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.
