The most powerful competition ideas to increase interaction and marketing your brand

Sahl Monday,04 Sep 2023

Marketing contests can be an effective way to capture audience attention and increase engagement with your brand. In this article, we will review innovative and effective ideas for using marketing contests as part of your marketing strategy.

Part 1: Understanding the Importance of Marketing Contests

Before we get into ideas for effective contests, let's talk a little about the importance of marketing contests and how they can contribute to your brand's success.

Increase engagement: Marketing contests encourage audiences to engage and interact with your brand content in different ways. Participation in the competition may require following your account on social media or subscribing to the newsletter, which contributes to increasing the number of followers and subscribers.

Boost brand awareness: When people participate in your contests, they get to know your brand and products or services better. This increases the chances of converting them into real customers in the future.

Content Generation: Marketing contests give audiences an opportunity to create content that relates to your brand. This content can be useful in promoting the brand across social media and websites.

Promote social interaction: Contests can generate discussions and social interactions around your brand. Contests and entries are widely circulated across social media, increasing your brand's online presence.

Part 2: Marketing Contest Ideas

Now let's review innovative and effective ideas for marketing competitions:

1. Creative photography competition:

Ask participants to take creative photos that reflect your brand.
Select a custom hashtag and ask participants to share photos on social media.
Offer valuable prizes for the best photos.
2. Puzzles and games competition:

Create questions or puzzles related to your products or services.
Let participants answer questions by sharing their comments.
Offer prizes to those who answer correctly.
3. Innovative Video Competition:

Ask participants to create a short video explaining how to use your products or services creatively.
Carefully define the terms of participation and competition rules.
Offer incentives such as discounts or gifts.
4. Inspirational Quotes Contest:

Ask participants to share inspirational quotes that relate to your industry or your brand values.
Choose the best quotes and give prizes to their owners.
Share the winning quotes on your social media pages
5. Questionnaires and Polls Competition:

Create a questionnaire or survey related to your industry or products.
Have people participate in the questionnaire or poll and view the results later.
Offer prizes to participants who participate in the questionnaire or survey.
6. Customer Story Competition:

Ask your current customers to share their success stories with your products or services.
Choose the best stories and share them on your social platforms.
Offer prizes to customers who share their stories.
7. Logo design competition:

Ask participants to design a new logo for your brand or a specific product.
Set a deadline for submitting designs and consider organizing a public vote to choose the winner.
Offer attractive prizes to the winning designers.
8. Demo Competition:

Give participants a chance to try your product or service for free or at a deep discount.
Let them share their experiences and opinions openly on social media.
Offer prizes for the best reviews or experiences.
9. Special Events Contest:

Organize a special event where you announce the contest and distribute prizes.
Make the event fun and engaging for attendees, and have them participate in various activities and games.
Take advantage of the opportunity to document the event and share it on social media platforms.
10. Creative Challenge Competition: - Ask participants to create something new related to your products or services. - Leave the room open for innovation and creativity. - Offer prizes for the best creations and share them on your platforms.

Part 3: Contest Implementation Strategy

Setting goals: Before starting any contest, you should set clear goals that you want to achieve through the contest, whether it is increasing engagement or increasing product sales.

Choose prizes: Select prizes that are attractive enough to make people participate in the contest and strive to win.

Contest Marketing: Use social media, email, and your website to promote the contest. Make your flyers attractive and engaging.

Motivate participation: Create strategies to increase the number of participants, such as frequent participation in the contest or increasing the chances of winning for participants who participate more.

Evaluate the results: After the competition ends, evaluate the results and measure the extent to which the set goals were achieved. Leverage analytics to better understand audience engagement and overall contest performance.

Continuous monitoring and improvement:

After the competition ends and prizes are presented to the winners, your team should monitor and analyze the performance of the competition. Use data and analytics to understand how the audience interacted, the amount of participation, and what type of prizes were most attractive. Use this information to improve your future strategies for competitions.

Post-contest interaction:

The relationship between your brand and participants doesn't end when the contest ends. Continuously interact with participants by responding to their comments and inquiries. Share the creative content created during the contest on social media platforms and encourage participants to share their experiences with your products or services.

Use contests sustainably:

Don't be limited to using contests only on certain occasions. You can regularly incorporate contests into your marketing strategy to increase sustainable engagement with your customers and audience. This could include monthly or seasonal contests or special promotions.

Interaction with participants:

Use contests to connect with your audience and better understand their needs and interests. Take advantage of comments and shares to collect feedback and suggestions from

Participants, and use them to develop your products or improve your services.

Direct your rewards wisely:

When selecting prizes for the contest, make sure they reflect the value of your brand and make the winners feel good about participating. Prizes can be free products or services or deep discounts on upcoming purchases.

Part 4: Successfully implementing the competition

Choosing a suitable platform: Before you start implementing your contest, determine which platform best suits your target audience. Will you be launching the contest on social media, your website, or a dedicated contest platform? Choose a platform that allows for easy sharing and following.

Rules and Conditions: You must clearly define the rules and conditions and explain them to the participants. This includes the contest end date, prizes offered, eligibility to participate, and any additional terms.

Daily interaction: Interact with participants daily during the competition period. Answer their questions, provide additional guidance, and encourage active participation.

Part 5: Marketing the Contest

Promotion Strategy: Prepare a strong promotion strategy that includes ads on social media, email to customers, and your blog if you have one. Let the public know about the contest before it starts.

Use hashtags: Create a hashtag for the contest and encourage participants to use it when posting their entries on social media. This will increase the competition's online presence.

Part 6: Ending and Evaluation

Announcement of the winners: When the competition period ends, announce the winners in an official and distinguished manner. Share the winners' names and prizes on all social media platforms and your website.

Evaluate Success: Analyze the performance of the competition based on the goals you initially set. Has the number of subscribers increased? Has interaction been enhanced on social media? Have sales of products or services increased? Use this information to improve your future strategies.

Part 7: Audience Retention

Sustained communication: After the competition, maintain communication with participants. Share relevant content and leverage opportunities to drive sustainable engagement.

Offers and discounts: Offer special offers or discounts to participants as part of your post-contest follow-up strategy. This can encourage them to remain customers and fans of your brand.

Take advantage of feedback: Take advantage of participant feedback and inquiries to improve your products or services. You may find new ideas or ways to better meet customer needs.

Successful examples of marketing competitions

To understand how effective marketing contests can be, let's look at some examples of successful contests:

Red Bull Stratos Competition: Red Bull organized a unique competition in which Australian Felix Baumgartner jumped from outer space. Red Bull was able to encourage millions of viewers to watch the live event and share it on social media, which greatly increased its popularity.

Starbucks Red Cup Contest: Starbucks has an annual contest inviting customers to decorate traditional red coffee cups. Entrants were encouraged to share photos of their designs on Instagram with a custom hashtag, creating shared creative content and increasing brand awareness.

Airbnb Complaints Contest: Airbnb has launched a competition to collect ideas on how to improve customer experience and better complaints routing. This allowed customers to actively participate in the development of the platform.

Lay's "World's Smartest Kid" Contest: Lay's organized a world-class competition urging children to submit creative ideas for chips flavours. This contest not only helped encourage participation and increase product sales, but also allowed the brand to engage with the young audience.

Practical examples of marketing contest ideas

To help you gain a practical understanding of how to implement marketing contests and apply the ideas mentioned, here are some practical examples:

“Post and Win” Social Media Contest: Create a contest that encourages participants to share your posts or products on social media platforms and use a custom hashtag. Give the winners attractive gifts such as discount vouchers or free products.

Creative Photography Contest: Have participants take creative photos that reflect your brand or products. Offer prizes for the best photos and share them on your social sites to boost awareness of your brand.

Puzzles and Brain Games Contest: Create questions or riddles related to your field of work or your own knowledge. Share these questions daily on social media and view the correct answers periodically. Offer prizes to those who answer correctly.

Sports Competition or Outdoor Event: Organize fun sports or outdoor events that bring participants together and drive engagement with your brand. These events include attractive prizes and share the events on social media.

Content Engagement Contest: Offer a contest that asks participants to share creative comments or share your post in a specific way. Offer prizes to those who demonstrate the highest level of interaction and participation.

in conclusion

In short, marketing contests are a powerful strategy to increase engagement and marketability for your brand. You can customize competitions according to your needs and budget, and leverage them to build stronger relationships with your audience and increase your brand's success. The examples and ideas mentioned here can be a good starting point to start implementing your own marketing contests.