Why Run Competitions & Give Out Prizes?
Competitions are an excellent marketing tool, they're easy to run, and they don't often have to cost a lot of money. This is why most competitions and prize draws on the internet are designed to promote a business or product. Competitions are therefore ...
- used to attract visitors to the website.
- promote brand awareness
- build up databases for the promoter
- generate revenue by sharing data
- content for bloggers & social influencers
- improve social interaction
The latter two entries are recent additions to our guide. Social influencers and bloggers are great for PR companies who use them to help promote their brands. The bloggers will run competitions in exchange for content, user interaction and perhaps payment of some kind.
On Facebook and Twitter brands are always competiting against algorithms so social interaction through likes, shares and comments can be more cost effective using a giveaway than a social platform's advertising options.
Some sites use competitions to reward their loyal users, attract daily visits and/or target specific groups.
In many cases you'll be giving out your name and email address when you enter a prize draw. But how safe are your details - especially with sites that aim to generate revenue by sharing data you give when entering competitions? The one question that crops up time and time again regarding competitions is will i receive loads of spam?
If you're a siteowner and looking to start running competitions or want to know how competitions can work for your website then take a look at the Loquax Webmaster's Guide to Competitions. It's a comprehensive guide to online competitions and explains rules, problems and how to run a successful prize draw.
