There’s nothing better for drumming up interest and traffic for your online business than a contest! Contests bring out the inner competitive edge in everyone, the make more people interested in you and your business and makes them more favorably inclined towards when it comes time to decide where to buy a product or service. However, there are some rules when running a contest to adhere to in order to make it and your business a success.

1. Promotion

You have to let people know about the contest! Make sure to do it a bit in advance so that you drum up interest and apprehension, but not so far in advance that by the time it comes around, people have largely forgotten about it. Around three days is usually enough notice. Make sure to promote it on all of your marketing mediums-a newsletter, on the website, through social media, and through email for your subscriber listings. Within the promotion, be sure to outline the rules and the prizes to be won and really hype up the prizes.

2. Duration

It might be tempting to have a contest go on for a while and that way you can keep drumming up interest, but unless your contest is something like a random daily draw, it’s not a good idea. The duration should be based on what the customer has to do to enter; for example, if all they have to do is a scratch and win, then the duration can be for a while. If on the other hand, it’s something like designing a new logo for your store, then it should only go on for a week or two. Extending it too far beyond that will not get you more entries and people will start to forget about you and your contest before too long. Even the daily draw type contests shouldn’t go on for too long; your entries will simply dwindle away after a while and it will be more work than is worth it to keep it up. Make sure to have a set deadline for when it will end and then stick to it, especially if you’re not handing out prizes until the end!

3. Prizes

Prizes should be enticing, that’s the whole point. However, make sure that they are also something you can actually deliver on; don’t promise the world if you can’t give it because then you’ll just annoy people. Cash prizes paid out through PayPal or through a check or an electronic transfer are popular and easy to distribute; however, if you want something more unique, you can offer things like huge gift certificates for your store, goodies from your store (such as a gift basket), or, if you can afford it, extravagant things like a trip. If you’re only a small internet store though, it’s best to either go with cash or store gifts because these things aren’t too expensive or can feed right back to your store again.

Contests are a really fun way to promote your online store and get more loyal customers, but they also take a lot of work, so be sure to block out the time you’ll need to run it and that you have all of your prizes lined up ahead of time. When it is done correctly, a contest can be a lot of fun and really rewarding to both you and to your customers.