Do people ever use competitions?

7 replies
I was wondering if any of you use competitions as a way to incentivise people to sign onto your mailing list?

If so, what have you found to be the best way for people to enter your competition as well as any ways to combat cheating?

I know that obviously you may end up with a big list of freebie seekers, so your list won't be as sales driven as others may be.

Thanks
glen
#competitions #list #people
  • Profile picture of the author vk3
    Glen,

    I've never ran a full blown contest myself, but also feel strongly about having "buyers" on a list (vs. freebiers) being EXPONENTIALLY more valuable in almost all cases - if I were you, I'd look into strategies and ways to have someone buy from you and get on your list at the same time, even if it's a low priced item... I think your time is much better spent focusing there.
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  • Profile picture of the author glenpud
    Thanks vk3. I think I will stick with trying to build a decent list that I know has the potential to part with their money.
    Thanks
    Glen
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  • Profile picture of the author vicwic
    I'm running a contest right now and I'm building a pretty good sized list from it (well, a good size for me). That in mind though, I'm in the process of building an amazon site that will complement the target audience's niche and will be promoting it to the list. I'm currently directing some of my emails towards other things.

    As far as cheating, people will ALWAYS try to game the system. At some point in the future, you may need to look at your autoresponder's pricing for huge lists or else reduce the list size.

    I do think that long term, a "buyer" list is more profitable, however as the contest is live, open rates are pretty good as are CTR to links in emails.

    vicwic
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by glenpud View Post

    I was wondering if any of you use competitions as a way to incentivise people to sign onto your mailing list?
    I haven't, and wouldn't want to.

    I want people to subscribe to my mailing-list because they're giving me permission to send them email, because I'm the person they want to hear from and whose emails they're going to open and pay attention to. That's the value and point of my lists. Those are the trust-based, respect-based attributes of my lists that translate into income.

    Call me a skepchick, but I don't want subscribers who were "incentivized" by the possibility of winning something in a competition. I can already imagine what their open-rates will be like, after the competition. And some of those people would have taken me seriously and become good customers, if I'd handled them more appropriately and not come across to them as someone just trying to build the biggest list I could and offering a gimmick to do so. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Just my perspective.
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  • Profile picture of the author DeborahDera
    If you do use a contest, alter on, there are forms you can have made for your Facebook page (entry and sign-up), forms you can embed on your blog with tasks to be completed for the giveaway entry, etc. But, again, you really want to focus on true subscribers. Maybe later you can do a contest offering an upgrade or service TO your current subscribers?

    Originally Posted by glenpud View Post

    I was wondering if any of you use competitions as a way to incentivise people to sign onto your mailing list?

    If so, what have you found to be the best way for people to enter your competition as well as any ways to combat cheating?

    I know that obviously you may end up with a big list of freebie seekers, so your list won't be as sales driven as others may be.

    Thanks
    glen
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  • Profile picture of the author Diana Lane
    For what it's worth, my husband is a competition junkie and has entered around 100 of them every week for the last four years or so. I don't think he's ever been persuaded to buy from any of the companies that run the the competitions unless he was a customer of theirs already. His name has probably contributed to helping swell a ton of mailing lists, but his money has stayed firmly in his pocket.

    On the other hand, there are a gazillion sites that have sprung up which round up all the current competitions, and then compete for the eyeballs of all the compers who like to find their competitions in one place. Most of the competitions my husband has entered will have found themselves listed on these sites, and as a result the companies that ran the competitions might well have found their own sites better placed when genuine buyers searched for a product like theirs, depending on which way the Google backlink wind was blowing at the time.
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    It depends on how the contest is structured. Remember, you have to structure it so it furthers your brand instead of merely achieving a temporary sugar high (traffic surge).
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