I have a site that I am considering having a "contest" - I want to give a prize to the person who is the 1,000,000th user of my site. The site gets pretty good traffic and I am already at around 740,000, I have around 10 weeks before I hit the magic number. Do you simply try and approach some big companies by sending an email to them and asking. Do I try and phone the prospective sponsors or do you just put your hand in your pocket and try and come up with a couple of Prizes yourself. Has anyone tried going to a Large company and asking for a prize to offer on their site, and if so, what sort of response did you get? I cannot afford a really big amount to offer up for a prize but would love to be able to offer something worthwhile (up to about $500-$700 in Value) - as I beleive that it would probably generate quite a bit of traffic and recognition of the site for me by being able to offer something that is worthwhile to the eventual winner. I also think that A company being a sponsor would generate quite a bit of exposure as a result of the sponsorship. So - any Ideas on how to attract a Sponsor would be welcome!
Usually companies are interested in sponsorships. What kind of prizes you are thinking to offer? I once had a contest on one of my websites and I offered some hardware parts to the winner.I simply contacted some local e-shops and they offered some pieces of hardware.
And what did they gain from this ? I want to do something similar I just don't know what to say .. they give something and what do I give in return ?
Arakatos, give away what people from your niche is looking for... for exaample, i have a gaming website, i'm giving a playstation 3 away for who makes the best post. And they are probably gonna ask you adspace.
Well, At the moment, I have sent off a couple of Email messages to a couple of large competing companies who sell the products that I want to "give away". I guess it might take a few days to get a response to my query, but at least I have tried at the moment. Yes, In my case, I guess that the donation of the prize would need to be seen as an advertising expense in the overall theme of things, and Giving the company decent exposure is what I would give in return. I am just hoping that they see my offer as worthwhile enough to offer up a sponsorship in the form I am hoping for. I know that the audience is certainly well targetted to the corporates that I have approached, so I guess I need to see how it goes from here.
Well, What I did in the past was make or offer a deal like this. "Your" visitors signup for "His" mailing list or atleast have to visit his site with a tracking link. In my case the sponsor and I worked out an agreement that if : xx signups to his list prize was ..... xxx " prize was...... xxxx"" prize was....... Then on your website simply advertise what your visitors "Could" win. Worked for me.
You'd be surprised how many extremely large companies will do this even with pretty new sites, just to reach a highly targeted audience. You can either issue a press release announcing that you're accepting sponsorships or you can contact them directly with a professional email. Give as much relevant background about your site and audience as possible. They'll get exposure in return - when you issue a press release announcing the contest to get visitors, you should be listing them in there as the sponsor. If it's a product that you can use prior to the contest, offer to review it on the site to give them longer lasting exposure, and then give the review copy of the item away as the contest prize. Jenn