Anyone who has been online for more than a minute knows that they will eventually receive emails that they do not want. This knowledge is the prime reason that using mass email marketing is nearly impossible. The better marketing model is one that generates excitement in your existing customer base; you can do this through promotions they are interested in. You see, when they are expecting something from you in their email they are more inclined to add you to their favorites list. This way you have gone completely around the spam filters that have been trashing your marketing emails.
You have many options available to create the much-needed excitement in your customers. Perhaps one of the best is a contest. You can get them to work very hard for the small price of a prize. They will favorite you now and possibly forever, leaving you a wide-open path for future email marketing campaigns and contests. Think about it, this opportunity alone is worth the cost of the prize.
The nice thing about being the creator of the contest is that you choose how it all works. You can send the customers straight to your website or have them gather clues from other places, this way the contest actually becomes a marketing “commercial” that your customers will be happy to participate in. Contests then can solve many problems, in addition to aiding you in getting around email delivery problems they can also spike the traffic to a slow site or increase interest in a particular function of your website.
Blogs that are not getting enough traffic can be energized by you placing an important clue to the contest on it. Do you have a banner that needs more attention? Leave your customers a tip that the clue is hidden behind the banner, and then simply hide a clue on that affiliate page. Your clicks will quickly go through the roof. The increased traffic to your site and affiliate links will often cover any cost associated with the prize and advertising.
You can also drive business to a physical store that you are promoting online through the use of contests. A great way to meet your online customers in person is to structure the contest in such a way that they must come to the store to find the next clue. While looking for the clue hidden in one of your aisles of products they will often find things they want or need and make a purchase, which is the whole idea in the first place.
Contests that you begin via email are a potent viral marketing technique. Your current customers will not be able to help but spread the word as they get excited about the contest, soon their friends and relatives will be signing up as well. You will see an increased amount of requests to join the contest. It is crucial that you harvest all these additional email addresses and work to get your email address on their white list. Now you have not only benefited from increased clicks on ads and exposure, you now have an expanded contact list for your next promotion.
After you have done this once or twice you may find that contests and clues hidden on your other sites is so profitable that you will want to continue the process over and over again. And who wouldn’t, the profits, traffic and larger customer pool are what online marketing and business are all about. You will however want to space them out a bit, so you do not overwhelm your customers. And try to get permission to post the person who ultimately wins, name or link somewhere on your site. This will validate your contests and make people even more excited to play!
To your success,
Andrea