If you want more customers (and who doesn’t want more customers) an Online Contest is a great way to get more potential customers.
You can even use them to get old customers buying from you again by re-sparking their interest in hearing about what you have to say.
Contests create a viral buzz on the information highway and when people think they can win something, it can make them take action. This can get them to your website where you can also work on selling your wares.
A contest doesn’t have to cost money to run or it could cost just a little bit of money but yield a high return. A small investment on your part could yield some huge results and what you give away might not even cost you any money!
Let’s look at a few of the ways you can use contests to your advantage in internet marketing and look at various ways to incent your customers through contests so that they buy from you, come back to buy more from you, and bring their friends.
The best use of contests for internet marketing is to use the contest to get more names on your Email List.
This list can be golden for you and the key to success online. A lot of successful internet marketers make a big chunk of their sales through their regular email list.
Get More Subscribers
Starting an Online Contest can be as simple as offering to give something away in a draw when people perform a certain action.
That action could be: subscribing to your list, buying something, filling out a survey, referring a friend, writing a post with a link back to your site, etc.
People love getting freebies and if the thing you’re giving away is free to them and considered valuable, they are likely to be interested.
What Can You Give Away?
You don’t have to spend a fortune on a contest. You can give away physical or non-physical products:
• An online gift certificate.
• A prize that’s shippable.
• An e-book.
• A membership.
• Consulting services.
• Free advertising on your site.
• A discount on services.
• Other free services.
A bit of creativity can go a long way to getting people interested and word of your contest could spread which will generate more interest. How well you promote your contests will have an impact on how successful they are.
Tips For Promoting Your Online Contest
A little bit of promotion and offering something that people will want is all you need to have a successful contest. The level of success might vary but there are a lot of ways to promote your contest:
• Post in contest forums.
• Post in forums related to your niche market.
• Put it in your signature for every forum you frequent.
• Blog about your contest.
• Write about the contest in your status updates on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Friendfeed.
• Make a Facebook page.
• Do a Google Adwords campaign promoting your contest.
• Ask your online friends to promote your contest for you.
Generating interest is half the battle in making money online. Once you’ve gotten Permission to communicate with someone you can work your magic to sell them something.
It’s not easy to get people to agree to communicate with you unless they see value in it, so after you’ve gotten yourself some new subscribers via your Online Contest, work on communicating well so that you become someone they’re willing to listen to (and perhaps buy from).
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
It’s a terrific idea to create interest around my niche by running an online contest and this also giving me reason to be blogging about my niche. VERY CLEVER!
Your creative ideas are so very helpful for online marketing.
Glad you like the idea Jill. I look forward to hearing the results from your contest
Hi Sean,
Over the last few days I’ve been watching the impact of your Learn and Earn Competition. I think it’s the biggest online contest I’ve seen and I’ve learned a lot watching the buzz that’s been created.
Since I’ve been promoting the competition I’ve had a few people send me links to their online contests. The most popular prizes seem to be everything from free advertising on a site, free web hosting, books, guest posts and more. I definitely see the value in doing this to increase your subscribers.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
WoW, that’s amazing Jazz. No doubt they are wanting you to write up another great post for their competitions
What better way to generate interest then a content. Not only do people like it because there are prizes involved, but it also brings out peoples competitive streak.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.
And by participating you gain already.
Like we do with Sean’s online contest. Yes, his page is getting more exposure, but we practice leaving great comments, we read a lot of interesting blog posts, meet new like minded people and create backlinks to our own sites at the same time.
That’s what I call win-win
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Overcoming Procrastination =-.
I guess my recent venture on the YOTA forum could be called Using Online Contests To Increase Customers. I was wanting someone to post my latest blog post to Digg etc on the SBMT and when no one did I advertised an offer of giving 24+ web 2.0 backlinks to everyone who did use the SBMT on my behalf and who then posted on my blog. It was a real win win.
.-= Wal Heinrich´s last blog ..Cheapest Granny Flats In Australia =-.
Very clever use of the contest idea Wal
I am sure you will come up with more ideas how to convince people to participate in the future
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
Hi Sean
I think online competitions are fantastic and I think you are very creative to think up this one that we are in at present.
Being in a competition is a fun. I get to meet many new people, some of them are from overseas so that broadens my horizons for new friendships. I am getting an amazing education both breadth and depth from all the articles I am reading and commenting on. My blogging skills are improving and so is my ability to say more with less words.
I like the way that even though we are competing, we are working as a team, helping and supporting each other, and cheering each other on. This had got to be the best competition ever.
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
Oh my God, we’ve been had!!!
Sorry Sean, I couldn’t resist that.
The Learn and Earn contest is a perfect example of how to effectively use an online contest to increase customers. We’ve all be happily commenting away, tweeting, digging, posting to social bookmarking sites, and all in all having a great time. Not only are you attracting more potential customers (Hell, I might even buy your book when it comes back online) but there is an amazing degree of camaraderie being shown amongst the participants.
All I can say is “Well done, my man!”
.-= Don White´s last blog ..New Ireton Data =-.
Hi Sean,
I think the ‘For A Few Dollars More’ competition is a perfect example of how using online contests to increase customers works for generating a huge amount of interest & driving traffic to your blog!
I have to be honest that before this competition I had read a couple of the posts here but nothing compared to the amount I have read now.
It is so very true that people are often reluctant to do things until they feel they have a significant reason for doing it, even when they know they should do it anyway!
Hi Sean,
I think over the next few weeks we will all be learning more about Online Contests due to your competition that’s going. You have succeeded in generating a huge interest.
That’s what I like. You don’t just say, you do as well!
Congrats Jazz! Wonderful results.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
All contests achieve getting the person to the site and if they actually get something for their trouble it is nice. Most of us are skeptics, I guess and most of us don’t actually expect to get a prize of any kind. Sean’s contest is huge and to be able to learn from him is the best prize of all.
Glad you are enjoying it Leigh, learning is certainly the most valuable prize of the whole competition
Talking of online contest, I’m actually in a really good one right now where I am learning heaps about internet marketing. Regardless of whether I win any monetary prizes, I am definately winning lots of information which is going to help me tenfold.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Anxiety Separation in Children =-.