We marketing folks are always looking for a way to grab attention. Most times we use advertising to bludgeon our brand into minds and hearts. Lately, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been added to our artillery, to be used in a more engaging two way conversation flow. Once in a while we reach for the contest arrow to aim at the heart of our customers.
I caution people about contests, A few observations:
- I believe there is a species of human called the professional contest enter-er. They have come to realize that relatively few people enter contests and so their chances are good. This goes for traditional and online. Long time ago when I was at Stag, the same people entered the contests and I see the same thing now in online contests. These people move from one contest to another hardly affected by the presenting brand, motivated only by the prize and prepared to invest the time and the proof of purchase to get it.
- Go big or go home. If you can’t do it well, don’t do it. Apart from the prizes, there is the media spend to tell the world about it.
- Make sure the contest is faithful to your brand positioning (a Rum brand should not have a trip to Disney as the prize, for example)
And one more thing. Instead of running a contest that’s open to the public, how about you run an internal contest where employees get a chance to win prizes when they treat customers better.
