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Using Contests to Promote Your Website

It’s always a race to win visitors.  Marketing strategies are being employed left and right in a constant effort to garner the attention of web users and drive them to our websites.  There are some tried and tested strategies that Internet marketers use, but perhaps, because of the need to innovate, a lot of unconventional ones are also making the rounds.

It is not uncommon to find a novel tactic being employed.  But sometimes, the technique so used is so unorthodox that it may even come off as weird to most people.  Though you can’t blame online businessmen for trying, since, as we’ve said, it’s a race to win visitors.

Take this for example.  I once chanced upon a website that offered $5 just for signing up.  However, to en-cash the said credits, you would have to become an affiliate and increase your funds to $500.  A cursory look at the products and the jaded Internet marketer would immediately see that it would take at least a year and a half to earn that much under the program that was presented.

Though the aforementioned tactic may seem to be a little contrived and can even be viewed as a miss, there are definitely hits in some Internet marketer’s bag of tricks.  One of them is the use of contests to win the traffic their websites need.

Contests can come in many forms, and the possible mechanics, really, are only limited by your imagination.  The fact is, there is so much you could do with contests to arouse the interests of prospective visitors and eventually win their attention.

Before we discuss some contest suggestions, let us first take a look at the many uses of contests for your promotional needs:

• Contests can help build your mailing list.  If you’re running a raffle, or a sweepstakes, for example, you could make their subscription their entry form.  They would have to regularly check the emails you will send so that they may be informed if they have won or not, and this would likewise ensure that your business messages would be read.

• Contests can also attract some visitors without having them subscribe.  You could use the built-in counter to determine who would eventually win.  For example, prizes can be awarded to the 6,000th visitors of your website.

• Contests are also excellent ways to make your visitors write content for you.  Content is king in the World Wide Web, as we all know, and you could sponsor a contest for the best-written article on a certain topic, with the condition that you would be allowed to publish the same in your website.  You won’t have to write your own content or hire an expensive freelancer then.  Your visitors would do the work for you, though not all of them are promised to win!

• If you’re trying to build up your forum, there’s no better way to compel your members to make quality posts than by enticing them with the promise of rewards.  Run a contest for the best post in every category and chances are, you will have for your business a forum bustling with activity!

Contests can most definitely spark up a level of activity on your website just like that.  There is nothing wrong with the concept, but understandably, since you would have to deal with people from all around the world, execution can be problematic.  Please consider the following guidelines in employing any contests you have in mind:

• Provide gifts that can be downloadable.  These should be digital products of good value, so that you won’t have to spend for expensive shipping charges.

• If you’re planning to run a raffle or a sweepstakes, you could make their subscription or their counter number as the basis for their selection as winners.

• If you’re running a contest that needs judging, try to get the help of established people in the industry to help you come up with a winner to avoid any partiality issues that might be brought up.

• Come up with a clear set of rules that would be available for your would-be participants to assure them that everything would be fair and equitable.  

• Disqualify the people who are close to you, either by consanguinity or affinity, to also avoid any issues of partiality that might be brought up.

Contests are excellent ways to promote your website.  But you would also have to be concerned about how to sustain their interests once the same is over.  A good quality website offering premium and unique information would be able to do the trick.  Just treat contests as advertising vehicles, and allow the strength of your website to do the rest.
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