How To Use Contests And Giveaways To Grow Your Business

Are you looking for ways to increase traffic to your website and grow your business? Have you considered holding a contest or giveaway? While these types of promotions can draw a lot of “freebie seekers” who are only interested in the prize, they can also generate a lot of buzz that will bring you qualified leads, as well.

So, you’ve decided to run with the idea? You can get really creative and have a whole lot of fun with it. First of all, take a good look at your website as well as the products and services you offer and think about what your target market might consider fun.

If your website is devoted to parenting issues, you could hold a contest where entrants describe their funniest parenting mishap or the most embarrassing thing their children said in public, etc.
You can also hold a contest centered on a new product launch. For example, if you have a website that features natural cleaning products and you are getting ready to release new products, you could offer a contest where your visitors submit their toughest or funniest cleaning disaster or their best time-saving tip for cleaning.

Next, you need to find prizes for your contests! You can offer some of your own products or services, or you can solicit prizes from other website owners. The latter can be a win-win situation, as the prizes won’t cost you anything and the person donating the prize will also get exposure and may even help promote your contest. You’ll want be sure to mention on the contest page who donated the prizes.

Okay, so you think you are not the creative type? No problem, you can simply hold a giveaway. Your visitors can enter their information into a form and you can randomly pick a winner. Again, you can offer one of your products or services as the prize or you can seek out prizes from other business owners.

Use a giveaway to increase your customer retention. Offer a giveway with a certain dollar amount of sales. If you have a service-based business, such as virtual assistance or graphic design, you could hold a monthly drawing and each time one of your customers paid for a service that month, they receive an entry form. Some of your customers may want to win a prize so bad, that they keep buying your product or services each month just to have a chance at winning.

To be successful, you’ll want to promote your contest as much as possible. Send a notice to your mailing list as well as putting information about the contest on the main page of your website and blog. If you offer a podcast, make sure you mention it to your listeners.

There are many sites that allow you to enter your contest information, and this info can get picked up and publicized by other website owners. To find these sites, do a Google search on a keyword such as “contest submission sites.” You may also want to send in a few press releases too.

Contests and giveaways can really help you bring traffic to your website. Once you start offering them, you can gauge which type your visitors like the best and you will be able to create great results.

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Tagged as: internet marketing