Contest Beat

What makes a good contest? Obviously one that creates value for both you and your readers. Here’s some tips that in my experience will do just that.

Pick an appealing prize. This is obvious, but you need to ensure that what you are offering will appeal to everyone. Cash is always good, but not always the best. In fact, sometimes a contest for say a Playstation 3 will garner more buzz than a contest for the equivalent amount in cash. Like giving someone a birthday present, everyone always like a gift as opposed to money (well at least most people!).

Find a sponsor (if needed). Not everyone can afford $50 or even $20 for a contest, but this shouldn’t stop you from running one. In fact, plenty of the largest blogs out there, earning the most cash, have all their contest prizes gifted from sponsors. Of course they can attract them better than the smaller blogs, but that isn’t to say you can’t at least get something to give away from a company. Get creative and sell your site and your contest to potential sponsors!

Clear rules and a deadline. Make sure you post exactly what people need to do to enter. If they need to review your blog, how many words should it be? If they need to link back to your site, what anchor text should they use? How are they meant to get in touch with you to confirm their entry? What day and time(zone) do entries close? When will the winner be drawn and announced? By answering all these questions and clearing them up front, it makes way for a much smoother contest.

Keep accurate records. If people need to email you to confirm their entry don’t simply put all the emails into a folder in Outlook or something. Instead make an Excel spreadsheet, assign all entrants a number, and enter their details in that. When it comes time to actually draw the contest it will make things a whole lot easier!

Don’t make entry too easy. I’ve seen a few contests now where people are offering up something like $25 via Paypal, or an Amazon certificate. This is fine, but sometimes these same people think that the relatively low value of their prize doesn’t warrant anything more than a comment on the contest post qualifying as entry. This simply isn’t getting full value from your contest. A lot of the time people will still want to enter, and will give you a link back on their site for $25. Granted, they probably won’t write a 400 word site review, or give you a permanent link in their sidebar, but more often than not they will link.

There is more to life than links. Too often people confine themselves to a simple couple of linkbacks and maybe a comment as requirements for contest entry. You should look at other options for entry too, as not everyone has a website, but you can still get these people to participate. For instance, ask them to add you to their Technorati Favorites, subscribe to your feed, Digg or Stumble your site, whatever. They are happy because they still get to enter, and you get more participants and value too.

Different actions equal different tickets. This follows on from my previous tip, and if you want to take it a step further you can offer a different amount of entries depending on what actions participants take. For example, a comment equals one entry, a link back equals 5 entries, a stumble equals three entries, a 300 word site review equals 10 entries, a RSS subscription equals 4 entries, etc, etc. This way someone might give you backlinks as well as add you to their Technorati Favorites or something. You’re still running the same contest with the same prize, only getting a lot more value!

Linkback to all entrants. So you’re running a contest and getting all these linkbacks, that’s great. Why not return some of the link love yourself? If you offer to link back to everyone who enters the contest at some future point in time (maybe the winner announcement post), you stand a much higher chance of getting more entrants, and everyone wins at least something, even if they don’t win the main prize.

Make the winner post a follow-up. If you make it a requirement of entry that the eventual winner has to make a follow up post on their blog there are two benefits. Firstly, everyone will know that the contest was legitimate and you did giveaway something; and secondly, you get just that little extra bit of link love ;).

Post regular updates. Too often people will post their contest at the start of the month and then stop promoting it until the winner is drawn. Granted, other people entering it will also be promoting it in the meantime, but what does it hurt to give your readers regular updates on how many people have entered, what the quality of the entries is like, things like that. Plus readers who might have missed your contest post before can now take notice.

Wow, that turned in to a longer list of tips than I imagined! So why don’t you bookmark this page and use it as a reference whenever you decide to hold a contest. Not only will you be assured of maximizing value for yourself, but all your participants should also come away happy - everyone wins! Oh, and one more thing - don’t forget to submit all your contests right here at Contest Beat either.