This is a guest post by Akira who loves earning money online and dreams to be a successful Internet Marketer.
Blog promotion can be done by mean of paid promotion or free promotion. Example of free promotion includes guest blogging and blog walking. Meanwhile, paid promotion can be done by direct advertising, pay per click etc. But, there is an effective way of blog promotion that only a few blogger know about it or try to do. The promotion technique is called contest.
Contest is an activity where you provide an award to the lucky participant who did what you ordered. We cannot put contest in either paid promotion or free promotion category since the prize of the contest might be sourced from our own pocket or from sponsors. But instead of discussing it here, I would like to discuss the effectiveness of contest to promote your blog.
The Power of Contest
The effectiveness of contest depends on the purpose of the promotion. Are you promoting to move your Google page-rank up, to multiply the amount of comments, to increase the total number of incoming visitors, or to look for a word of mouth promotion for your website. Thus, selecting the type of a contest is very important. Before we talk about how to create a good contest, let’s take a look at illustration below:
The above illustration is an example of one of contest information organized by a blog about movie review. What can you conclude from the above illustration? The contest in that blog is organized for the purpose to produce word of mouth of that blog. The result is very effective. The indicator of the result is the total of 715 incoming comments.
Ok, if you have not understood, I will try to explain utilizing the above example. In the illustration we can see that the total number of incoming comments is 715 comments.
Do you know that the article is a contest where the participant has a chance to win Apple iPad 64GB with a condition that they have to create tweets or facebook share about that blog. Let’s say that not all of the incoming comments come from people who are interested to participate, so let’s take only 20%.
We can imagine that with a contest, this blog has got 20% x 715 = 143 tweets or facebook share directed to that blog. At the end, certainly it will affect the popularity of our blog or even increase the rank in terms of Google Pagerank. I call it as “The Power Of Contest.”
Will Every Contest Achieve Its Purpose?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. I frequently see forum posting contests or blog promotion contests with very few participants. It is because of the lack of knowledge in creating a good contest. Below are some brief and secret tips so that any contest you arrange will successfully achieve its purpose…
Brief And Confidential Tips To Create Successful Contest
1. Select A Type Of Contest That Suits Your Promotion Purpose
The above illustration is an example of a blog who creates a contest with an intention to get word of mouth for that blog. Contest of tweeting and facebook share is the right choice to incredible viral marketing. When Smartbloggerz hold Commenting Contest, the incoming comments to this blog was in the amount of thousands. Therefore, selection of the contest type is very important.
2. Offer Attractive Prizes
The bigger and more the prize offered, the more people would get enthusiastic to participate in your contest. The prize offered should not always come from you. You can find a sponsor who is willing to provide the winning prize for the contest concluded in your blog or forum, of course by returning a benefit to that sponsor, such as by providing sponsorship credits etc.
FIRST SECRET: Contest with a cash reward is more appealing than other type of reward.
3. Promote Your Contest At The Right Spot
Promoting your contest is crucial to let a lot of people know about the contest, so that they are interested to participate. Promoting a contest in other blog or forum that has few visitors is a waste of time. Promote in a forum that has a lot of member or other blog that is having a lot of visitors.
SECOND SECRET: Do you know that on the internet, there are some people who actively participate in online contests? I call them “Treasure Hunter”. Typically they have a specific blog that publishes information about contests in the internet. You can contact them, and they will gladly publish the information about your contest in their blog.
4. Completeness Of Information About Your Contest
Ensure that all the information about your contest is complete. People will get less enthusiastic if the information about your contest is not clear. What I mean by information is: how to participate, the prizes offered, the deadline of contest, when and how the contest winner will be announced. By providing this information completely, people will think that you are serious in executing the contest.
Last Words…
By adhering to the above-mentioned tips and secrets, I am sure that your contest will be an effective one and will achieve its purpose. I have seen a blog that organized a promotion contest. That blog had a page rank of 0. But, after the contest ended and Google updated its Page Rank; that blog got a Page Rank of 2. It is incredible, isn’t it? Hence, promote your blog through contest in an effective using the tips mentioned in this post.
Top 10 Search Terms:
• promotion
One of the main goal why blogger holds a contest is to promote their blog. I was considering to run a blog contest before but I don’t much time to promote it or even look for sponsors. So in the end, I just help other blogger’s contest by being their sponsor. It also helps me gain popularity and links because the contestants have to ‘link’ or promote the sponsor’s website too. lol
The secrets you have mentioned are really helpful. It didn’t run on my mind when I was thinking of holding a blog contest myself. I though it will be difficult so I didn’t continue my own contest.
Very timely for me too. However, I am still confused between promoting or commenting contest. On one side, I would find a lot of backlinks. But on the other side, do not you think a blog with lots of incoming links but have less comment is not too satisfactory? Well, except if your blog is not really thinking about it, probably because your blog’s purpose is to monetitazion. So I want to ask for an opinion, which is better between promoting or commenting contest?
Combine it up, promoting and commenting contest. So, entry point is available both for comment or promoting. It’s easy 😀
really appreciate what you wrote akira. though some points are known but some were not in my head before reading it. I agree with the point that sometimes, or i should say many a times, the blog contest do not achieve the thing what was thought before starting it. Anyway, looking forward for more from you. 🙂
@Anurag : Yeah people should try it first. Even some of blogger and forum is making a routine contest to attract visitor.
@All :
For all reader, this is my friend Anurag Bhateja, and i ever participate when he hold a commenting and promoting contest in his blog. Just ask him, what he get from the contest?
Just to inform, i’m the winner 😛
contests are indeed a good way to increase some traffic and also to make/keep your existing visitors happy.
I organsied already some small give-awayas anf for example this week I give away a (dutch) copy from the book “a 4 hour workweek” which I have double at home.
Even if the value is only 12-13$, it’s already a nice present for a small contest which is going really well.
Yes, it’s also “thanks” event for existing visitors. So, how your contest going on? It is attract not only existing visitor but also new visitor?
Very interesting article. I do not have a blog, but has a community forum. Maybe the contest could also be applied to promote the forum. I will try it soon. Hopefully it can attract many new members.
What I concern from your article is the negativity effect of that contest that can make people not wise and manipulated. It because they can forget about the meaning of blogging itself which provided people with useful information to them but it can change to provided an opportunity for them to win the prices which offer from that blog. The blogging is becoming loss from it’s purpose. Can you imagine if all blog use that method? I bet the the other information in that blog is merely becoming dull.
C’mon Andy, contest is not more than the way of promoting, not to make the true meaning of blog dissapear. I know there is a participant who only come from contest, win the prize, and then go, but not all participant is like that. Some of them will be your real visitor. Don’t worry 🙂
seo contest is the most attractive kind of contest I think. It seem very powerful to buzz pagerank and it would be good if u can get a sponsorship to provide some attractive prizes. One important thing we must consider when arranging a blog contest is time schedule. When we have to start promote the contest to get many participant as we can, how long the contest will go for, and of course the term and conditon.
nice post btw.
That’s what i mean by completeness of contest information. Let list it more complete :
– What is the contest about?
– Start and end date, complete with time zone area (for example end on 10 June 2010 GMT+3)
– List of prize
– Requirement to participate (how to get entry, what is forbidden, etc)
– How the winner determined? (Random or based on point)
– Sponsor of contest
– Winner announcement day
– How prize is delivered?
I have one more tips. It would be better if the contest prizes are provided not only for one person. That is, it would be better if there is a 2nd or maybe 3rd winner. Why? Sometimes the difference in points between the top and the second position is very thin. Think if you were in second position, just because of minor differences make you not gain anything. Respect them by providing the second prize. What I describe above is devoted to the contest based on the top point
I’m participant in a lot of contest, and i feel that your opinion is right. And one more things, the prize between #1 and #2 should have not too far different. If prize for #1 $200, you can give #2 winner about $75-$100. I ever participate in one contest, and i have only 5 different point (which can be obtained by posting 5x) from the #1 position. I’m become 2nd winner, but what i get? $20 only….
$20 is ok, but when knowing that 1st winner get $200 and my point is only have 5 different point, it’s so hurt….Look, $20 is 10% from $200…..
So, another tips here : Don’t hurt participant 🙂
I have a question about the winner. What kind of contest to make more benefit, between top-point based or random winner based? Because I think both have advantages. Top-based point will create some participants to be “crazy” in collecting the points, whereas random-based point attracted many participants because many are thought to participate in contests that give equal opportunity to win.
If i’m answering “as a participant”, i prefer to choose top-point system, because i’m quite ambitious and always trying to be the top :P, so i have bigger chance to win.
But if i’m answering “as a contest-holder”, i prefer to choose random system because just like you said, people will find their chance to win is same with the other. In other word, it’s “fair”.
To Maulana, i do not like contest with the top points-based especially in a promoting contest. There is a contest in which a blog post count as one point, and there are participants who have 20 + blogs, of course this is not fair. Therefore, in my opinion would be better if you make a contest which the winner is determined randomly.
As a participant, that’s my advantage, i have a lot of blog to make posting if there is a promoting contest where “blog post” count as 1 point haha…
But yes, Neody, i understand your feeling. It would be better if contest winner is determined randomly, except SEO or guest blogging contest.