by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ
Running a contest for your e-zine
subscribers or web site visitors is one way you can generate interest and give
more exposure for products or services you want to promote.
A contest could be as simple as spotting a
word or a set of words within an e-zine's issue or searching for a graphic on a
site. A contest can run for one issue, or it can last for a month or more.
If you plan to run a contest, make sure you
have a "contest management response system" in place.
This could be as simple as an automated
e-mail receipt to let your participants know their entry has been received.
Run a contest that asks your participants
to send their responses to specific e-mail addresses. Then create an automated
receipt confirmation for each account. Include a link to your products,
affiliate links, or services in your confirmation receipt. Every time someone
enters your contest and sends her entry, she receives a confirmation message.
Thus, you've just exposed your products to your contestant.
Encourage multiple entries and your contest
participants get exposed to your promotional texts multiple times.
Ok, what about contest prizes?
If you publish an e-zine and you sell
advertising space, you can give away free ad space to the winners.
If you have your own product, or a product
you have resell rights to, you can give away free copies of it to your winners.
If you have a service, why not put that up
as a prize?
In any case, though, let your prospective
contestants be interested in the prizes. Yes -- put the complete prize
descriptions, along with the contest mechanics, on autoresponder too.
And then include links where they can
purchase the prizes. Hey, some people might not want to wait to win your contest!
So it's good to cover all bases.
Run a contest that lets autoresponders
handle entries and confirmation receipts and you'll have a promotional tool
that can bring in profits for you!
About
the Author:
Shery
is the developer of creative, motivating and fun e-mail courses for writers at http://writingbliss.com. She also authored
the e-book that lets you create your own original and profitable E-mail
Workshops, eCourses and Tutorials in only 3 days. Visit http://emailworkshopshowto.com for
more info.
Copyright
© Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ
Article
Source:
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