Posted on August 13th, 2010Having sweepstakes, contests, or other kinds of giveaway on your site is a good way to attract traffic and keep people coming back again and again. Many sites offer several different sweepstakes and contests to visitors every month.
Contests can be for almost everything you can think of. Give away concert tickets, raffle off a car or send winners on a free trip. Affiliate your business with a worthy cause and give cash to winners if you want to increase awareness about an important topic. For free publicity, sponsors of events may often provide valuable rewards for relevant and worthwhile competitions at no cost, like offering winners a $300 T-Mobile gift card, ten tickets to IMAX movie, or vouchers to the nearest fast-food restaurant. Contest enrollment is at the visitor’s discretion using an online form, or the visitor can be registered automatically after signing up for an e-newsletter subscription.
Most sweepstakes and contests should have the following:
- A set of regulations and rules outlining who can and can’t participate
- A definite contest time frame
- Odds of winning and a list of prizes
- A way, offline or online, for visitors to join the contest
- A neutral third-party administrator
- Adequate insurance coverage
If you insist on having online sweepstakes or contests on your site, make sure to follow the strict state and federal legal guidelines to guarantee that your contest is held fairly. You might also need to hire an outside firm, like Oddsonpromotions.com, or Nationalsweeps.com to administer and organize contests in your site.
The contest costs should be taken from your marketing budget and you should see a significant return which can more than cover all the contest costs.