Here’s the second edition of the case study on how blog contests can be beneficial to your blog. This second edition would teach you of the first two steps on how to setup a successful blog contest.
Setting your goal
The first thing to do if you want to organize a contest is to list down your goals or the things you would want to accomplish. Why do you want to organize a contest? These goals would influence the contest mechanics and timeframe. Contest requires careful planning if you want the most out of it. Some contests fail even though their prizes are amazing, either they were not promoted properly or the time frame for people to join is short. But some contest even though small could have a huge response from the blogosphere if it was properly planned right at the very beginning,
The following are the possible blog contest goals, choose anything that applies for you
1. Promote your own product
2. Increase RSS subscribers
3. Increase blog comment
4. Link building
5. Advertise your blog
6. Submission on social networking sites
7. Mere celebration
8. You are taking a “leave of absence” from your blog
9. Network with other bloggers
10. Launch your blog
11. Relaunch your blog
12. Increase blog traffic
13. Blog review
14. Make more money
Contest prizes
/girl_with_award.gif)
Now that you have list down your contest goals, let’s talk about the prizes. You have to set your budget and the prizes you are willing to give. How much are you willing to spend for your contest? Or, if you do not have a budget, you could always find sponsors to your blog. Lucky if these sponsors would come to you.
Your blog prizes must be correlated with the duration and the mechanics of your contest. Bigger prizes attract better response. If you require a lot of task to be completed for an entry to your contest, you should make your prizes bigger so that people would be inspired to join.
Blog prizes that you could offer.
1. Cash
2. Banner advertisements
3. Text links
4. Product
5. Wordpress theme
6. E-books
7. Entrecard credits
8. Membership
9. Subscription
10. Audio
11. Hosting
12. Gift Certificates
13. Domain name
14. Blog review
15. Banner Design
Cash seem to bring more participants in of all the contest prizes. Everyone wants to win cash. In my first contest, the prizes are a mixed of advertisements, entrecard credits and premium wordpress themes. The goal was to launch my blog. If I have decided to sponsor all the contest prizes by myself, it wouldn’t make some buzz because my blog is just new. Share the spotlight with other bloggers, these sponsors would also help you promote your contest.
Be sure to subscribe in Blogging From Scratch by email to get the latest update on this case study. Besides, the full case study report link is available for download when you subscribe.
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nice post. I also find cash to be the biggest incentive in getting people to take part in a contest and promote it.
Boosh Onlines last blog post..4 Tips to Finding a Profitable Niche
[Reply]
thanks for this case study. now i know what to do on my 2-month old blog. thanks!
[Reply]
I’m so glad to be of help! The full case study is available for download when you subscribe in this blog. The download link is placed at the footer.
[Reply]
Hi Riyanne,
Done! I subscribed to your mailing list.
God bless!
[Reply]
Cash is indeed the biggest incentive, which is why I’m about to launch a special blog.
You can expect a link-back for this series.
I’m already subscribed and it wasn’t in the footer…will it be in the next one?
Dennis Edells last blog post..Do You Use eBay to Grow Your OTHER Businesses?
[Reply]
Nice report, I can’t wait for the next inspiration you’ld have!
[Reply]
Thanks for the information I shall have to sign up to your newsletter
cheers
marcus
[Reply]
Excellent site, keep up the good work
[Reply]