Planning a Blog Contest
Over the past few hours I have found out that planning a blog contest is not an easy task. In fact, it is downright difficult to say the least. I have been slaving over every last detail this afternoon, and to be truthful, I have yet to make any progress. Sure, I have some ideas floating around in my head, but no definite direction has separated from the pack as of yet.
So what troubles have I run into thus far? Here are two of the biggest:
1. As you can imagine, for a blog contest to be successful you need to give away something that readers will want. Should I offer a hot item such as a Nintendo Wii? Or should I stick to a service that will not cost me any money? Right now, I am leaning towards a tangible object; something that readers will crave.
2. What should the entrance requirements look like? It would be easy enough to allow readers to enter by leaving a comment, but at the same time it could be more beneficial to require a backlink or something of the sort. Obviously, asking for something like a backlink could scare some people away.
So for now, I have yet to come up with the final details of my first blog contest. But if all goes well, it is on its way soon enough. Stay posted, and maybe you will be the big winner; no matter what prize I decide on!
July 15th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I don’t have experience with this, but here are my thoughts…
As far as what to offer as a prize, I think it depends heavily on your readers. Based on the content your readers come back for, what sort of prize would be most valuable to them? While I for one wouldn’t sneeze at a Wii, it’s not the kind of thing I’d associate with your blog. Since most of your posts are related to writing and blogging, I would assume that most of your readers are writers or bloggers as well. What would be valuable to a writer?
If you wanted to offer something tangible, you might consider a nice journal or pen that has your blog’s URL on it. Alternatively you could offer software that a lot of writers use, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking or something like that.
If you wanted to appeal more to the blogger crowd, you could offer a prominent link to the winner’s blog along with a review. Bloggers value anything that drives more traffic to their blog.
As to the requirements– again, I reckon it depends on who most of your readers are. It wouldn’t intimidate me at all to add a back link or write a review about your blog. Heck, I’ve linked to you and written about one of your posts already.
But if you want to be one the safe side, you could limit it to comments.
Another idea that might appeal to both writers and bloggers is asking for guest posts. That gets into more tricky territory, though: How do you decide the winner? Do all the guest articles get posted, or only one? If all articles are posted, is the winner decided based on the popularity or comments each one gets, or based on a random drawing, or based on the results of a poll?
(I may have created more questions than answers!)
July 15th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Thanks so much for the feedback. I see exactly where you are coming from, and will definitely take those suggestions to heart over the next few days.
I can’t wait to get a contest going just to see how it is received by my readers, etc!
Thanks again!
July 17th, 2007 at 4:27 am
i agree in part with v.neely. prizes should be somewhat tailored to your readership. i gave away the Zune bc it was won by me from John Chow, and we share a similar type of audience. i’m not sure your readers would want/need a zune? while i do think a nice pen or journal would be a good prize, i would steer away from including your URL on it. the individual perceived value should be higher to the participant than the entry itself (”link to my blog”). giving away something with your URL on it will inherently de-value the item.
if you have any sponsors that might want to participate in the contest as well (publishers, freelance employers, etc), perhaps they could donate a prize to you in exchange for requiring links to their site? (like john chow’s 24″ monitor giveaway and links to bluefur) perhaps a really nice Cross pen, or set of moleskine notebooks? if you ask nicely, you never know what you might get!
just my two cents
July 17th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Thanks so much for the advice. This has really been weighing on my mind, but I am sure I will come up with something good in the end.
I guess all that matters is that the contest is a success, and it helps to bring some joy to my readers!