I’m excited to share a guest post from Meredith Keller of Smaller Box. Meredith recently released her first ebook, all about how to successfully run a contest to promote your brand. Today she shares some of the most common reasons why contests fail.
Contests are a great way to grow your brand. They can be very inexpensive to produce and deliver stellar results. They’re used by big brands and small ones to achieve a variety of marketing goals. They can increase sales, grow your mailing list, increase your social media influence, improve your SEO, promote brand awareness, foster customer engagement, generate media placements, and more. With such a powerful and effective tool at your disposal, you may wonder why a contest you ran in the past fizzled. Here are 3 common mistakes that keep your contests from taking off:
1. No Marketing Plan
Contests are a marketing tool, not a marketing plan in and of themselves. A contest needs special planning in order to realize its true potential. This means you’ve got to plan your contests in advance and come up with a plan to promote them.
Think about how you’ll spread the word for your contest. Will you tell your Facebook fans? Will you tell your Twitter followers? Will you alert the people on your mailing list? Will you run any special advertising? Will you pitch your contest to media outlets? Will the contest have a viral element?
An effective promotional plan can make or break your contest, so make sure the plans to market your contest are given just as much thought as the contest itself.
2. Too Long or Too Short
Think carefully about how long your contest will run. If it’s too short, you may not get very many entries. If the contest is too long people may lose interest. The length of time to enter should be based on how difficult it is to enter.
If you’re doing a trivia contest, you may only need to run the contest for a day or two. If you want your contestants to make a video or submit photos, you’ll need to give them more time.
Make sure the contest doesn’t have so much time attached to it that there’s no sense of urgency to enter. But also make sure enough time is provided for word to get around.
3. Overly Complex
The harder it is to enter your contest, the fewer entries you can expect. If you want to get more people on your mailing list, make sure you make it super-easy to get on your list. Make sure it only takes a single click to sign up.
If you want people to re-tweet something on Twitter, make a link that they can simply click to do the re-tweet so they don’t have to type. Your fans are busy, so make entering your contest as easy as possible to maximize participation.
Make sure your contest entry rules are easy to understand. Have a friend read them and make sure they think it’s easy to understand. Only make the contest entry as complicated as you absolutely need it to be. The more steps you ask contestants to take, the fewer entries you’ll get. Think about the end goal of your contest and then consider whether the entry rules are best suited to achieve them.
Meredith Keller is the author of Smaller Box, a blog that provides marketing and business information for indie ecommerce businesses.
Want more advice on contests? Want to be inspired by contests that were executed by topflight marketing professionals? Check out Meredith’s new ebook, 45 Contests! 45 Contests is packed with the ultimate collection of tips and inspiration for brands that want to host a successful contest. You’ll find:
- 11 factors you must consider before launching a contest
- 8 different ways to promote a contest
- A master list of 40 places you can easily get links and traffic for your contest
- Tactics for encouraging people to become fans on Facebook without breaking Facebook’s promotional rules
- Top notch examples of how you can use contests to:
- increase brand awareness
- improve customer engagement
- improve your SEO
- drive social media connections
- score media placements
- encourage customer loyalty and brand affinity
- increase your website traffic
- develop better products
- grow your mailing list
- drive sales
- reinforce your branding
Order your copy by Friday, and receive a $15 credit, good towards any Smaller Box product or service.
Pingback:Smaller Box :: Blog :: Link Love: The Most Valuable Small Biz Articles Posted This Week