Firstly, I think its important to make sure your competition is easy to enter, not just the actual entering part itself but also the question or puzzle..you want to include as many people as possible and make it simple for them to enter..KISS - keep it short and simple..
Secondly, you should set targets for what you want to achieve out of a competition..Do you want to swell your mailing list numbers, get more facebook/twitter/myspace fans or do you want to try get sales as a direct result of the competition? For us, we want to get more fans and spread the word of LadyUmbrella..this is primarily because we are a new t-shirt brand and company..more bedded in brands may want to get sales directly from the competition..
Once you have decided upon your competition and how it will be entered with some realistic targets set now the games begin..You have to promote the life out of the competition..Get on twitter, facebook, myspace and shout about your competition (obviously don't shout aggressively though, be friendly like)..this will get you some traffic and entries..Get down and dirty with Google and see what it returns for searches like "sweepstakes submit", "online sweepstakes", "sweepstakes forums"...If you get lucky you'll find some incredible forums with thousands of active members who just live to "comp" (as they call it)..there are also lots of directory type sites for competitions that also have huge numbers using them to "comp"..Here are a few that we have used and that have been effective for us:
- www.contest.co.nz - very active forum in NZ, quite a few entries and a nice friendly forum
- www.sweeps247.com - not sure how much entries this one has given me but we do get page views from it
- www.hypersweep.com - has got a lot of traffic for me, not sure about entries/new fans
- www.gimme.co.nz - got a few entries from here
- www.loquax.co.uk - wow, got a lot of traffic from here and nice friendly forum
- www.forums.moneysavingexperts.com - also got a lot of traffic from here but be careful in the forums, you're not allowed mention your own competitions..
- www.winprizesonline.com - not that successful but they all help
- www.online-sweepstakes.com - not a lot of traffic from here but again all helps
- www.forums.about.com - not a whole lot of success here but....
Ok so, the last three listed weren't dynamite fan making entry yielding machines for me but...in this day and age of King Google it is important to get backlinks to your page to appease the SEO(verlord) and the even if sites don't give you a lot of traffic they will give you that all important backlink..hopefully some of you will find some use for the above?
Alright, I'm going to call time on this soiree...another hopefully useful post in the can..let me know how you get on with your competitions ye? and any tips that you have leave them in a comment..rock on all...
