how-to-build-your-email-subscribers-using-contests | Pebble Design

How To Build Your E-mail Subscribers Using Contests

Email is proven to be one of the most effective communication channels you can leverage, and one of the challenges is to keep your list of email subscribers constantly growing.

However, people are guarding their email addresses tighter than ever these days, which means you need to be offering them something amazing in order to convince them to hand it over.

Employing contests to build your email list might be one way to achieve that goal.

In this post, we’ll discuss why contests are an effective way to build your list and show you actionable tips and tools you can use to run a successful contest that builds your email list.

Why should you use contests to help build your email lists?

Research from Unbounce would suggest so. They recently did a study on the effect including a contest had on 100 of their customers’ landing pages. They analyzed the results from more than 3 million visitors and found that landing pages with a contest gathered 700% more email subscribers than those without a contest option.

The 3 key elements of a successful contest

So we know that contests work, but how do you know what prize to offer? And how do you promote it to capture as many email addresses as possible?

There are three key aspects of a successful contest: the premise, the prize and the promotion. By getting each of these areas right, you’ll be able to create a contest that resonates with your audience, encourages thousands of entries and builds your email list.

Part One: The Premise

The premise is the foundation of your contest. It helps you define what you are asking your users to submit as an entry to the contest.

Some example premises include:

  • A video contest where entrants submit their best skating trick
  • A photo contest where people submit their cutest pet photo
  • A text contest where people enter their best joke, poem or short story

Also – make it easy for participants to enter, tap in to highly shareable content.

Part Two: The Prize

Offer a prize that speaks to your customers’ needs and desires and also highlights your unique features, making you more memorable. Appeal to your target demographic and be unique.

For instance, Queensland Tourism’s “Best Job in the World” campaign offered the winner a job as the ‘Caretaker’ of the Great Barrier Reef, which essentially involved touring the reef and its associated islands and blogging about it for a year. This unique, money-can’t-buy prize not only attracted over 34,000 entries but also secured an estimated $150 million worth of media coverage, being covered by CNN, Time and BBC to name just a few.

Use supplementary or shared prizes and tap into other company’s databases. This is most valuable in getting your product out to new audiences.

Part Three: The Promotion

Try promoting your contest by:

  • Notifying your current email subscribers
  • Placing it on your website
  • Promoting through social media outlets
  • Collaborating with influencers
  • Getting placed on directory sites
  • Contacting traditional media outlets
  • Putting it on your packaging materials

In Conclusion

y following the best practices around premise, prize and promotion outlined above, you can create a highly appealing contest that builds your email list and your brand recognition, not to mention opening up new audiences through network competition partners.

Contact to find out more about how we can give your business a boost with a contest.

Original article by: Aaron Beashel


All Insight Articles