List Building With Competitions
Most of us will have entered a competition at some time.
Isn't it exciting when you win? Everyone enjoys that feeling.
That's why it's a good idea to run a competition on your website and opt-in pages.
They just need to give you their name and email address in exchange for an entry into the competition.
That is a really effective way to build your mailing list.
Your autoresponder will send them an email confirming their entry.
Prizes could be some useful tips, free report etc.
There are several different types of competitions that you could run in order to boost your list building: Essay Competition Give your readers a subject (or topic area) and word limit and let them know that you will choose the best essays for publication in your e-zine.
That also ensures that they will sign up for your mailing list because they will definitely want to see their essay for themselves.
In order to get it into the e-zine in time and to create a sense of urgency, set a deadline by which the essays must be submitted.
You should also issue some guidance as to what is acceptable content for the essays.
Clearly stipulate whether, once submitted, or once published in your e-zine, the essays become your property.
Think carefully about this, because if the writer retains copyright and they publish it elsewhere, what will that do to your search engine rankings and your credibility? However, publishing the content written by your subscribers is a great way to building up a good relationship with your mailing list.
Photo Competitions Similar to essay competitions, you could run photo competitions linked to the theme of your website.
They would work in the same way as described above.
You can publicize these competitions more widely, this potentially getting more people to see your link, by advertising in competition directories.
There are several of these online and they are easy to find through the search engines.
Remembering that your aim here is to get contacts' email addresses to add to your mailing list, a much simpler competition that you could run is to have a draw of people's email addresses, for which they win a prize if you are selected.
Like with all these competitions, a good prize is some kind of information product (e-book, report or autoresponder course) which shows them dome more about your business and how it can meet their needs, so they are encouraged to buy from you.
You can have these draws fortnightly or monthly - whatever suits you.
Instead of information products, if you have a membership website that people must pay to sign up for, offer a free premium access to your membership area.
Make sure you mention the value of the prize (i.
e.
the price for which you would usually sell it).
That will help to generate interest in your competition as people know that they will be getting a worthwhile prize if they win.
To attract attention, your competition needs a catchy title, and then you should be able to get a lot of names for your mailing list as people will be eager to enter and win the valuable prize.
Isn't it exciting when you win? Everyone enjoys that feeling.
That's why it's a good idea to run a competition on your website and opt-in pages.
They just need to give you their name and email address in exchange for an entry into the competition.
That is a really effective way to build your mailing list.
Your autoresponder will send them an email confirming their entry.
Prizes could be some useful tips, free report etc.
There are several different types of competitions that you could run in order to boost your list building: Essay Competition Give your readers a subject (or topic area) and word limit and let them know that you will choose the best essays for publication in your e-zine.
That also ensures that they will sign up for your mailing list because they will definitely want to see their essay for themselves.
In order to get it into the e-zine in time and to create a sense of urgency, set a deadline by which the essays must be submitted.
You should also issue some guidance as to what is acceptable content for the essays.
Clearly stipulate whether, once submitted, or once published in your e-zine, the essays become your property.
Think carefully about this, because if the writer retains copyright and they publish it elsewhere, what will that do to your search engine rankings and your credibility? However, publishing the content written by your subscribers is a great way to building up a good relationship with your mailing list.
Photo Competitions Similar to essay competitions, you could run photo competitions linked to the theme of your website.
They would work in the same way as described above.
You can publicize these competitions more widely, this potentially getting more people to see your link, by advertising in competition directories.
There are several of these online and they are easy to find through the search engines.
Remembering that your aim here is to get contacts' email addresses to add to your mailing list, a much simpler competition that you could run is to have a draw of people's email addresses, for which they win a prize if you are selected.
Like with all these competitions, a good prize is some kind of information product (e-book, report or autoresponder course) which shows them dome more about your business and how it can meet their needs, so they are encouraged to buy from you.
You can have these draws fortnightly or monthly - whatever suits you.
Instead of information products, if you have a membership website that people must pay to sign up for, offer a free premium access to your membership area.
Make sure you mention the value of the prize (i.
e.
the price for which you would usually sell it).
That will help to generate interest in your competition as people know that they will be getting a worthwhile prize if they win.
To attract attention, your competition needs a catchy title, and then you should be able to get a lot of names for your mailing list as people will be eager to enter and win the valuable prize.
