Alongside the traditional marketing methods that tend to make up the majority of business efforts to reach out to their customers, it’s occasionally worth doing something a little extra special. If you’re trying to build up your list of leads, running an online competition might help you drum up the excitement and enthusiasm you need, while getting the valuable data that could help you close some sales in the near future.

Know what you want to achieve, specifically, whether it’s growing your email list, your social media followers, or bringing attention directly to a product. This should determine every part of your campaign, as should your target audience. You want to make sure that the messaging, prize, and platforms you use all appeal directly to the audience that’s most likely to help you meet your conversion and lead generation goals.

Naturally, your prize (or prizes) are going to be the biggest draw for people, so choose it with care. You want to choose prizes that are relevant to your business, perhaps even directly giving away free products, as choosing more generic prizes, like cash, unrelated gadgets, or gift certificates, might draw in large volumes of people, but they’re not likely to be very relevant or useful as leads. You need to decide whether you’re opting for quality or quantity.

A good competition balances a relatively easy way to enter with valuable data collection. Perhaps the best way to guide your entrants through the process is with the help of a competition website builder that outlines the steps while creating a professional, clean setting that can help build trust in the competition and the brand more broadly. Contact details might be the only data that you require to keep things smooth and easy for those who want it that way, but you can include optional fields to learn more about your audience, perhaps even offering extra entries for those willing to share more.

Even if you’re only technically running the competition on one platform or channel, you should use a mix of them to make sure that the word spreads far and wide. Email marketing, social media, paid ads, and partnerships with other brands can help you maximise your reach, and offering sharing incentives, like extra entries for referrals, can have your audience do some of the work for you, too. 

Aside from using contact details to confirm entries, you should make sure that you’re working on those leads after the competition ends. Start with a thoughtful thank-you message, announcing the winners while also providing exclusive offers or valuable content to even those who didn’t win. Segment your audience based on their responses or behaviour to deliver more personalised communication, continuing the conversations most likely to help you reach your goals.

Running a competition has great appeal, in terms of potential virality and word-of-mouth, but don’t underestimate the solid leads it can also offer with the right intention. The tips above should help you do that a little more easily.