We Have a Winner!

Last post, the focus was running a blog contest—this post, ideas for a contest.  Given our remarkable if not impressive imaginations, the sky’s truly the limit (a valid statement worth repeating).

To restate, my intent: have a nothing-fancy, e-book giveaway at the end of March.  Yeah, kind of obvious.  That’s okay, because this suits my goal for the interim . . . but down the road, who knows what thrilling/sensational contests may transpire?  (I’ll keep you posted, literally.)

So, over to you.  You’re contemplating having a contest, but aren’t yet sure what to do to compel folks to follow you or buy from you and—most importantly—stick with you.

There are two basic types of contests:

1. Entrants provide an email address to enter: this is a random-draw contest.  When the deadline arrives, you indiscriminately select a winner.
2. Entrants submit “something” to compete for the prize: this is a best-entry contest.  These can be quite fun, but should be fairly straightforward; too time-consuming or intensive, and people won’t enter.

Let’s consider a few concepts:

• best / most fun / silliest selfie, photo, or vid (perhaps with a caption or slogan relevant to your site’s theme or product/service)
• social media notions that inspire potential entrants to share photos or vids that highlight your site, product or service
• promotional post or composition about why your site is so awesome
• fun / first-rate reasons why folks should follow your site, buy your product, invest in your service (and so forth)
• compelling “why I should win” pieces of writing
• thought-provoking quiz or trivia questions (perhaps about your site, product or service)
• regular product and/or service giveaways (you determine how often and how much).

Depending on what you’re selling or blogging/writing about, you might want to run a specialized contest: most adorable pet or baby pics, stunning travel or holiday photos, yummy dessert/dish recipes, inventive or inspired drawings or designs.  You might even go for something like “The 500^th Follower Wins”.  Again, imagination is boundless.  Have at it.

Decide how often you want to run a contest, too—once annually, twice, thrice?  It’s up to you.  But don’t do one [or many] simply for the sake of it: make sure you identify why you’re having a contest.  What’s the ultimate aim?  Determine your prize(s).  Decide how you’ll choose your winner(s)—we’ll look at this in a subsequent post.  Organize all pertinent components accordingly, because you don’t want any [flabbergasting] surprises.

To reiterate an essential point, keep it all simple and sweet—always.

Author: tylerus

I'm primarily a writer of fiction and blog posts, and a sometimes editor and proofreader of books, manuals, and film/television scripts. Fact-checking and researching, organizing and coordinating are skills and joys (I enjoy playing detective and developing structure). My fiction audience: lovers of female-sleuth mysteries. My genres of preference: mysteries (needless to say), women’s fiction, informative and helpful “affirmative” non-fiction. So-o, here I am, staring up a new blog for aspiring and established e-Book writers. The plan: to share the (long) journey of getting to this stage, and share "learnings" and "teachings". There's a lot I hope to accomplish with this blog, but it may be a while before that happens as there's a lot on the ol' plate - taking care of Mom, working full-time, and attempting to get another book in the Triple Threat Investigation Agency series written (never mind blog postings and other writing projects). It's very challenging and it's all good. As I like to say: teeny focused baby steps are just as effective as long forceful strides. It may take a little longer, but we will get there. View all posts by tylerus