Running Competitions to Promote Your Member Site

Reader Disclosure

If you're seeking an opportunity to market your membership website and grow the number of people who visit it, then hosting a competition could be the answer. There are many ways to grow your audience, but contests and giveaways can work really well.

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 piece we'll go over the benefits of running a competition to increase traffic to your site in addition to giving you some advice on getting going.

Advantages of having 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 creating an event.

Affect a broader audience

If entry to your competition is contingent on the participants sharing your site on social media or in other places to reach a larger number of people could be the most important reason to run a contest.

A lot of contest management companies give you the ability to take entries for contests through social media platforms, including sharing and tweeting of your content giving your guests the possibility to win.

Every share you make on social media can put your site and your membership products in the hands of potential new visitors or members. Therefore it's beneficial to include a social media component to your contests.

Boost Social Media Following

Gaining more followers on social media is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. If you are using social media activity to let your visitors enter the contest, then having them follow your profile in order to participate can naturally increase the number of followers you have.

To increase website traffic

An effective contest will be sure increase traffic on your website. One way to do this is to include a contest entry form to include some sort of promotional element on the part of those who participate. Secondly, a great contest offering a thrilling prize could become an exciting occasion in and of itself. Creating a generous contest giveaway can give you the chance to reach out to influential bloggers, influencers and other key players in your niche, giving them something to share that their followers might be curious about.

This new exposure could increase website traffic, giving the possibility of converting those new visitors into subscribers or members.

Grow Your List of Emails

After they have opted into your list to enter the contest, begin to put your email marketing campaign to work and start sending out great content to the new members. After your leads have been warm, you are able to share your membership product with them.

Invite discussions

Another popular way to run an event is to select a winner from everyone who left a comment in your site's blog. Since comments can spark discussions about your site and its products for membership, it can be worth putting in the effort to entice your readers to share their thoughts.

Promote Your Member Product

The last but not least is having a contest can aid in promoting your membership program. Through creating a contest that is newsworthy that others in your niche would like to share with their audience and/or having an entry procedure that involves social media promotion in order to help spread awareness about your membership service.

The most important things to consider prior to Running a Competition

When you are ready to launch your first competition, there are some points to consider. For starters it's best to sit down for a while thinking about what prize you're going to give away.

Will you offer one grand prize, or have runners up prizes as well? A reduced or free access to your membership program is the best option. If you'd like to promote your contest to existing members you'll need be thinking outside the confines of.

Be sure to ensure that the prize you choose to award is appropriate for the people you want to reach, and it also being something that they'll be happy to share with their friends on social media as well as make their own name known. Be sure to ensure that the budget for prizes will be in line with your expectations realistically regarding the competition as well as its results.

Hopefully, your contest will bring more visitors to your website. If so, you'll need to be sure that you've created procedures to handle that extra traffic but also get the most value from it.

Don't forget to create a website analytics account to track the results of the contest. Google Analytics is a free program. Google Analytics makes it easy to determine if your website is seeing an increase in traffic, where those visitors came from, and what they've been doing on your site.

How do you run a competition for your Website

If you're employing WordPress for your membership site and you're using WordPress for your membership website, it's easier than usual to run the competition. There are a number of free and paid plugins available that have been built for just this purpose All you need to choose is the appropriate tool for your needs. This is a brief review of some well-known WordPress competition and contest plugins.

Contests and Giveaways from Fatcat Apps

The no-cost Contests & Giveaways plugin allows you to set up and conduct a competition which requires that your participants submit their email to enter. When the deadline for contests is reached and the plugin has completed its task, it will choose a winner by random. Thanks to IP tracking as well as the use of cookies, this plugin is able to thwart contest fraud.

If you want a quick and easy way to try out contests on your WordPress site This plugin can be a great choice.

Comment Contest

The free Comment Contest plugin can help you generate discussion on your blog posts. When enabled, the plugin allows you to decide which posts are to be part of in the contest, before choosing the winner. Since leaving a comment is enough to enter the contest, there will get a lot of participation from your visitors.

No Frills Prize Draw Competitions

The freemium plugin allows you to start organizing contests on your WordPress website at no cost but you have the option of upgrading to a paid version, to unlock more features.

Through the settings, you can choose what your participants must complete to be eligible for the contest, such as typing in a message, answering the multiple choice questions, or just pressing enter. The winner is selected by the plugin. This leaves the winner to reach out to the participant and hand over the prize.

If you're really looking to get into the bottom of the pool with contests The KingSumo premium Giveaways plugin will cost you a lot, however it is packed with features.

Final Reflections

If all goes to plan though, your contest could bring increased traffic to your website as well as increased exposure via social media and new members for your program.

 Have you got any queries concerning running a contest on your website for membership? Let us know in the comments below.