CONTEST IDEAS

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Contest Ideas

Contests that Drive Performance and Attract Customers

In a constantly evolving and competitive marketplace, businesses are always on the lookout for new and creative ways to boost performance, draw customers, or promote customer loyalty. Running contests that feature travel incentives as a prize is a great way to reach these goals. There are various contest ideas that can be used to target either your employees or your customers.

Contests are a Proven Motivator

Why reward customer loyalty by way of contests and travel incentives? Because it works, and because several businesses are already using this tactic. A 2014 study by Incentive Federation Inc. found that a majority of US businesses, 74% to be exact, use non-cash rewards (travel incentives, gift cards, etc.) to recognize the loyalty of customers, sales teams and other audiences essential to their success. These businesses, ranging in size from small to large firms and corporations, spent $76.9 billion annually–$22.5 billion of which was used on travel incentives. Identifying with the people that your business is comprised of and developing unique contest ideas can drive sales, increase customer loyalty and even draw in new customers. And implementing a contest is a great way to do it. There are so many ways to run a contest, so where do you start? We’ve created this simple ideas section to give you some great examples of what other clients of ours have run in the past:

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Video Contests

 

If you’re interested in providing an opportunity for your customers to express themselves, then video or essay contests are the way to go. These contests are great because many people are blogging or posting their own video content to Vimeo, YouTube, etc., and while blogging is informal writing, bloggers might know a thing or two about writing a formal essay. Allowing customers to put their video-making or essay writing knowledge to the test is a fun, interactive way for them to become familiar with your company.

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Promotional Contest Ideas

Promotional Contests

In a constantly evolving and competitive marketplace, businesses are always on the lookout for new and creative ways to boost performance, draw customers, or promote customer loyalty. Running contests that feature travel incentives as a prize is a great way to reach these goals. There are various ideas that can be used to target either your employees or your customers.

Online Contest Ideas

Online Contests

 

The best method of offering a promotional contest is through the internet. When your company runs online contests, you’re really generating great promotional ideas, as well.

Online contests bring attention to a company in a big way because people all over the world have access to the internet. When your customers enter your contest, prompt them to share their entry on their social media profiles. Their family and friends then see the post and may decide to check out your business. This interactive venture is great for marketing and promoting your company as it can increase traffic to your website, and more importantly, your business.

However, online contests aren’t just effective on social media. Some other great ideas include video contests, essay contests, photo contests, photo caption contests, and voting contests. You can refer these online contests back to your website and company.

Photo Contest Ideas

Photo Contests

 

If you’re looking for an idea that’s a bit simpler, photo and photo caption contests are also just as effective as the more rigorous online contests. Many people already use their smartphones to take photos, so why not encourage them to do so with a contest involving your company? They can also tweet a caption about a photo posted to your website that relates to your business. The best photo, or photo caption, will win the prize. It’ll create buzz with their family and friends and allow them to show off their amazing creativity.

An even simpler idea is a voting contest. Your customers can express some of their views simply by clicking one button. It’s a very simple way to allow your customers to share their opinions and thoughts via your website. Also, when they share these thoughts and opinions on their social media pages, their friends and family will see what your customers are doing and this may motivate them to take part in the online contest as well.
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Social Media Contest Ideas

Social Media Contests

 

As mentioned earlier, it’s a great idea to prompt your customers to share their entries on their social media pages. We all know that people love to share the simplest things on their social media pages and why wouldn’t they want to show their creative genius to the world? So, when customers can share entries via Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc., this exposes your contest to their friends and family. Also, generating promotional contests via social media allows you to reach customers, who not only live in your community, but in other areas of the country. This broadens your audience in a big way. What’s also great about customers entering your social media contest is that they’re essentially doing a lot of the marketing for you. When they share their entries/winnings and their friends and family see it, this is great advertising for your business. This is easily done especially if you are using several social media platforms to advertise your contest.

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Twitter also allows for some simple social media contest ideas such as Hashtag Contests or the fastest correct answer contest. With hashtags, you can ask your customers to use a specific hashtag in their tweets, or link a video/photo that you’ve posted to their tweets. Then, randomly select the winner from the people who posted. Also, when hosting an
online show/webinar, ask the viewers a question and announce that the answer will be given at the end of the webinar (this keeps them watching until the end). Whoever answers the question correctly first, will get the prize.

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Website Contest Ideas

Website Contests

 

When customers enter social media contests, give them a link that takes them to your website. This is a great marketing strategy for your company as potentially new customers can see what your company has to offer.
What’s also great is that your company can advertise on your website any special website contest idea, special promotion or sweepstakes that may be happening at that time. A great example of this is a Vacation Giveaway Contest, or a Vacation Giveaway with Purchase! Not only will the vacation images instantly grab your customers’ attention, it will also encourage them to inquire about your products sooner to take advantage of the special promotion, and get them to contact you TODAY about purchasing!

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Giveaway Contest Ideas

Giveaway Contests

 

As mentioned earlier, it’s a great idea to prompt your customers to share their entries on their social media pages. We all know that people love to share the simplest things on their social media pages, so why wouldn’t they want to show their creative genius to the world?

This broadens your audience in a big way. What’s also great about customers entering your social media contest is that they’re essentially doing a lot of the marketing for you. When they share their entries/winnings and their friends and family see it, this is great advertising for your business. This is easily done especially if you are using several social media platforms to advertise your contest.

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Sweepstake Contest Ideas

Sweepstake Contests

 

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Sweepstake contests can coincide with your social media contests, online contests, giveaway contests, etc., and will also serve the purpose of promoting your business. Sweepstake contests will generate buzz about your brand and company.
Sweepstakes help maximize engagement, are easy to enter, and prompt users to share their entries or winnings on their social media profiles. Also, sweepstake contests ask contestants to put their email down if they want to enter. This will allow you, in the
future, to increase interaction with them and let them know about any other special contests/promotions your company may have.

One common prize when winning a sweepstakes contest is a vacation. Offering travel incentives as a prize for any promotional contest idea is an effective marketing tool. After all, who doesn’t love a free vacation?

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Contests for Employees

Promotional contest ideas aren’t just great for your customers, they can also be great for your employees as well.

Running contests for employees can increase relationships, performance, loyalty, and engagement in the workplace. It can also relieve your employees of some of the stress and frustration that can sometimes build up from a day at work. It’s a great motivator for employees to do a great job when working. If your employees are happy, they’ll complete their tasks more efficiently, which will then help your business. Your employees will provide your customers with great customer service which promotes your company in a positive way. It gives your employees incentives to do an outstanding job.

Additionally, if employees are broken up into teams, a bond could form between coworkers because of the healthy competition. One great contest idea for employees is to organize a raffle. Raffles can be held during company parties and can be organized in a couple of different ways. One way to conduct a raffle is to give your employees a raffle ticket every time they do something good for the company. You could also just draw names out of a hat. This way everyone gets a prize, which is important. If only a select few people in the office are rewarded, others may become discouraged

Business Contest Ideas

Business Contests

 

Any great contest idea for employees or customers is also a great business contest idea. This is because such ideas help any business to flourish as they increase customer and employee loyalty.

Offering prizes, like travel incentives for example, to employees and customers that win the various promotional and marketable contests mentioned earlier can increase sales and overall employee performance. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 70% of employees said they weren’t working at their full potential. Prizes like travel incentives are used to counter that trend. The sales staff doubles their efforts in an attempt to earn that coveted vacation. Their sales goals are being hit, and employee morale is up because you’ve rewarded them for their efforts.

Also, when it comes to customers, offering them an amazing prize like a travel incentive just for entering your promotional contest will help to generate an overall positive opinion of your company.

Running contests and offering prizes to employees and customers is great for any business in many ways.

Holiday Contest Ideas


Holiday Contests

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One great idea is to offer employees, or customers, a prize during the holiday season. Holiday contests are great because it’s the gift-giving season. As mentioned earlier, raffles are a great idea, which is especially true during the Christmas season because every employee’s guaranteed a prize.

However, different businesses will utilize a range of contest efforts for different holidays. While Christmas is busy for everyone, how busy other businesses are during other holidays will depend on the market that they’re in. For example, if you’re a florist, Valentine’s Day will most likely be a very busy time for you. Therefore, running a holiday contest during this time of year is a great option.

If you own a swimwear company (depending on your location) the summer months, specifically, Fourth of July, will be very busy for you. Therefore, running holiday contests during this time of year might be a good idea for your business.

For customers, why not incorporate some social media contests into your holiday marketing efforts?. For example, your company could ask a holiday-related question. When customers post a reply to your question, they can be automatically entered into winning a prize.

Prizes can include anything from a TV, time off work, or even a travel incentive. In fact, the holiday season is probably the best time to offer a travel incentive as a prize. Generally, people already have time off work and will most likely be more inclined to travel. Additionally, where you send the employees can also be a great prize for your holiday contest idea. For example, if you live in a place where it’s cold, send your employees/customers to a tropical paradise and if you live in a place where it’s usually hot, send them to a destination in Europe.

Why Choose Odenza?

 

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As mentioned earlier, who doesn’t love a vacation? Generating marketing and promotional contest ideas is fun for your company, your employees, and your customers. However, if you don’t have great prize options, people may be less likely to get excited about, or even enter, your contests. Going on vacation with loved ones will create memories for your contest winners that they’ll have for a lifetime, and they’ll know how they got there in the first place.

However, planning a travel incentive promotion can be a daunting process. Luckily companies like Odenza are here to make planning stress-free. We are with our clients every step of the way for their marketing campaign. We believe communication is key and that’s why we offer free marketing support for the entirety of your promotion.

Contact Odenza today, and we will work closely with you to develop the travel incentives and contest solutions that best fit your marketing campaign.