And the Winner is ____? Most people would love the opportunity to put their name in that phrase and be a contest winner. Some people join any type of contest regardless of what it is just to get free stuff. Free stuff is awesome. We know that. A social trend that is picking up steam on the Internet is online contest marketing. Learning how to do online contest marketing effectively will get you a ton of free website traffic. There are plenty of ways that you can conduct your own contest to tie into your products or services offered on your website or blog.
Why Contest Marketing is So Useful
Free stuff is what usually attracts people to a contest, but branding is the ultimate goal that you are after as a contest marketer. The quality of free goods is important and something that you would want to put next to your company name. Contests build a buzz. People talk and get excited about contests. What contests do is get more eyeballs looking at your website, your products and services and checking your “about us/me” page. You would normally have to pay for that kind of attention. Contest marketing comes through in a big way to help your business build traffic online.
How to Setup a Contest
You don’t have to be a great talker or writer to get people interested in signing up for your contest. The first thing that you must establish is what your contest will be about. You can have as many contests as you want, but you must decide in advance what will draw people into your website. The second thing to establish is what you will give away to the winner. This sounds like the easy part although it can be as complicated as you make it. If you are marketing your own products or services, giving away some freebies will get your name out there.
One cool way is to get donations from companies that are similar to your line of business or in your industry. Most companies love giving away something for free to get the extra perks of free advertising. You can ask around, send emails or do social media website blasts to other people or business owners to get some free stuff. Donations make great contest freebies.
There are a lot of free tools that you can use to make it effortless to start and market your contest online. Here is a list of some of the best tools to get your contest up and running very quickly.
List of Online Contest Marketing Websites
• ContestHound.com
• ContestBurner.com
• ContestBlogger.com
• MyBlogContest.com
• AContestBlog.com
• ContestPad.com
• Online-Sweepstakes.com
• YouTube.com
YouTube is a great way to market contest promotional videos and you can even get videos to help you made on Fiver for $5.
It’s your contest. You are in total control. You get to be the judge and jury. It’s an exciting feeling. Just keep the people that sign up for your contest in mind the entire time. You goal is to build traffic, sustain traffic and make more sales with online contest marketing all at no cost to you. Well maybe just $5 on Fiverr.