or messages by clicking the mails or the messages. The orders in which the respective purchasers checked the mails are determined by the mailer, and the purchaser who checked the mail as the 4590^th person is selected as the first-prize winner. According to the present invention, it is possible to increase the possibility of the mails being successfully delivered to the purchasers by re-transmitting the mails or the messages according to new contact information when the original mails or messages having included with selected advertisement contents do not reach the coupon purchasers and are returned. The purchaser contact information managing portion 132 monitors the returned mails or messages, and searches the additional contact information input by the users and the contact information previously stored in the database of the operator. In the above-mentioned marketing system using lottery coupons, in the step of announcing the number of coupons sold and the winning numbers through the operator server and in the step of announcing the winners and the winning contents, in order to guarantee fairness, reliability, and transparency of the lottery, monitoring is performed through outside supervisory organizations and security enterprises. In the mail marketing system according to the present invention, operators can directly sell the coupons through their owner homepage or in connection with other portal sites in a point reducing method.

Industrial Applicability In the marketing method using lottery coupons according to the present invention, since the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails cannot be altered it is possible to obtain a better transparency in the lottery process compared to a conventional lottery system. Also, since the coupon purchasers can directly select and input desired winning numbers, it is possible to attract more participants. Furthermore, since a portion of the sales amount from businesses can be provided to the purchasers (the members) in the form of lottery coupons, it is also possible to project estimated winnings in the lottery. As such, businesses sponsoring the lottery can achieve increased sales. Moreover, since the advertisements can be included in the mails or messages, the coupon purchasers can be naturally exposed to the advertisements by clicking the mails. Hence, a highly effective advertising can be achieved.

Claims

1. A marketing method using lottery coupons, comprising: the first step of after inputting purchase information by a purchaser that access a operator server through a wire or wireless terminal, selling coupons to the purchaser in accordance with the purchase information; the second step of drawing winning numbers in accordance with the operator server; the third step of announcing the winning numbers through the operator server or transmitting the winning numbers to the wire or wireless terminals of the purchasers; the fourth step of transmitting mails or messages having predetermined information to the coupon purchasers in accordance with the input purchase information; the fifth step of determining the orders in which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages in accordance with the times at which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages; and the sixth step of determining winners by confirming that the winning numbers coincide with the orders in which the purchasers checked the mails or messages.

2. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1 , wherein, in the second step, the winning numbers are drawn by the operator server in accordance with the number of coupons sold.

3. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1, wherein, in the second step, the winning numbers are determined from a pool of desired winning numbers selected and directly input by the coupon purchasers, and wherein, in the sixth step, when it is determined that there is one or more winner, the winnings of the respective prizewinners are calculated by dividing the total winnings by the number of winners.

4. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined information is obtained by combining one or more information selected from advertisements, enquetes, bills, and bulletin notices.

5. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1 , wherein the purchase information input by the coupon purchasers comprises one or more information selected from the number of coupons sold, desired winning numbers, selected settling means, and one or more contact information having personal information, mail addresses and mobile telephone numbers.

6. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of, when the mails or messages transmitted to the coupon purchasers in the third step do not reach the coupon purchasers, searching and checking additional contact information of the coupon purchasers and retransmitting the mails or messages.

7. The marketing method using the lottery coupons according to claim 1, wherein the third step of transmitting the winning numbers to the wire or wireless terminals of the purchasers to thus announce the winning numbers and the fourth step of transmitting the mails or messages having predetermined information to the coupon purchasers, are simultaneously performed.

8. A marketing system using lottery coupons, comprising: an operator server; a purchaser terminal connected to the operator server through the Internet, for receiving predetermined information and mails or messages from the operator server; a payment server connected to the operator server and the purchaser terminal through the Internet, for processing payments.

9. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 8, wherein the operator server comprises: a purchaser management database in which the coupon purchaser's personal information and contact information, the number of sold coupons, and settlement amounts are stored; a mailer counter for determining the orders in which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages in accordance with the times at which the coupon purchasers checked the mails or messages; a mailer for storing the orders in which the mails or messages are checked, which are transmitted by the mailer counter, and for controlling the transmission of the mails based on the purchaser's contact information and based on the number of sold coupons stored in the purchaser management database; and an operator database including overall information on the sales of the coupons and advertisements to be included in the mails.

10. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 9, wherein the mailer comprises: a recipient managing portion for managing the settings of mail recipients and for managing the times at which and the orders in which the mails are checked, which are transmitted by the mailer counter; a purchaser contact information managing portion for managing the contents of the mails to be transmitted to the purchasers and for monitoring the status of the transmitted mails; an operator managing portions for transmitting mails or messages based on the managing purchasers database, for analyzing and reporting monitored contents, for managing environment setting, for extracting winning numbers and winners from a database to thus form contents, and for transmitting the contents to the purchasers or the winners; a client database managing portion for managing personal information and mail addresses input by clients; a template managing portion in which a Dhtml editor is included, for storing and opening a template; and a statistics managing portion for taking statistics on the transmission per each domain, the number of transmissions, the number of failures, and the failure ratio after the mails have been transmitted and for taking statistics on the confirmation on whether the customers received the mails or messages and the responses of the customers.

11. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 10, wherein the purchaser contact information managing portion sets a predetermined time to transmit the mails to prevent the mails from being repeatedly transmitted.

12. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 10, wherein, the purchaser contact information managing portion monitors the status of the transmitted mails when the mails or messages do not reach the coupon purchasers, searches and checks additional contact information of the coupon purchasers, modifies the contact information and retransmits the mails.

13. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 8, wherein the payment for the coupons is carried out by money or a point reducing method.

14. The marketing system using the lottery coupons according to claim 8, wherein the operator server or the mailer counter checks the purchaser's IP address when mails are checked and restricts and checks the access by another IP address within a predetermined time.