Competitions are an ideal way to offer value to your audience for their attention. If you're looking for a way to grow your audience, engage your users and drive powerful actions then there might not be anything you can do which will be as effective as running online competitions (also known as, contests, sweepstakes etc)
What are Online Competitions?
Online competitions are a type of online prize promotion where winners are chosen at random from a pool of entrants who have completed a designated list of tasks. Entrants are generally able to gain multiple entries for completing multiple actions.
Why You Should Run An Online Competition
Running an online competition is an outstanding way to grow your audience and drive a host of relevant actions that can help you achieve just about any goal or objective. Running an online competition with Vieworks is a powerful promotional strategy for a few key reasons:
Vieworks features numerous social or sharing actions which will amplify the reach of your competition and expose you to new audiences.
Entry into a competition is typically quick and easy which encourages entry and increases participation and attention.
The random nature of winner selection paired with the ability to earn more entries by completing more actions makes competitions perfect for driving an array of actions from your users.
Any campaign which gives away a prize is going to be fun and attention-grabbing. This makes competitions ideal for both engaging your existing following and generating awareness from new audiences.
With Vieworks, you can contain your entire competition in the video player which makes it a lot easier for you to share your campaign, and a lot easier for users to enter it.
Choosing a Prize
When you run a competition, one of the first decisions you'll need to make is what you want to give away as a prize. This is one of the most important decisions you will have to make, as your prize is what will ultimately draw in your audience and incentivize entry.
When you choose your prize there are multiple factors you will need to consider. You want to pick a prize that is valuable enough to encourage mass entry but still specifically tailored to your target audience so you aren't attracting entries from users who have no real interest in your brand or products.
The ultimate aim of your competition is to grow your audience and drive relevant actions that will help your business grow. This means you want to be directing the campaign towards your target audience, and your prize selection plays a major role in achieving this. If you offer a generic prize such as an Amazon gift card you will entice entry from users who want to win the prize but have no real interest in your brand or offerings. These users are highly unlikely to become loyal followers or customers and they won't contribute towards any of your desired business outcomes, so it's best to avoid them by offering a prize that appeals primarily to your target market.
If you have your own product or products which you can give away they make for the ideal prize. By giving away your own products you can all but guarantee that your entrants have a genuine interest in your business, and you'll also be able to wring a lot of free product promotion out of the sweepstake. If you want to add an extra layer of value to your prize, try adding some exclusivity in the form of a limited or special edition product.
If you don't have a product of your own to give away you should offer a prize that is relevant to whatever it is you do, and that is highly appealing to your audience. For example, if you're a style blogger you could give away a beauty package, or if you're a game streamer you could offer up a new console or some of your favorite video games.
Viral Sharing
If you can increase the number of people who enter your contest, you will increase the number of powerful actions you drive. So it should go without saying that the more entrants you attract the better.
By turning referrals on in Vieworks, this creates a terrific way to expose your competition to hordes of new entrants is by using Vieworks Competition's referral feature which generates unique sharing links and awards additional entries for users who successfully refer your campaign to their friends.
This action is incredibly powerful. It can help you create a viral loop effect and gain massive amounts of exposure. This is particularly useful for pre-launch or newly launched brands that are trying to generate as much awareness as possible.
Viral Share links can be shared across, email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Facebook and more, and users can earn additional entries for each successful referral across any platform.
Competition Duration
As you go about setting up your competition, another important decision you will have to make is how long you want the campaign to last for.
Generally speaking, the longer you keep your sweepstake active, the more people you will be able to reach and the more actions you will be able to drive. However, it's important that you don't drag your campaign on for too long. You don't want people to lose interest in your campaign or decide not to enter because the end date is too far away.
Keeping your sweepstake open for a few months is generally a good idea, as it is long enough to reach a significant amount of entrants but condensed enough to keep it engaging. If you already have a huge following you can probably afford to run shorter campaigns, as it will take a lot less time for your sweepstake to gain traction.
As you go about deciding the duration of sweepstake, you should also consider when you want to run it. Hosting a sweepstakes in the lead up to a special holiday or event such as Christmas, Valentine's Day or even a sale you are hosting can be a great way to add an extra layer of engagement to your campaign and boost the motivation to enter.
Drawing the winner
You need to organise what the prize is and when you will commit to the draw. This cannot be changed once the campaign has started.
Once the competition is complete, you can draw a winner/winners from the database. You can use free online tools to help with the random selection.
Use the email address to announce the winner and communicate directly to issue the prize. You can also use social media and email campaigns to communicate the results with your community.
Following Up On Your Campaign
Once you've run your own competition you'll be left with an expansive mailing list and a strong social media following. It will then be time to think about how you can retain your audience and convert them into customers.
Here are some tactics you can use to drive sales and keep your customer relationships as strong as ever.
'Better Luck Next Time!' Campaign
Once your giveaway has ended it's important that you wrap up the campaign and announce the winner. If you want to get as much engagement as possible from your campaign's conclusion consider sending out a wrap-up email that includes a discount code to your store, a link to your content, or any other special offering you can provide.
This is a superb way to reward the entrants who weren't lucky enough to win and drive further action!
Be active on Social media
In the aftermath of your competition, interest in your brand should be at a high point. It's crucial that you capitalize on this heightened attention by continuing to engage your expanded audience across your social media channels and drive sales or other further action such as subscriptions, views, listens, or anything else you're after.
Host a Sale or Rewards Campaign
If you're an online retailer then one of the best strategies you can implement in the immediate aftermath of a sweepstake is hosting a sale or another form of discounted offering. You can achieve this by hosting a store-wide sale.
You can learn how to promote your competition here.