Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Attracting Business through Giveaways and Contests

By Theo McLanahan


If you are looking for ways to draw traffic to your website, you might want to consider holding a contest or giveaway. While these can draw a lot of "freebie seekers" who are only interested in the prize, you can generate a lot of buzz that will bring qualified leads, too.

You can get very creative and have a lot of fun with this idea. Take a look at your website as well as the products and services you offer and think about what your target market might consider fun.

For example, for a website whose content focuses on issues relation to parenthood one creative contest might be that people have to tell the story of the most embarrassing thing their kids have said in front of others or the funniest mistake they have made in parenting.

You can also hold a contest centered on a new product launch. For example, if you have a website that features time-management tips for busy women and you are getting ready to release an informational product that explains how to survive the holiday season, you could offer a contest where your visitors submit their funniest Thanksgiving cooking disaster or their best time-saving tip for holiday shopping.

When it comes to finding prizes for your contests, you can offer up your own products or services, or you can solicit prizes from other website owners. The latter can be a win-win situation, as the prizes will not cost you anything and the person donating the prize will also get exposure (just be sure to mention on the contest page who donated the prize).

For the less creative, simply asking for visitors to submit their personal information and holding a giveaway choosing a random winner from the submissions is still a great idea. You can use the same system for prizes that was outlined in the previous paragraph.

Giveaways can be used to keep customers coming back for more from your business. In a service based business like graphic design, you could allow customers that have paid for your services to fill out a giveaway form each time they do so and offer a monthly prize. This might be added incentive for customers to return in an attempt to win your monthly prizes.

Promotion of any contest or giveaway is the key to success. Inform everyone on your mailing list of the event and advertise it on you site's home page. Mention it in podcasts as well. You want to spread the word to as many people as possible.

A large number of other sites will allow you to advertise your contest with them as well. Google "contest submission sites" to get a hold of some good possibilities. Press releases can also be well utilized to stimulate interest for your event.

Giveaways and contests can boost the amount of traffic your website receives, greatly benefiting your business. As you use them, think about the results and how you can adjust your ideas in an attempt to match your customers' interests as well as possible.

About the Author:

No comments: