I want to hear how smart it would be to hold a contest. I have an extremely small gaming site. Lately, I haven't been advertising much for it, because I have been working on completely revamping it. I was thinking of holding a contest after the revamp. Right now, I have about 300 members, with only about 30 regular members. The contest serves two purposes: 1) Attract new members 2) Gain loyalty from current members and give back as a 'thank you'. I think an initial contest like this would be a great way to jump start the forums, and was just wanting to hear from you guys about what you think. And, if you're wondering, I was thinking of holding a contest for a Nintendo Wii. It is moderately priced (for gaming) and a popular item.
a wii contest is good, but you need to make sure that your contest has goals and garuntees a result before a prize is given out. IE, the member with the most referalls when the forum reaches 1000 members gets it, something like that. Then generally you need to promise another contest and hope people check back and stick around and actually become legit members not prize hungry visitors.
Not sure about the quality of the members.. because after the contest.. you may lose some members (who only joined for winning the prize)
Yea. That is to be expected. I will probably 'lose' (although those were never there to begin with) members after the contest. I think I will gain a great deal, and it will also make my site look more populated. It just seems the hardest part about forums is getting a userbase started. I figured a contest would be the best way to jumpstart the userbase. I will be using other methods, but this seems to be the best.
Are there any legal issues I should know about when holding a contest? Not sure if there are certain guidelines and rules I must adhere to with a contest.
A few things for you to consider (I have run several contests, this is from experience): 1) Make sure you can actually get the prize. The Wii is still a hard-to-get item where I am from, can you actually walk into a store and get one where you are? Otherwise put a clause in the announcement stating something like "Prize is dependant upon supply. If the Wii is unavailable, a cash prize of $xxx will be awarded in it's place". 2) Put specific terms into the contest page: -Eligability: Limit of 1 entry/household or person -Legal Eligability: Must be 18 years of age or older -Entry Date: Contest entries valid from June 1st - June 30th 3) Make them work for it. Having them just signup isn't going to get you a good result, you'll get 50,000+ people signup and only 10 of them will actually become active members. A good example is crestock.com, they recently ran a contest where you were given 4 images and had to make a cool graphic using all of the images. The winner got a G4 with dual monitors (the contest was so well done that it hit page 1 of Digg). You have to remember that you want something out of this - to increase forum activity. But if you only require them to signup, then you'll get increased activity during the contest, but then it will die again after the contest finishes.
Having a contests works for me, but once you start they tend to expect more. I'm am on my third for APC. The first two were in the $250 range. Got many new members that way, and a lot kept coming back. Prize is smaller now...ipod shuffle, and I am making them work harder for it. It's not attracting new members as much, but it is keeping the members I have happy. They seem to get more excited, and the activity increases as it gets closer to a winner.
Heh I was thinking about the same thing, I am glad I searched before posting. I also have a gaming website (in Portuguese). I thought about adding a contest for an used copy of Metroid Prime: Pinball. I know it's cheap ^_^ But the site gave me US$ 70 dollars last month, and I do have the game... and I don't play it anymore... so instead of selling it, I will give it away. My website let users write reviews and vote on them. So my contest will run for a month, and the most positively voted review will win. Here are the top reasons that I am considering running the contest: 1) I get the ball start rolling. There are only four reviews not written by me on the site. I need more content. It doesn't matter if I was the one that wrote the review, it helps to rank on search engines. People do type "gameX review" a lot on Google 2) Since I am explicitly allowing the writers to ask for their friends to vote on their reviews, I think I will get some links. People that have a blog, post on forums... every little link helps! The drawback is that the prize, I know, sucks I don't know how many people own a DS on Brazil, who wants this game, etc... But it's what I can afford for now. Maybe someday I will be able to give a Wii too... anyway if someone wins, they can sell it too. Writing a review can be a quick process anyway. Earning something worth US$ 30 (in Brazil) for a couple hours of work is a good deal for me. I think people will write reviews. I don't know how many will, but even if it's a few I will be happy. Thankfully the website gets enough visitors for a lot of people to at least know about it I think I am doing something very important that I am not sure the OP wrote about. I am getting quality content. I am not just asking for the users to register, but also to write something, and ask for votes. The way I've structured my website, each review can potentially add two pages, and change the content of several others. And the review quality counts. Anyone could write just a couple words about the game, but if you want others to vote for you, it needs to be quality material. Of course, people could post on their blogs and email their friends asking for votes, and all these people will probably never come back. But such is life! I think it's a small price to pay, because some will stay, and in anyway I get content and links. I have a few more DS games that I could give as a prize, and of course I could just buy PC games to give, since every author should have one. Anyway, the contest will run during the next month and the prize be awarded at the start of July. I will come back to write about what happened. Even if it's a small success, I will run another contest the following month, so let's see how much traffic and users the whole thing will bring...
That's what I am afraid of. I am now rethinking of just not doing a contest, or making the prize a lot smaller. Halo 3 is a huge game, and is coming out, so maybe giving that away would work. But I am afraid that I will attract people who will be looking for more contests. I don't mind rewarding my members this way, but seeing as how I make no money on my site, I can't afford to constantly have contests. If I were profiting, I wouldn't mind it.
People do come looking for looking for prizes, and for my site that coud be part of the fun of it. Just have to figure out x visitor = $ on average, and then give something away where there is still a profit. I'd love to give a car away if I knew I could still make money...... I think it could depend on what the prize is for. To just get new members calculate this, and you may rethink the whole prize idea. Let's say you have a $250 prize. Do you think word of mouth will market it, or do you still need to advertise, now what does it cost? $500? Now try $250 in advertising, say on google with no prize. You would get the same amount of visitors, but your join rate might be down a little. If the prize is to make your members participate more, I think that could be a worth while cause, at least to get things rolling.
Yea, a contest does sound like a good idea, but I am just afraid that it would get people to expect more contests in the future. I would love to do more contests, but can not say for sure if I would be able to.
Dpatel304, don't bin your ideas before even fueling them. Yes, your visitors probably would love contests but later on you can have something different to attract them, not necessarily a contest? I'm saying thing just because every tactic has some up- and downsides and having a dark side is not enough a reason to throw the idea away...Just personal opinion.
Here's my point of view: 1) Throwing a contest for 300 members, will basically make those members really loyal, but will not attract as much members as you would expect. It's the human nature to keep the prize for himself, they won't go viral. 2) Create a really fancy looking contest, with amazing stuff, and here I don't want to be a blackhat into marketing, but just create a big deadline (3months for example.) This way you still have the same psychological effect on your users, and you won't waste that much money. 3) I'd rather invest the money into creating a really good image for my site, and after I reach 2000-3000 members, it's time to make them loyal. Just a though, hope I helped..
Thanks for the responses guys. I've decided against the contest for now, but the funny thing is, my members suggested something that I could turn into a contest. They made a topic requesting that I look into getting shirts made for the site. I had thought about this a while ago, but wasn't sure if it would be worth it, as I wasn't sure who would want to wear them, but it looks like they all do. Anyway, I think i'll hold a contest for the 'best shirt design', and that winner will have their t-shirt design made, sent to them, and probably a $50 best buy giftcard to go along with it, or something.
hey what are all the games that u have in that site.... may be using that u will be able to attract people....
I think itd be a neat idea.. you should do it by top posts for the month.. and then verify the winner didnt spam etc..
No games on the actual site, its more for like talking about console games. I'm probably going to put the vbulletin arcade mod because, naturally, a site for of gamers would enjoy that.