Whether you are an online retailer, a B2B service provider, or you sell digital content and software; utilizing the power of contest marketing is a must. The advantages of contests and sweepstakes marketing are more than you can think of; and in fact, a proper contest marketing strategy should be an essential part of your overall digital marketing plan.
People of all ages, and all genders from across the world love to be part of social media and other online contests, so using competitions/giveaways/sweepstakes strategy correctly, you can achieve your marketing and sales goals more effectively and faster than other methods. This is the reasons why all top brands are increasingly utilizing the power of contest marketing. This article lists some of the best contests of top brands in the year 2017. By looking at this list, you can imagine how powerful marketing tool a social media contest can be for any type of business.
Well, depending on your product type and target market, the benefits and advantages of contests and sweepstakes marketing may vary, but as a whole, contest marketing is always beneficial for all types of small and medium businesses as well as for new startups on a tight marketing budget.
In this article, I will list the most important benefits of contest marketing, and reasons why every business should consider making contests and giveaways an essential part of their marketing strategy.
1- Increase Your Brand Outreach beyond the Boundaries; there’s no denying the fact that running a giveaway/contest is a fantastic way to build your social media following on sites like Facebook & Twitter. I have witnessed businesses jumping to 100,000 likes from 100 likes on their Facebook page within a week. Though, the social media likes/follows is not the only metric to measure the brand impact, it’s still one of the biggest factor in building customers’ trust.
2- Contests the Most Cost Effective Advertising Option; as a fact of the matter, every business needs to advertise its products/services at some point of time, and it is always associated with significant costs. Running an online contest can be a low-cost option, because the cost associated with it is very low and predictable, i.e. you cannot rent a billboard on a busy highway for $100 where 100,000 people see your product/read your message, but you can surely reach more than 100,000 people over social media for a price less than $100. And, believe me, people on social media will see your promotion with more interest than they could get engage to an ad on a billboard.
3- Gain Better Product Exposure; by looking at the most successful product launches, we see that launching a product with a giveaway is an incredibly effective way to generate buzz for your brand. Some brands even use contests and giveaways as pre-launch marketing campaigns, and interestingly, it’s a great way to increase the interest of the customer and fuel their excitement.
4- Contest Marketing is Simple Yet Faster Way to Achieve Targeted Results; as compared to other online marketing techniques, i.e. SEO, content marketing, PPC etc., the contest marketing is very simple and easy, and anyone with no technical knowledge can do is efficiently. Moreover, the amount of time required to create, launch and run a giveaway promotion is relatively low, so you can achieve results faster than any other online marketing methods.
5- Contest Marketing Management is also Easier Than You Think; and even if you do not want to do it yourself, most of the social media celebrities and influencers will handle everything for you; all you need to do is to send them the prize for the winner.
6- Contests Engage Your Audience More Effectively; by running a giveaway marketing campaign, you don’t just attract more people to your brand, but also get active followers and an engaged community. Contests that encourage user generated content help you engage more people by putting less efforts, i.e. when the participants upload their personal content (e.g., a photo or story) to your promotion, they are actually promoting your brand within their personal network and your brand’s outreach in increased without spending any extra money or effort!
7- Contests Can Provide Highly Effective Analytics; in order to get the prize a lot of people are ready to share their basic information with you as part of the entry process which you can use to know more about your customer base, their interests and how you can build a strong relationship with your customers.
8- Contests Can Help Your Business Loved by Search Engines; Giveaways and sweepstake promotions can be of great SEO value, especially when a popular blog hosts such a contest on your behalf. It doesn’t just help you get social media attention, but your search engine rankings can also be improved in the long run.
9- Generate Leads & Sales; not all, but some contests can be highly effective in generating leads and getting more sales, i.e. trial products, selfie with the product and so on.
10- Have some fun; running a business is not about worrying all the time, rather it should be fun for everyone. Almost everyone loves the chance of winning and it’s exciting for them to be a part of such a contest, so it should be fun for you too to acquire new users, engage them in a fun way and give them a good news! The more you liven up your community, the better customer relations your brand will have.
The Bottom Line:
Contest marketing is certainly one of the most effective strategies to acquire new users and engage your audience in the most effective ways, however, it is certainly not the answer to every marketing challenge. Ideally, you should have a marketing strategy that combines multiple marketing techniques that are highly suitable for your business.