It Pays to Win

Everyone likes to win. Whether it's a stuffed animal at the carnival or an all expense paid vacation to Florida courtesy of a Hatfield ham (true story), it feels good to win. Many people are willing to chip in a few moments of their time, a buck or two, or some other sort of donation in hopes of winning the prize. In "4 Reasons Why Contests Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy" Ben Pickering highlights the positives in creating a contest for your campaign:

1. Contests Are a Great Tool for Building Your Fan Base- Facebook is a great tool for running contests. How many times have you seen on your News Feed, 1,000th "Like" Gets a Free T-Shirt! Or something of that sort? People "like" things all the time, so conducting a contest is fast, cheap, and easy on your time and theirs and an excellent way to gain followers quickly.
   
   
2. Contests Enable You To Engage Your Audience-Allowing your audience to be creative and get their time in the spotlight is never a bad idea. Photo and video submission contests are a testament to their willingness to be associated with your brand and thus they will encourage all of their friends to check out your product's website to show their support.
   
   
3. Contests Are a Rich Source of Data-It's simple, give and take. Offer a prize for completing a survey or answering a couple questions. I have participated in these numerous times on campus, and as a sucker for anything free, I willing gave a few minutes of my time for a small gift. As a result of give and take, you will be able to get insider information on what reputation your product has and how you can improve or expand it.
   
   
4. Contests Empower Consumers To Do Your Marketing For You-For the average Internet user, it's as simple as copying and pasting a link into a status, tweet, or e-mail, to share with hundreds of people world wide. By someone tweeting a link to their submission in your contest, their followers will go ahead and click that link to show their support while at the same time learning about your product.

Whether you are a small business trying to accumulate a large following or a well-established brand, contests will provide you with endless opportunities to learn more about your audience, get feedback on how you are doing, and, most importantly, get the word out there about your campaign.