Have you ever been scrolling through your social feeds wondering why so many people are sharing a particular company's content? Generally, this type of mass engagement will only happen when you're creating things that are important to a lot of people or running a competition, with the latter being far more common in most niche industries. But while engagement rates are great for building leads, how do you ensure that your competitions convert them to customers? Here are three ways to create competition that brings in customers:
Expand your presence
The first thing you're going to want your competition to achieve in order to bring in more sales is to boost your exposure. Likes, comments are shares are great but getting yourself out there in the real world is still just as important. A great way to do this is by offering all runners up (or participants, if you would like to and doing so, is within your budget) eye-catching promotional products.
The promise of extra prizes is a great way to draw in more entrants but if those prizes are useful to them within their day-to-day lives and also carry your brand, you've just found liquid gold when it comes to expanding your reach. Your brand will become commonplace in their world's meaning that you'll be front of mind if they ever need anything related to your offerings and you never know who else will encounter your promotional products and store your name away for future requirements.
The right way to do pay to play
Another common way of bringing in new customers through the use of competitions is to require them to make a purchase in order to participate. While this approach does it have its merits, it should be used sparingly and low-dollar items should be included in the promotion.
Going about your competition this way is often frowned upon but if you have a charity close to your heart that you'd like to do more to support, stocking a token or other item from which all proceeds go to your selected charity is not only a great way to help out your chosen benefactor but it will also help people see the concept of paying to enter as less on the nose. Everyone feels good about doing their part to help others so this will also boost your chances of getting more leads and discussions surrounding your promotion and business.
Extra chances
Another great way to bring in new customers through competition is by getting existing clients to refer their friends for a chance to win. In this scenario, you would generally award the prize to both winning parties but you'll have a guarantee that all entrants in your competition have bought something so you've already expanded your customer base. Something like this can be run quite regularly on a small enough scale (for example, monthly draws for a set percentage off their next order) and can drum up long-term revenue boosts.
Competitions are great for bringing in new interest but once it's peaked, you need to ensure that it turns into a sales conversion. Make sure you have quality collateral and good customer service to back up your promotion and the rest should fall into place. Just remember not to go overboard or people may come to think of your marketing as just a gimmick which can hurt you in the long run. Do your research, plan things outright, and watch your bottom line rise.
