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Suggestions For Converting Visitors Into Participants?

by Austin Gregory
6 replies
Hello everyone,

First of all, I am really excited about joining all of you Warriors and I am expecting to learn everything there is to know about marketing (Don't let me down!). On to the point, I have recently (About a week ago) officially launched my website and I have a nice steady stream of traffic so far. I am guessing due to my domain having indexed pages for nearly two years and I have a couple PPC advertisements running on Bing and Yahoo! at the moment that are doing pretty well.

I said on to the point, but that definitely was not my point. I am running a giveaway on AwfulMedia where I will be giving away two advertising spots for 30 days. First of all, I know these spots are not very valuable at this point, but they're free. Who can argue with free? I have listed my giveaway in multiple (at least 10) giveaway and sweepstakes directories and they seem to be drawing traffic pretty well. I have an advertisement running on Bing and Yahoo! for the giveaway that has gotten around 30 clickthroughs. This is all exciting for me, but the conversion at which people are entering the giveaway is just not... working.

Are people just not interested in wasting their time for a free ad spot that may be seen by only 1,000 people that month? Honestly I guess the point of this giveaway was the traffic and that seems to be working, but I don't want to appear to be a fool when by the end of it I had 2 entries and 2 winners.

Anyone here have a suggestion as to what I could do differently to convert the visitors into participants? Trust me, you won't hurt my feelings if you tell me to just give up, but that doesn't seem very constructive.

Thanks for your time,
Austin
AwfulMedia.com

Is this the proper forum for this discussion? I couldn't find a more specific forum.
#converting #participants #suggestions #visitors
  • Profile picture of the author Austin Gregory
    Is my question misplaced or just not very interesting?
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  • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
    Hi Austin,

    Posting here is like going to bass fishing...you just never know how long it's going to take before people start replying so bring something to read.

    Just some general advice...if you are not getting responses then break it down to the components and test alternate approaches and test every aspect of the promotion!

    Test the offer and especially test the CTA. The call to action should be strong, direct and very clear. As well, using a graphic button for a CTA can really improve results according to some reports I've read. Also make sure it's easy to participate and people don't have to give too much to you in return -- don't ask for too much, but do ask them to opt-in to your list.

    Regards,
    jim
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    • Profile picture of the author Austin Gregory
      I am currently requesting them to comment to be considered as a participant. Do you think just requesting their email would convert quite a bit better? I will require their email one way or the other in order to contact them.

      This would make it appear to be less work maybe inclining them to do so. Do you feel this would be the best route? I obviously am pleased with the traffic, but I would like some returning visitors as well.

      I don't believe I am aloud to post a direct link just yet, but you can't miss it if you visit AwfulMedia.com if you would like to see what I am working with.

      EDIT: Good point about the CTA button. Considering there's not actually a "click here to enter" deal, I would have to think of a way to implement this. Perhaps if I request their email as entry I could make use of that.

      Thank you for the response,
      Austin
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  • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
    Austin,

    I don't want to dominate this thread because there are other IMers here with vastly more experience and insight than I who will hopefully add their thoughts. However, my general rule of thumb is always to try and get people to opt-in for your list as long as it is not too intrusive. If your gut tells you that doesn't fit in this case, then go with your gut.

    Your question about the opt-in actually increasing conversions for this is very interesting. I don't know if this would help the conversions, but it might be interesting to test that too.

    Regards,
    jim
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    • Profile picture of the author Austin Gregory
      Jim,

      Considering the opt-in to the list would be the only required action to enter the giveaway, perhaps they would be more likely to do that than actually leaving a comment. I believe I will give this method a shot and see if anything changes (it cannot get worse than nothing!).

      If you have anymore suggestions, I beg you to throw them my way.

      Thanks,
      Austin
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  • Profile picture of the author Austin Gregory
    Well, I am using your advice and have made the action of entering very, very obvious and simple. Now there's a button (very obvious and impossible-to-miss) that directs the user to a mailchimp client to gather their email.

    This way perhaps the visitor will not have to read the full article and they can just skim along as usual. I am hoping this will convert much better, but we will see.
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