Run Competitions to Market Your Member Site

Reader Disclosure

If you're seeking ways to advertise your membership site and increase your reach, running an event could be your solution. Of course, there is a variety of ways to increase the number of people who visit your site, but contests and giveaways could be very effective.

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 post, we'll cover the benefits having a contest for your website to boost its traffic and give you some advice on getting to the point of starting.

Advantages of having competitions and contests

Before we go over the instruments that will aid you with running a contest through your membership site, here are some benefits to creating an event.

Expand your reach to a wider audience

If the entry into your contest will require the contestant to share your website on social media or elsewhere and reach out to a wider audience could be the main advantage of running a competition.

Some contest management solutions allow you to accept entries from contest participants through social media platforms, including sharing and tweeting of your content, giving participants the possibility to win.

Every social media share can put your site and your membership products in the hands of potential new visitors or members, therefore it's beneficial to incorporate a social media element to your contests.

Boost Social Media Following

Growing your social media following is a worthwhile aim in and of its own. If you are using social media activity to let your visitors enter the competition, having people follow your account in order to participate can naturally increase the number of followers you have.

To increase website traffic

The right contest can be certain to boost website traffic. One way to do this is to make entry to your content involve some type of promotion by those who participate. Furthermore, a fantastic contest with an exciting prize can become a newsworthy activity in its own. Making a giveaway for a great contest can give you the chance to reach out to relevant blogs, influencers, and other key players in your niche by offering them something to talk about that their fans might be attracted to.

The new publicity could boost website traffic, giving the possibility of converting the new users into members or subscribers.

Expand Your Email List

When those new visitors are on your mailing list for entry into the contest, start putting the email program into action and begin providing great content to the new members. After your leads have been warmed up, you can send them a link to your membership program. them.

Encourage discussions

Another popular way to run contests is to pick a winner from everyone who has left a comment in your site's blog. Since comments can spark discussion about your website and the products it offers It is worth putting in the effort to get your customers to post their opinions.

Promote Your Membership Product

The last but not least is having a contest can help you promote your membership program. Through creating a contest that is newsworthy that other people in your industry would like to pass on to their audiences, or having a competition with an entry process that includes social media promotion and promotion, you will be able to promote your membership service.

Key Points to Consider Before Running a Competition

Before you begin to launch your first competition, there are certain points to consider. First you should try to sit down for a while thinking about what prize you will give away.

Will you offer one grand prize or offer runners-up prizes too? Access to your contest for free or at a reduced cost your membership program is an obvious choice. However, if you want to advertise your contest for existing members then you'll have to think outside of the box.

Make sure that the prize you choose to award is appropriate for your target audience, while it also being something that they'll be happy to share via social media, and also make their own name known. Also, make sure your budget for prize money is in line with your expectations realistically for the contest and its outcomes.

Hopefully, the contest you enter will bring more visitors to your website. If it does then it's important to ensure that you've created systems to not only handle this extra traffic, but maximize the benefits.

Don't forget to set up website analytics to track the results of the competition. A free service like Google Analytics will allow you to determine if your website is seeing an increase in visitors and where they came from, and what they've been doing on your site.

How to 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 more simple than normal to host an event. With some great free and paid plugins designed for just this purpose the only thing you need to do is choose the appropriate tool for the goals you want to achieve. Here's a quick review of some well-known WordPress Contest and competition plugins.

Promotions and Contests run by Fatcat Apps

The no-cost Contests and Giveaways plugin lets you set up and run a contest that asks your guests to provide their email address to be entered. After the contest's end date has arrived and the plugin has completed its task, it will pick a winner at random. Due to IP tracking and the use of cookies, the contest plugin is able to thwart contest fraud.

If you're looking for an easy and straightforward way to try the waters of contests on your WordPress site the plugin you choose is a good option.

Comment Contest

The cost-free Comment Contest plugin will aid in the creation of discussion about your blog posts. When enabled, the plugin lets you decide which posts are to be part of in the contest, before choosing the winner. Because submitting a post is the only requirement to participate in the contest, it's likely to have a significant response from your visitors.

No Frills Prize Draw Competitions

This free plugin allows you to start hosting competitions on your WordPress website at no cost and you can upgrade to a paid edition and unlocking more features.

By setting the options, you have the option of deciding what contestants must do to enter the contest. This could include typing in a message, answering an multiple choice query or simply clicking enter. The winner is selected by the plugin. It is up to the winner to reach out to the participant and hand over the prize.

If you really want to dive in at the bottom of the pool with contests and competitions, the KingSumo Giveaways plugin can be expensive but is feature rich.

Final Thoughts

If everything goes as planned but, your competition could bring increased traffic to your website as well as increased exposure through social media, as well as the addition of new participants to your organization.

 Do you have any questions about running a competition for your membership website? Let us know in the comments below.