Attracting customers’ attention and building a lasting bond with the brand – contests are a powerful marketing tool. However, in order to fully exploit their potential, it is necessary to master the art of organizing and conducting this type of activation.
Benefits of organizing marketing contests
Encouraging participants to actively participate in a contest has many advantages. A brand can build an emotional bond and customer loyalty, as well as increase customer engagement. Customers who feel the benefits of participating in contests often become its ambassadors and recommend it to other people.
At the same time, marketing contests can help sell and promote new products or services. Additionally, they are used to generate leads, such as through enrollment in direct marketing databases, product testing, or generating positive feedback, which has been the case in many contests we have already organized for brands such as Decathlon, Bausch&Lomb and Asus, among others.
First – set clear goals
It is crucial to set clear goals that you want to achieve. Without this step, the competition may lose its strategic value and fail to deliver the expected results.
Think about what is the most important to you. Do you want to increase brand awareness, the reach of your products or services, or perhaps build an emotional connection with your customers? Answering this question will help you focus your efforts and measure their effectiveness. Also be clear about what constitutes goal achievement.
Then determine whether you want participants to perform a specific task, answer questions, or perhaps produce creative content. Determining the format of the contest will help you create the right mechanics and rules to support the achievement of your goals.
It is also important to identify the contest’s target audience. Who are your potential participants? What are their preferences and expectations? Understanding your target audience will allow you to tailor your mechanics, prizes and communications to attract as many participants as possible. A great example of this would be the “Active Parent = Active Child” consumer activation for BeRaw Kids, which engaged parents and children to play together and promote healthy eating habits.
Planning and organizing a marketing contest
Once you’ve established your goals, it’s time to plan and organize the contest. The first step is to determine the budget you have at your disposal. It will help you adjust the scope and determine the prizes you can award.
Next, create a schedule, specifying start and end dates, as well as other important deadlines, such as the deadline for submissions. Remember to include enough time to promote the contest and collect entries.
Once the budget and schedule are set, move on to determining the mechanics and rules of the contest. Will it be a knowledge contest, a creative contest, a lottery, or something else? Determine what participants must do to participate. Make sure the mechanics are interesting and engaging for potential participants. It’s important that the rules are clear, understandable and fair to everyone.
Create engaging contest mechanics and rules
Here are some tips to help you in this process:
Low/easy entry threshold
Participation should be barrier-free. It should consist of a minimum number of steps, such as “write a creative answer to a question” or “take a photo”. The more requirements, the more difficult it becomes to participate, which translates into fewer entries. This aspect should be tailored to the brand’s goal: what is most important? Broad engagement and lots of submissions? Or maybe narrow targeting and higher requirements for participation in the activation? Our agency prepared a campaign for Asus using a contest with a higher entry threshold, due to the difficult creative target audience of video game developers. We achieved great positioning and the number of entries exceeded our expectations.
Regulations
Every contest must have regulations that detail all the rules – the task of the contest, i.e. what to do, when, how and where. There should also be information about what the prizes are, how they can be won, how they will be spent. Remember that the determination of tax issues and data processing is also the basis of such a document. The participant should know the rules of the game, which are the same for everyone, and you must follow them.
Challenge and creativity
the contest tasks should be interesting and require participants to be creative. Encourage them to show their talent or ingenuity, allowing them to stand out from others.
Simple rules
Make sure the contest rules are simple and easy to understand. Avoid overly complicated or unclear instructions that may discourage potential participants.
Matching prizes
Attractive prizes are a key element of an engaging contest mechanic. Make sure they are appropriate for your target audience and will attract participants. These can be branded products or services, vouchers, cash prizes, etc.
Clear timelines
Set specific deadlines to encourage participants to act immediately. You can divide the contest into parts, with different prizes at each stage.
Promote the marketing contest
Effective promotion is essential for success. There are many channels you can use, such as social media, a website, email marketing, banner ads, print, radio or TV ads. It is important to tailor your promotion strategy to your target audience and the goals of the contest itself.
Social media is one of the best tools for promoting a marketing contest. You can use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), or LinkedIn to reach your target audience and encourage them to participate in the contest. Create interesting content, host live events, share information about the contest, and encourage participation using relevant hashtags.
Consider involving online creators. They will make it easier for you to reach the target group you are interested in. Influencers can explain the rules of the contest more broadly and attractively, interact with fans and introduce them to the idea of the activation.
Your contest website should be clear and intuitive – it’s the key place where participants are most likely to register their participation. Therefore, it must contain information about the contest, mechanics, rules, prizes, deadlines and a registration form. It is important that it is responsive and works smoothly on various devices, such as computers, smartphones, tablets.
Email marketing can also be an effective promotional tool. It will allow you to send information about the contest to your customer base or potential participants. It is important that the content of the email is attractive, encouraging people to click and then participate in the contest.
Engage participants and build brand loyalty
First, provide excellent customer service to participants. Respond to questions and requests professionally and promptly. Participants should feel that they are important and appreciated. We implemented such activities on the Oranżada Hellena Facebook profile, also using a chatbot, which enabled instant response to thousands of requests. The first activation exceeded our wildest expectations – more than 5 thousand people submitted their participation in the contest!
You can organize additional activities, such as an accompanying contest where participants can win additional prizes or discounts. Such activations will encourage longer participation and increase engagement.
You can also use gamification, i.e. game elements in the contest. Create scores, levels, badges or leaderboards to motivate participants to act, compete and continue participating.
Measure and analyze the results of the competition
Once the competition is over, it is important to measure and analyze the results. Here are some metrics you can track:
- Number of entries – track the number of entries to gauge participant interest and popularity of the competition.
- Reach and engagement – analyze the reach and engagement of posts related to the competition on social media. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of the promotion.
- Conversions – if the contest required a certain action from participants, track the number of conversions to assess the effectiveness of the contest in generating sales or other business goals.
- Participant feedback – analyze participant feedback to find out what their experience was and whether they were satisfied with the contest. This will help you improve future contests.
Lottery or competition?
In the case of organizing a lottery, it is necessary to cooperate with the Tax Chamber. It is also needed to ensure that a bank guarantee is obtained, which has the effect of securing funds for prizes. The entire procedure involved in preparing a lottery is more difficult and longer than standard contest activation.
If you decide on a contest activation, it is worth betting on a contest task with a low entry threshold. It can take various forms. Here are some ideas you can use:
- Write what you associate the product/brand with.
- Write why you are the one who should win the product.
- Tell the funniest story that happened to you while using our product.
- Take a photo using the brand’s products that shows how much you like them.
- Make a short video showing how creatively you use the product.
When is an advertising agency useful?
Working with an advertising agency when organizing a marketing contest is valuable for many reasons.
It has experience in creating marketing and promotional strategies. This allows it to relieve the burden of organizing contests or lotteries. Very often it carries out such tasks from A to Z and de facto becomes the legal organizer of a given activation. Thus, it is responsible for coming up with the rules, writing the regulations, creating content, designs, running the contest, promoting it, buying prizes and accounting for taxes.
With such a variety of tasks, a project team needs an account manager, strategist, media planner, creative, graphic designer, lawyer, accountant – this is the basic lineup of people and expertise that an agency can provide.
All of this makes clients reluctant to carry out such activations on their own. They require a lot of experience, knowledge and an efficient team that can work together under time pressure. Therefore, clients feel safer organizing such contests with advertising agencies that take full responsibility for the entire process.
Do you want to organize a contest for your brand?
FAQ
1. Does a contest have to have rules and regulations?
Yes, every contest must have rules and regulations. This is a legal document that details the rules of the contest, including the manner and conditions of participation, the type and value of prizes, the criteria for selecting winners, and information about the processing of participants’ personal data. Regulations ensure transparency and fairness of the contest, protect both the organizer and participants, and are a legal requirement.
2. Is it better to offer cash prizes or vouchers?
The choice between cash prizes and vouchers depends on the target audience and goals of the contest funder. Cash prizes are universal and can attract a wider audience, while vouchers may be more appealing to those interested in specific products or services that relate to the brand’s DNA. Vouchers have an advantage over cash prizes because they help promote the products and services of the founder or its partners close to its brand philosophy.
3. What is the approximate cost of organizing a contest or raffle?
The cost of organizing a contest or lotteries can vary considerably, depending on the size and scope of the contest, the value of the prizes, the promotion channels chosen and the operating costs. It can range from a few thousand PLN for smaller local contests, to much larger amounts for nationwide or international activations.
4. How long does it take to organize a lottery?
It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to organize a lottery, depending on complexity and legal requirements. The process includes preparing regulations, obtaining necessary approvals, preparing promotional materials, and providing a bank guarantee.
5. What are the main benefits of organizing marketing contests?
The main benefits are building emotional connection and loyalty among customers, increasing customer engagement, promoting products or services, generating leads, and creating positive brand feedback. Contests also make it possible to turn customers into brand ambassadors.
