Run Competitions to Market Your Membership Website
If you're looking for a way to promote your membership website and grow the number of people who visit it, then hosting a competition could be the solution. Naturally, there are many ways to grow your audience with giveaways or contests, however they are a great option.
Contents Toggle
- Benefits of Using Competitions and Contests
- Reach a Wider Audience
- Boost Social Media Following
- Increase Website Traffic
- Grow Your Email List
- Encourage Discussion
- Promote Your Membership Product
- Key Points to Consider Before Running a Competition
- How to Run a Competition for Your Website
- Contests & Giveaways by Fatcat Apps
- Comment Contest
- No Frills Prize Draw Competitions
- Final Thoughts
In this post we'll go over the benefits of running a competition to increase traffic to your site and give you some advice on getting started.
Benefits of Using Competitions and contests
Before we go over the instruments that will assist you in running a contest through your membership site Here are some of the benefits of having a contest.
Reach a Wider Audience
If your competition requires the participant to share the contest on social networks or other platforms to reach a larger number of people could be the most important benefit of running a contest.
A lot of contest management companies allow you to accept contest entries through social media platforms, including tweets and shares of your posts giving participants the chance to win.
Every share you make on social media might put your website as well as your membership service in front prospective new customers or members. In this case it's an excellent idea to include a social media component to your contests.
Boost Social Media Following
Getting more social media followers is a worthwhile objective in it's own. If you do use social media activity to let your visitors enter the contest, then letting people follow your account in order to participate can naturally increase the number of followers you have.
More Website Traffic
A good contest is sure to boost website traffic. For one, you can make entry to your content include some sort of promotional element by the participants. Furthermore, a fantastic contest that has a prize can become a newsworthy activity in its own. Making a giveaway for a great contest provides you with an opportunity to reach out to important influencers, blogs, and other major players in your niche and give them something interesting to talk about that their fans could be attracted to.
This new exposure could increase the number of visitors to your website, which gives you more chances to convert the new users to members or subscribers.
Expand Your Email List
When those new visitors are on your list to enter the contest, you can begin to put your email marketing campaign in motion and begin sharing great content with your new subscribers. After your leads have been warmed up, you can send them a link to your membership program. the new members.
Engage in Discussion
Another method for running an event is to select a winner from everyone who has left a comment to your website. Because comments can lead to discussions about your site and the products it offers and membership products, it is worthwhile putting in the effort to get your customers to post their thoughts.
Promote Your Membership Products
The last but not least is having a contest can help you promote your membership program. By creating a newsworthy contest which other members in your field are likely to want to pass on to their audiences as well as having an entry procedure that involves promotions on social media in order to help spread awareness about the benefits of your membership plan.
Important Points to Take into Account Before Conducting a competition
Before you get started and launch your first competition, there are certain aspects to think about. First, it's a good idea to take some time considering the prizes you will award.
Will you offer one grand prize or offer runners-up prize options as well? A reduced or free access to your membership plan is a good option. If you'd like to advertise your contest to existing members then you'll have look outside the confines of.
Make sure that your prize appeals to your target audience, while it also being something that they'll be happy to share on social media and put their name behind. Make sure that your budget for prize money will be in line with your expectations realistically for the contest and the results.
It is hoped that your competition is going to bring more traffic to your website. If this happens, then you'll need to be sure that you've set up systems to not only handle that extra traffic but also make the most of it.
Last but not least, you should set up website analytics to track the results of the competition. A free service like Google Analytics makes it easy to see if your site has experienced increased traffic and where they came from and what they've been doing on your website.
How to run a Contest on Your Website
If you're making use of WordPress for your membership site and you're using WordPress for your membership website, it's simpler than you'd expect to conduct the competition. There are a number of free and paid plugins available that have been built to help with this, all you have to do is select the right tool for your goals. Here's a quick summary of the most popular WordPress competition and contest plugins.
Contests and Giveaways from Fatcat Apps
The no-cost Contests and Giveaways plugin lets you set up and host a giveaway which requires that your participants provide their email address to be entered. Once the competition end date is reached it will choose a winner by random. Thanks to IP tracking and the use of cookies, the contest plugin can fight against fraudulent contests.
If you are looking for a fast and simple way to test the waters of contests on your WordPress site This plugin can be a great choice.
Comment Contest
The free Comment Contest plugin can aid in the creation of discussion about the blog's posts. Once enabled, this plugin allows you to select which of your comments will be included as part of the contest before selecting the winner. As leaving a comment is all that's needed to enter the contest, there will get a lot of participation from the people who visit your site.
The No Frills Prize Draw Competitions
The freemium plug-in will let you start organizing competitions on your WordPress site for no cost, and you can upgrade to a paid edition and unlocking additional features.
Through the settings, you can choose what your contestants must do to enter the contest. This could include typing in a message, answering the multiple choice questions or simply pressing enter. The winner is automatically picked by the plugin. This leaves you with the task of contacting the winning contestant and give them the prize.
If you really want to get into the very top of competitions, then the premium KingSumo Giveaways plugin isn't cheap however it is packed with features.
Final Reflections
If all goes to plan though, your contest could result in increased website visitors as well as increased exposure through social media, as well as more participants to your contest.
Are you having any concerns regarding running a contest for your site's membership? Let us know in the comment section below.