Before you set up your contest, ask yourself a question. Think about the
make-up and demographics of your target audience then ask yourself, "Why am I
running this contest?" Your answer will help you focus and insure that you
run a contest that compliments the products you sell at your web site. At
times this may call for a bit of control and reservation on your part. Let
me give you an example. A cash giveaway will attract loads of visitors from
every market. After all, not many people will turn down the chance at
gaining free money. But every market is not your market. Every consumer is
not your customer.
If you are running a contest to pull in traffic to boost your site's appeal
to advertisers then a cash giveaway will prove to be an excellent vehicle at
pulling in visitors. If, however, you are running a contest to gain repeat
visitors to your site or to increase your sales, you will gain the most
benefit out of running a contest if your contest aligns with the products you
sell. Think about this. Your company sells musical instruments. To boost
your sells you could run a contest where the grand prize winner got the once
in a lifetime chance to accompany their favorite musician (who uses the same
products your company sells) to an awards ceremony.
I have seen online businesses run contests that have no connection with the
products that they sell. It is not uncommon to hear these business owners
say, at the end of the contest, that they gained lots of traffic while the
contest ran but their sells remained the same. It doesn't take much effort
to hear the frustration in these business owners' voices. When you visit
their site and read up on the contest, it becomes easy to decipher the
problem. The contest has no connection with the products the company sells.
After you decide on a contest that compliments the products you sell and also
wets the appetite of your target audience, get busy submitting your contest
to leading freebie, contest, and sweepstake directories. These directories
will bring you good traffic. One such place to start is The Freebie
Directory (http://freebiedirectory.com). From the directory you can submit
your contest to 100 or more freebie, contest and sweepstakes sites. Keep in
mind that many of these sites will request a reciprocal link from you.
Create a link page before you place your submissions so you can complete the
process of submitting your site to 100+ contest directories in less than a
few hours. Once you're in, you'll notice immediate results!
At http://www.chistell.com we recently ran the 1st Annual Chistell Poetry
Contest. The response was overwhelming!
About the Author
Denise Turney
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