Creative Contest Ideas to Promote your Business

According to some studies, the average person is bombarded with up to 10,000 promotional messages a day. These include advertisements and product placements. In order to succeed, your business needs to find new and engaging ways to cut through the clutter, stand out from the pack, and get the customer’s attention. One extremely effective promotional strategy is sponsoring a contest. Contests are a great tool to promote your products, gain customer involvement, generate marketing buzz, and get media attention. This is also a fantastic way to build up your mailing list. Here are some ideas for contests that will help you build buzz for your business:

Special Holiday Contest: Contests for special/unusual holidays are a popular way to get noticed. For example, May 5th is National Grump Out Day. Have a No Grump zone, hold a laughing contest, have people submit their funniest or most embarrassing moment. For a list of unusual holidays, go to: www.brownielocks.com

Win a “Free” Giveaway: Everyone loves to get free stuff, so why not sponsor a contest so they can. This is one you see all the time… For example, the NBC show “Heroes” sponsored a NBC Heroes’ Nissan Mobile Device Giveaway Sweepstakes for a chance to win a car valued at over $16,000!

“Design Your Own” Contest: Threadless Tees has had success in encouraging people to create their own designs and have the public vote on them. http://www.threadless.com/

“Face of” Contest: Urban Kidz, a children’s clothing boutique in Scottsdale, Arizona, hosts the “Faces of Urban Kidz” model search contest every year. They ask parents to bring their children to compete to become a featured model for a year. Winners receive a complete makeover, new clothes and a fashion portrait shoot, in addition to being featured in fashion shows, advertising, and television shoots.

Scavenger Hunt Contest: The Contra Costa Times, in Contra Costa, California, sponsored the 2009 Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt where they invited the public to find 20 items based on the clues that were given. According to the newspaper, the entrants loved the adventure, creativity, and camaraderie. Over 400 people entered with over 6,000 photos were submitted!

The possibilities are truly endless for creative contests, just use your imagination! But just because you hold a contest doesn’t mean it will be successful. Follow these tips:

1. Make sure the prize is worth signing up for. No amount of hype will make people want to enter if the prize is terrible.

2. Make the contest easy to enter. A contest needs rules to keep things fair and legal. With that being said, customers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to enter. Keep it simple.

3. Make it easy for people to share. Social media marketing can help your contest go viral and reach thousands more participants. Include social media buttons on the contest page so people can easily share.

4. Give the contest time to run. The duration of your contest depends on the size of your company (smaller businesses may need more time to spread the word) and your prizes (multiple prizes? One big prize?).

5.Seek media coverage. Reach out to the media before it begins so you can get coverage from the initial launch of your contest.

Have you ever held a contest for your business? Submit your idea below!