How Can I Promote Your Competition Or Prize Draw
You've got your rules, you've got your prize, you've got your competition - all you need now is people to enter - so now it's time to promote your competition. The easiest way to promote your competition is tell Loquax about it! If it passes our review process then we'll happily include it in our listings - and the good news is that this service is free. A listing on Loquax can usually generate links from other sources as compers tend to like sharing information.
There are other competition & freebies sites that are similar to Loquax. They will be more than happy to include your promotion provided you submit via their add a competition links. As far as we know all the big services are free but a couple may offer a premium listing in return for payment. Most sites tend to be OK with self-promotion but MSE for example frowns upon it. In this particular case you may have to get someone else to post on their forums.
Other Ways To Promote Your Giveaway
Referrals are a good tool for getting your giveaways noticed Make use of all your competition visitors and get them to mention your prize draw on Twitter and Facebook. Give them links to "share" (and perhaps an extra entry for doing so) so as to make full use of your traffic. Note that it's better to get "compers" onside than alienate them. However, don't just target obvious competition entries! Create an eye-catching image-link on your website, and mail out a newsletter (if you have one!) telling your regular users about the promotion.
Social networks are now are much simpler and quicker ways to promote your competition. Asking entrants to tag friends on Instagram for example can quickly build up interest in your offer. Remember to use appropriate hashtags too. You could also use Adword Campaigns or an affiliate program to attract visitors. Remember a competition is part of your marketing strategy - so promote, then promote, then promote again!
How Many Entries Will I Get?
There are several key factors that can influence the number of entries and they are type of competition, type of prize, the rules and the amount of promotion. From information we've received from other siteowners and data from own prize draws an average competition, with a prize value of £100-£200 can eaily attract a few thousand entries. However influencer Molly Mae-Hague recently attracted over 1 million likes and 3 million comments for a promotion she ran on Instagram!
There are no definites on how many people will enter your competition. We rarely, if ever, will ever tell someone that they'll get x number of entries from Loquax users simply because we think it's not possible to do this. However, we can say that a free prize draw will probably get more entries than a creative competition and that a big prize will usually be more attractive than a small one. Another important point is don't assume that because there are thousands of people entering competitions online that this equates to instant traffic and entry volumes. A good generic audience prize with a well put together competition should be enough to get you a decent number of entries.
Test, Test & Test Again
The key to "number of entries" is simply to use your common sense. We once had a Wedding Car Hire firm in Scotland complaining because no one was entering their "win a wedding car" competition that they'd posted to our site. The fact that it had locality and specialism associated with the prize instantly limited the amount of interest the competition had to a wide audience. Sadly, the siteowner failed to comprehend this and couldn't understand what was wrong.
On the flipside Aria London got irate with Loquax because their newsletter and Instagram competition was listed on the site. This meant they were getting entries from the wrong sort of people. Unfortunately the promoter in this case failed to understand how compers operate and that social media and newsletters as tools for competitions can attract lots of entries, many who are untargetted. In short the only way you'll know how many entries you'll likely to receive and how well your competitions perform is to run a couple of trials with different formats and media.
How To Make Your Competition Successful
If you've got the prize right, the rules right, the type of competition right and the promotion sorted - then you're well on your way to a successful prize draw. But what else can you do to make it better and give you the best chance of success?
1. Thank You Pages
Make sure your 'Thank You For Entering' page isn't blank. Use it to promote your products, offers, discount codes or some other promotion. If there's nothing of interest on the thanks page the liklihood is that you will lose visitors after they enter.
2. Thank You Emails
Send users a thank you email when they enter and perhaps include an offer to further remind them of your brand as well as links to your social network sites. This also confirms to them that they've entered!
3. Discount Discounts as Prizes
Very Important! Don't give all users a "discount" and call it a prize. If you want to offer a discount to competition entrants offer it as a "thank you". Discounts are not prizes. Sending an email saying "You have won... a discount" will result in bad comments about you. Trust us!
4. Don't Let People Cheat
Don't let people cheat or take advantage of your competition. It can happen and if spotted by other entrants you will have to act swiftly and sensibly. And run the competition fairly too. You don't want to end up like the aforementioned Molly Mae-Haue who was rapped by ASA for picking winners unfairly.
5. We Want Winners
Announce the winners, publish a winner's list and send out the prizes! It sounds so obvious but you'll be surprised how often a competition, once completed, gets neglected or left to fester without any updates.
