|  One
sure-fire way to get a lot of people to
visit your website and interact with your
company and brand is to host a contest.
And
we have a contest of our own (see graphic
at the right for details.)
Why
A Contest?
With
the news about the economy as dour as ever,
a contest can be a great way for people
to take two or three minutes out of a hectic
day and "escape." One
of the reasons why movie ticket sales are
way up is the psychological desire of consumers
to transport themselves into a fun alternative
world for a few hours.
Your
contest can be relatively simple or extremely
elaborate. But the goals are the same:
- You
ask people to do something that directly
or indirectly benefits your organization.
- You
reward their behavior with a prize or
chance to win something of value.
The
type of action you ask people to take can
vary depending on your audience and the
perceived value of the prize.
For
example, if you're giving away a
new car or luxury vacation, people expect
to jump though many hoops. If you're
giving away free movie tickets (or in
our case, a Free USB Missile Launcher, see
below), the threshold should be a bit
lower.
Your
contest may ask people to:
- Answer
A Short Quiz: (1-3 minutes; engages
their mind to think about your company)
- Sign
up for an email newsletter (1-2
minutes; quick, fast and easy, allows
you to communicate with them going forward).
- Give
you their mailing address so
you can send them a brochure or catalog
(2-3 minutes; takes a little more time
to type in)
- Take
a short survey
(3-10 minutes; there's uncertainty about
how long the survey will take)
- Write
a 100-word essay on why they
deserve to win (10-30 minutes; takes cognitive
thought)
- Submit
photos or a video (1-2 hours;
requires some additional technical skills)
- Find
something on a website
(3-10 minutes; gets people to interact
with your site)
Our
Fun Contest:
 If
you haven't seen a USB Missile Launcher,
it's something that plugs into your computer,
and shoots up to three foam darts. It's
a great way to annoy co-workers, and it
makes a great gift. You control it with
software on your PC.
In
order to get a lot of people to visit our
site and conduct a mini-scavenger hunt,
I've placed my cell phone number on one
of the pages. The page on the site is accessible
from the home page and all other pages of
the site. The first person who calls the
phone # and leaves a message with the name
of the page they found the number wins a
USB Missile Launcher. Unfortunately, we
can only ship in the U.S.
Why
are we giving this away? It's a
fun way to give people an incentive to read
through the site and find out all of the
things that we do. Visit
here to try to find the cell phone # >>
What
type of contest might make sense for your
organization?
I
also hope that this contest gets you to
think about a similar contest that you could
run for your organization, too.
It might be a contest at a trade show, or
conducted on the Web. |
