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).
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.AussieSEO.com 2010
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