Competition Freebies and Sponsorship For Free Advertising and
Link Popularity
How many competitions are there running on the net at this
time? 1000 maybe? Nah, 100,000 is more than likely and when they
close there will be just as many to take their place.
So, why are companies so desperate to give away free stuff just
for answering a question or two? I'll tell you why...
...because it is an INCREDIBLY effective and very INEXPENSIVE
way to get your company name mentioned on hundreds, if not
thousands of websites, message boards, forums, blogs and
conversations both in the online and offline world, not to
mention the good PR it generates that's why!
Who doesn't want their company name-dropped all over the place
for what amounts to mere peanuts when compared to the costs of
traditional advertising?
There are thousands of specialist competition and freebie sites
whose sole purpose is to inform the rest of the internet when a
new competition or freebie offer hits the internet. There are as
many mailing lists, newsgroups, message boards and blogs on the
same subject and YOUR company name could be plastered over all
these when you add a competition giveaway to your site.
But it doesn't stop there.
If you are reading this as a webmaster then you obviously know
all the major search engines look upon inbound links as being
one of the main deciding factors in deciding which pages rank
where in the organic search engine results. All these free,
one-way inbound links pointing directly at your website are pure
gold dust in terms of increasing your link popularity and
thrusting you up towards the top of the search engines.
Whilst everyone else is rushing around participating in link
exchange programs, renting links on websites, buying their way
into search engines and more costly measures to help get the
jump on their competitors, you could be flying up the rankings
by giving away something as cheap as a $20 DVD once a month...
Of course, you can also make your generosity work extra hard for
your business as well and really milk that competition freebie...
Rather than just give one lucky visitor a chance to win
something when they leave their details at your site how about
some of these ideas to get a double hit from your freebie:
1) Newsletter Competition
A competition give-away to everyone who signs up with your
newsletter. Draw an email address from the hat every month and
announce it in the newsletter and you'll triple your
subscription rate and keep them reading. Want to ensure they
really read it? Ask a question about a specific aspect of the
newsletter and get people to email it in and draw a winner from
one of the entrants. You get more subscribers AND you ensure
they're reading!
2) Newsletters again...
Add a checkbox to your competition entry page, order page etc.
offering people the chance to sign up for your newsletter
(making sure to offer the hook of exclusive newsletter
give-aways, freebies, coupons etc. of course) and you've got a
bunch of new subscribers. This is a less effective means of
building your mailing list but it still works.
3) The Scavenger Hunt Competition.
Get people to browse around your website to give you the answers
to a question or two you propose. Think "By how much is the
Super Megatron 2000 reduced by this month"? and use these
questions to direct people to your latest promotions and offers.
Not only do you get all those extra visitors from blogs and
comeptition sites like you wanted, but you also show these extra
visitors the highlights of your site which will either encourage
them to buy there and then or bookmark you for future reference
rather than hitting and running.
4) The Repeat Competition Hook
Giving away different freebies in your competitions each month
ensures two things. Firstly, competition addicts (of which there
are many) will hit your site every month giving you a chance to
market your offers to them at least once a month. Secondly, you
ensure those search result boosting links continue to multiply
every month...
...and so on. If there is any aspect of your website or business
you feel is a real hook and worth promoting to customers then a
decent competition used correctly is the perfect way to
highlight it to a wide audience without spending a fortune on
advertising.
But hang on, this isn't the ONLY way to use competitions to your
own advantage. Another great way is to not run your own
competition at all but to simply SPONSOR a competition on
another site. Getting into a small competition sponsorship deal
with a high traffic site in a related (but non-competiting)
subject area can bring some awesome targeted traffic your way.
If they archive their competition results and past sponsorships,
then that's another on-way link you got into the bargain as well.
The possibilities here are endless and it's not going to cost
you anything more than a few bucks each month in order to start
the ball rolling.
So what are you waiting for?