Done right, an online contest or sweepstakes can draw visitors to your site and keep them coming back.

Drawing site traffic is one of e-tailing's toughest challenges. With the competition a click away at all times, you need a hook to reel in shoppers. For a number of online stores, this hook has taken the form of online contests and sweepstakes. Many have achieved dramatic results for their efforts, enjoying hit-rate increases of more than 300 percent. Here are some suggestions for achieving similar success with your own online contests and sweepstakes.

Make the prize match the audience

To lure potential customers to your site, you have to offer them something they want. Small-business Web-site-host BigStep.com, for instance, ran a Boost Your Business Sweepstakes in which the top prize was a day with a well-known small-business consultant and author. Between August 17 and September 27, anyone signing up for free site membership was automatically entered in the sweepstakes. In a previous contest, the site awarded the winner an all-expense-paid trip to a four-day conference at the Disney Institute in Florida. Although the trip was a good draw, BigStep.com decided the prize could have been a better fit. Follow-up research revealed most small-business owners would have a difficult time getting away from the office for a multiday trip.

• Get entrants to interact with your site.
  A contest or sweepstakes that engages visitors has a better chance at success. BlackJack.com, sponsor of online blackjack games, plans to require users to play a free hand of blackjack before they enter future sweepstakes. And DealofDay.comââ,¬"an online bargain site that provides links, articles, and message boards about Internet shopping opportunitiesââ,¬"recently started giving company T-shirts each week to the two visitors who contribute the most to the site's DealTalk message boards. During the first several weeks of the contest, posting levels rose about 20 percent, and winners, chosen by staff members, have continued to post at significantly higher levels than average users.
• Prizes don't have to be huge to draw attention.
  Sometimes, just winning is enough. The Weather Channel, for example, ran a promotion that coordinated with programming on its affiliated television channel. It invited visitors to vote for a storm of the past 100 years that should be identified as the Storm of the Century. It posted results on the site, where visitors could participate in online chats about their "favorite" storms. Even though no prizes were involved, nearly 70,000 people logged on to vote during the month-long contest.

  If you're offering a prize, it doesn't have to represent a small fortune. In fact, smaller amounts of cash and less expensive prizes are often enough to draw significant traffic. BlackJack.com's Eight Wonders of the World registration sweepstakes, intended to encourage new-member sign-up, cost the company only US$12,000. First prize was a US$3,000 vacation at one of the world's top eight casinos, second prize was a US$2,000 vacation, and third prize was a US$1,000 vacation. Seven runners-up each received a US$100 credit for play on the site.

How to run a Contest

• Bring in well-known personalities and experts.
  The chance to discuss opinions with celebrities or recognised experts in a particular field is often a strong draw. For its Storms of the Century promotion, for instance, The Weather Channel increased site activity by bringing in professional meteorologists to choose the top 10 "winning" storms and to chat with people about why they selected those storms.
• Give visitors a reason to come back.
  To increase a promotion's "stickiness," sites will often encourage participants to come back and enter multiple times, to review the results of the contest, or to participate in another, similar promotion. Bingo.com's most successful promotion was its US$100,000 Crack the Vault contest in which participants were invited to pick a combination of numbers each day in an attempt to crack the vault. Although no one succeeded, site traffic increased dramatically. In fact, registration went up more than 200 percent, and traffic on the page containing the "vault" tripled during the promotion.
• Get creative with prize acquisition.
  You can offer big prizes without a huge risk or investment. In its Crack the Vault promotion, for instance, even though Bingo.com offered visitors the chance to win US$100,000, the company spent only US$5,000 to sponsor the contest. Because there was no guaranteed winner, the company was able to purchase an insurance policy calculated based on the odds of a participant picking the randomly selected set of numbers over the course of the 45-day contest. The premium cost only a few thousand dollars even though a winner could take home a six-figure prize.
• Let people feel they have a chance to win.
  Even if the odds are poor and the prize money is huge, visitors want to feel they have a chance of taking home the prize. Since it launched in April, Jackpot.com has given away three US$1 million prizes, as well as another US$1 million worth of cars, trips, and cash. The company's instant-win sweepstakes has drawn strong attention. One of the biggest draws, according to the company, is that there's a guaranteed winner for every prize.
• Get the word out in every way possible.
  Contests only work if people know about them. Use a combination of press releases, banner advertising, and e-mail campaigns to promote your contest or sweepstakes. Another way to get the word out is to enlist partners' help. In its Boost Your Business sweepstakes, for instance, BigStep.com asked partner sites AOL.com and NBCi to mention its promotion in their newsletters, which go to millions of users.

  Keep trying ...

  If at first you don't succeed... Often a good idea just doesn't work.

  You may just need to tweak the offer slightly to make it more compelling. DealofDay.com, for instance, sponsors a sweepstakes in which it displays the randomly drawn name of a registered user. The individual has until midnight to visit the site and claim the prize. Initially, the site offered a US$25 gift certificate, and only a couple of people claimed their prizes. The site has since doubled the prize and is currently waiting to see if the larger prize will encourage users to check the site daily.

  As more sites run online contests, grabbing surfer mindshare will become increasingly difficult. Using solid strategies (and a little bit of human psychology) to lure in potential winners can better your chances of success.
  

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