How Contests & Giveaways Can Help Build Your Business

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.

Consider the products and services offered by your website and then use your imagination to create a fun contest that will appeal to the average customer you will be targeting with this promotion.

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.

Contests can also be used in conjunction with the release of a new product. Suppose you had a website for busy women which offers tips on how to manage time better and that you were preparing to present a new product that discusses what to do to make it through the holidays. A possible contest that you could hold is asking for funniest Thanksgiving food disasters or best tip for holiday shopping time-saving.

Contest prizes can be arranged by owners of other websites or can come from your very own products and services. If you choose to go with a different website for prizes, you won’t have to spend any money on them and the other website’s owner will probably be happy to receive some free publicity. If you do this, be sure to mention the name of the provider of the prizes on your website.

If you are not the creative type, you can simply hold a giveaway. Your visitors can enter their information into a form and you can randomly pick a winner. Again, you can offer one of your products or services as the prize or you can seek out prizes from other business owners.

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.

To be successful, you’ll want to promote your contest as much as possible. You’ll want to send a notice to your mailing list as well as putting information about the contest on the main page of your website and blog. If you offer a podcast, make sure you mention it to your listeners.

There are many sites that allow you to enter your contest information, and this info can get picked up and publicized by other website owners. To find these sites, do a Google search on a keyword such as “contest submission sites.” You may also want to send in a few press releases.

Contests and giveaways can really help you bring traffic to your website. Once you start offering them, you gauge which type your visitors like the best and you will be able to create great results.