Running a contest is more than gaining your audience attention about a product or service. It involves a broader picture often overlooked; it’s about what they remember long after the contest is over. Whether you’re selling branding t-shirts teens or offering seminars on the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) to budding entrepreneurs, there are specific aspects that make for a winning contest.
Look at the bigger picture
The purpose of a contest is mostly to create awareness and appeal to current and prospective customers, but it ought to also increase a brand’s appeal. What do you want people to remember you after the contest? Emotional appeal is one of the factors that top brands ensure they incorporate in their marketing efforts to remain in audience mind for longer.
Think specific
Often time marketers miss out on making the most out of a competition or marketing activity by forgetting to state who their target market is. Whether selling to teens or budding entrepreneurs, your messaging needs to be clear about who ought to take action. The giveaway should reflect hat your customer, both current and prospective, value. Be mindful of offering something exclusive to that event that is of quality. It should be something they desire to have that, without the contest, they are unlikely to have.
Encourage sharing
An approach most brands use is the appeal of having their audience do something active that will increase their chances of winning. Using the example of social media, one can encourage people to like the page or post, use a hashtag or retweet content as an indicator that they are legible to take part. This method not only increases the social media following and engagement, but it also exposes those in their circles to your content and thus increasing visibility.
Use paid social ads
When running major marketing events, a handy tool to use is ads. The success of a contest cannot solely rely on people sharing your content; there is more that can be done to increase reach and visibility. Social media and Google provide marketers with the options of paid ads that get tailored to the specified audience. The ads have come a long way as now a person can insert keywords and phrases, location and age among other specifications and reach the right people.
Follow up
After a contest, you want to thank everyone that took part to make it a success. Don’t take people’s actions for granted despite their motivation for doing so. That way, they feel valued and will be more willing to particulate in future contests when they know that something is in it for them too.