Contests

Contests.

The sandwich chain Subway recently held a scratch-off competition, but the results were only available online. Contests are a fantastic method to increase leads and sales. Here's a pro tip: always offer a "second place" that isn't advertised to everyone who didn't win. Last year, Joe Vitale announced your "second place" prize through voice broadcast and email. Although the idea is the same, I would have also added a series of direct mail pieces. 

Another excellent example of incorporating their product in the contest itself is the Nathan's hot dog eating competition. Consider testing it if your product or service is a good fit for it.

Even though consumers may not be as enthusiastic about your business as they are about Wheel of Fortune, it can still profit from contest marketing. 

Using social competition, a successful contest marketing approach can raise brand awareness, advertise your goods and services, conduct market research, and generate new leads for your pipeline. Are you using marketing competitions to connect with your audience?

Contests are a well-liked marketing strategy used by firms to attract new customers and re-engage with existing ones. Some of the most effective social media marketers employ them for brands and businesses of all sizes. They may also aid in raising awareness of a company's image and its goods and services. Contests are excellent for raising brand awareness, enhancing customer interaction, and collecting data for market research.

Contests are a novel and inventive method to interact with audiences and stand out from the competition in a digital space that is becoming more and more crowded with different businesses attempting to market themselves. 

Your contest marketing campaigns' objectives and structure will vary, but so can your strategies. Here are a few examples of contest marketing campaign types you might want to think about using to strengthen your brand:

Event-Based Contests are oriented around particular events that take place throughout the year, including holidays or special occasions. The best times to hold contests that are event-focused are holidays like Halloween or Valentine's Day as well as days with significant cultural significance (popular movie releases, Black Friday, etc.).

Polls give your customers the ability to choose from a variety of options you present. Just asking clients multiple-choice questions in exchange for a prize is a terrific way to get information. A "choose a reward" option can be added to this kind of competition, allowing participants to select their preferred prize from a list, making it a useful tool for conducting market research.

Giveaways are a very basic form of contest marketing where you just decide who to award a free reward to, frequently using a random selection process. As a means to increase engagement and perhaps even revenue, make sure customers satisfy some minimal requirements for the offer.

Quiz or trivia contests provide your audience the chance to participate, have some fun, and possibly win something. Make sure to have a mix of simple and challenging questions to fully engage your audience because people want to feel intelligent and successful. Even better, you can utilize this kind of competition to discover how knowledgeable your customers are about particular brand-related issues.

Photography contests. Photography contests are particularly effective in promoting user-generated content because they motivate viewers to share their own images in order to enter a competition. Contests like this one have the ability to increase your brand's presence in the Instagram era. Many consumers believe the posts and evaluations that come from their friends and connections, and a little visual support never hurts!

Boost Your Brand.

Improve Promotion.

The promotional advantages of contest marketing are one of its main advantages. 

In a Buzzstream poll, 45% of participants stated they would unfollow companies on social media if they spent too much time promoting and discussing their products.

Contests provide an enjoyable and involved opportunity for customers to participate with your company while also increasing brand exposure and audience engagement. To put it another way, contest marketing is a less "salesy" way to advertise your business. With user-generated content and word-of-mouth marketing, contests can help your audience spread the word about your business. This is particularly crucial when using social media because your message will be amplified and distributed much more efficiently if your audience participates.

Conduct Audience Research.

Contests are a terrific way to discover more about your clientele. You may gather a wealth of useful data on audiences using them.

Why is that?

When there is a potential to win a prize, people are more receptive to providing information and responding to inquiries. Use the opportunity to carry out some user research.

At the most fundamental level, you can gather crucial data like email addresses and other contact details that you'll use to contact clients. 

You can also inquire about the preferences and interests of your target market, which will be helpful to your marketing and outreach plans. Even the optimization of a product or service offering might benefit from some of the consumer data obtained through contests. 

Contests can be used as a method to learn from and about your audience as well as to engage them.

Lower Marketing Costs.

Marketing for contests can be done on a budget. Contests can be very beneficial when compared to other marketing strategies. For simply the price of one award and a small amount of your team's work, they frequently increase brand awareness and value. That is a tiny price to pay for good brand awareness of a high caliber. 

Don't, however, assume that every competition will end up being affordable. Don't forget to pay special attention to how much time, effort, and promotion you'll need to devote to the contest itself. Before you start, compare those costs to the anticipated advantages.

Build Your Fan Base.

A contest is an effective strategy for increasing your fan and audience base. Hubspot reports that companies that launched contest marketing campaigns averaged 34% more new fans per campaign. 

A simple, simple-to-join enter-to-win event can generate a large number of followers, likes, and interaction on social media. Along with encouraging involvement, you're also gathering crucial customer data to increase your clientele.

Boost Audience Engagement.

Contests stand out in part because of their audience engagement capabilities. 

A contest frequently differs from the standard content that brands release. People are encouraged to engage with your brand because they expect fun and have the possibility to win valuable prizes. 

Contests encourage and spread user-generated content, which engages consumers more and increases brand recognition among them and in their networks.

Activate Your Fans.

You have the opportunity to inspire your consumer base through contests. Just consider how eagerly people respond to polls posted on social media. You'll see a noticeable difference if you use contest marketing techniques like polls to increase your audience. 

Get your audience to respond and create in this situation. Your brand is succeeding and growing its reach as long as they are producing positive content that is relevant to it.

A Comprehensive Guide to Effective Contest Marketing Strategy.

A significant portion of the work required to run an online contest successfully is completed during the planning and pre-launch phase. The key is to set everything up correctly. 

Let's take a step-by-step look at how to make a successful contest marketing campaign because each activity along the way has possible pitfalls.

1. Choose contest objectives.

Determine your contest goals before deciding on the type of competition you wish to run. 

You can have the following goals in mind: brand awareness, attracting new customers, brand loyalty, promoting a product, increasing social media followers, or market research.

2. Define your audience.

This is one of the most important factors in conducting a successful contest.

Spend some time considering the characteristics of your desired clientele and how you might customize the campaign for them. This segment of your consumer base should be the focus of your marketing strategy. 

You should choose contest types, rewards, and rules that are appropriate for the target demographic based on the information you know about your clients.

3. Pick a type of contest.

Consider which kind of contest you want to run. Is it event-based, a polls, some sort of giveaway, quiz or trivia Contests, or a photo competition?

Think about the amount of effort your contest makes your viewers put in. More people will sign up for a contest the simpler it is to enter. Be aware of any entry requirements for the contest you wish to host. 

While choosing your contest style, you should also consider how much money, how much time, and how many staff members you'll need to organize and run the campaign. If you plan to run any paid advertisements online, you'll need to take into account not only the price of the prizes you'll be giving away but also the marketing budget.

4. Determine contest rules (by platform).

You may need to think about restrictions and taxes on the award depending on its worth. 

Also, each social networks have their own rules and requirements for contests. Be aware that you will be gathering personal information from them. Ensure that you are abiding by any applicable data privacy regulations (e.g. GDPR for European customers).

5. Qualify your participants.

By including qualifiers into your admission process, you can save time and effort by avoiding spending it on participants who are unlikely to become clients. 

Ask questions that weed out those who don't suit your target consumer profile and dig further than just asking for basic demographic data. Strive to pique their interest in your company, their propensity to spread the word on social media, and even their likelihood of completing a purchase.

6. Set goals and metrics.

Establish some goals that you want your campaign to accomplish. This should be related to the goal of your contest and include measures that can be easily measured. 

Your objective should be something you can track, like the quantity of contest participants or the amount of new social media followers, email list subscribers, shares, or discount code redemptions. 

Prior to starting to track metrics, decide which ones are most crucial. Prior to the campaign's launch, you should be prepared to evaluate the contest's performance so that you can follow the pertinent data as soon as it begins to arrive.

7. Select contest prizes.

For a contest campaign to be successful, the prize itself is essential. It will have a direct impact on how individuals will be motivated to enter the contest and, consequently, how well the contest performs. 

People should be motivated to take the necessary actions to enter the competition by being excited, engaged, and inspired by it. 

This relates to your budget and the cost of the prize you wish to award in order to draw in quality leads and audience participation. You should think about how the prize value and the challenge of winning the contest relate to the type of contest you're holding.

Since that levels of involvement will fluctuate dramatically across different consumer categories, one possibility is to give tier-based awards. With this tactic, you may learn more about your clients without pressuring them to opt out too soon. 

Make sure your award is in line with your offering. Using a good or service you already provide as a prize is a quick and easy method to accomplish this. As an alternative, you might come up with comparable goods or services that would interest your target client and utilize those as prizes.

8. Build urgency.

Following the introduction of your contest, you should contact contestants as soon as you can. Inform participants on the status of the competition and extend offers to those who did not win as a courtesy to keep them among your clientele (e.g. think temporary discount codes or limited time consultations). 

Provide them a special offer that is urgent and encourages immediate action. If customers don't accept the deal right away, they should feel as like they are losing out on something important.

9. Monitor, track, and test.

Spend some time measuring those outcomes. You put a lot of effort into it.  You should be able to tell whether you've achieved your main objectives at the conclusion of the contest if your measurements relate back to your contest objectives. Don't be afraid to explore the data for further insights. 

One marketing contest should serve as a learning experience that informs future contests and your bigger branding strategy.

How to Make Contest Marketing Work For Your Brand.

All eyes are on the goodies. What makes contest marketing such a successful technique is not just the prizes but also the positive value your business receives from it. 

Contest marketing offers several advantages for your brand, from improved brand recognition and greater consumer interaction to low-cost promotion and user information. 

Modern contest administration software that gives you the ability to execute competitions without any issues is necessary for effective contest marketing. With the proper platform, you can strengthen your brand and connect with your target market without squandering your hard-earned marketing budget.