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
Ah, yes, that’s should be known by who want to make contest. But at least, you can saving more time by counting entries while the contest is running (in process).
Akira07, I have questions regarding sponsorship. If I had to get sponsors for the contest, what if they do not distribute the prizes to the winner of my contest? My blog’s reputation can be bad.
Thanks 😀
If it’s cash prize, i think it would be better if you ask to get it in advance. So, sponsor should transfer the cash to your account before contest start. But if it’s something like ads, link, etc then it can’t be helped, we can only hope their are honest.
From the comments that came in, I can conclude several problems contests. First, the problem of looking for sponsors if your blog is not yet known. Second, whether the number of incoming links can hurt your blog’s position in the SERP. Third, some other opinions that criticized some tips in this article. I expect you (Akira07) create a new article that discusses the issue. I know you are an expert in the topic of the contest: P. But in general, almost all agree about the effectiveness of the contest. Most of the criticism only dealt with technical issues from the contest.
I will collect the reference especially about SERP matter. Don’t worry. I will make it as another guest post here. So, just wait 🙂
I think the title will be more interesting if like this: “Make your links go viral by contest”. This is because participants who joined the contest not only from those who directly visit your blog and read the post about contest, but also from the blog link posted on other participants blogs. I think the contest could be categorized as viral or buzz marketing. I would consider using this technique. Thanks for the great article.
You’re right. It’s just like from 1 blog become 2 blog, 2 become 4, 4 to 8, etc…..It’s just like when you’re giving away freebies, it’s also go viral like? But in contest, the things go viral is your link 🙂
Strongly agree with the secret tips no.1. As a participant, logically they would prefer if able to choose their own prize. With cash prize we can give them the freedom to buy things they want. Moreover, humans are naturally interested when hear words like “prize, gift, free, discount, etc. ..”. I could say the contest is a promotional campaign by utilize human psychology: P
I like to make the promotion contest. That’s my way to make my page rank does not decrease. I once held a commenting contest but since my blog is blogspot platform, I was overwhelmed to approve (moderate) incoming comments especially if there is spammer. By the way, there were some who questioned the problem of sponsorship. I have a solution. One or two months before the contest launching, make friends with some bloggers. Help them promote their blogs and give comments on the articles they have created. They will help become a sponsor when you request it. It’s just a matter of building relationships first
I prefer to make the contest where the prize 100% comes from my own pocket. Will be a little difficult if I have contest with sponsorship, especially when distributing the prizes. I must contact the sponsor, one by one and this will take time. Winners do not like to wait, give them the prize soon after the winner announcement. Of course, after winner claim it.
Anyway, regarding claim of prize, how much time is reasonable for the winner to claim the prize?
I think max 4 day is enough. If there is no claim, you have 2 alternative : cancel the winner or choose another lucky people.
sometimes, contest is just unpredictable .., some can be hold longer, some can be achieve in shorter time, while rest,, just flush like a wind.
What is important here, as the maker of the contest you must be honest. Distribute the prize on time and be objective in determining the winner. Because as a participant, I ever felt hurt when other people win and I’m sure there is a conspiracy at the back. Feel the consequences if you do not play fair, your blog will be “bombed”. Nice article 🙂
I never make a contest but I ever became a sponsor for a contest. Only by providing $ 5, I get the chance to make my blog link spread through the contest. This is because the requirement for the contest are: Includes all sponsor blog address. So I think, don’t worry about getting sponsorship, because people looking for opportunity to spread blog links and not the PageRank or traffic of the contest-holder blog. The contest was very nice to get links.