Blog Contests are a Win-Win

Posted on July 3rd, 2008 in corporate world, mommy blogging, new media, web 2.0 by Kelby

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I have won four blog contests in the past month. I am not the luckiest person on earth. I also don’t have time to spend hours entering online contests. But I am a perfect example of why blog contests are a win-win, both for the participants and the companies providing the prizes. This is a case of less definitely being more.

It can be pretty difficult to explain to someone in a company that engagement with a smaller group is actually better. That is part of the reason I think corporations are having a tough time in general in marketing during these times of information overload. But to cut through all this clutter, it is better to connect closely with a few than it is to be barely a blip on the radar of the masses.

The benefits for bloggers are pretty clear. They get a contest, which helps drive traffic and can be used to encourage interaction with their blog (with feed subscriptions, comments, etc.). But there are a few reasons why blog contests are a better return on investment for companies than your generic, impersonal traditional contest:

• Blog readers are often bloggers themselves. They are likely to write about the contest, or the products. They are likely to have more respect for your company, just for the sheer fact that you are connecting with bloggers.
• You can do more than engage those who enter to give you a faceless name, email and address. You can prompt them to discuss your product or say which product you offer that is their favorite (then you have people recommending you before they even try you!). Better yet, you can encourage them to promote your product for free by making a blog post or link to the contest one way to enter the contest.
• Bloggers are wonderful promoters themselves. If you provide a contest prize for a blog, odds are great the blogger will promote the contest (and your product) across social networks. You could try this yourself as a corporation but, well, it won’t work. Social networking is about people, not entities. In fact, I believe I heard about all of these contest from moms I follow on Twitter. I get loads of emails about company contests in my in-box that I ignore.
• The same bloggers who enter the contest can become new leads for your marketing efforts. For example, in the case of a couple of the prizes I won, I later asked the PR or marketing person about partnering with me for my own contests or other promotions. In fact, I often look at my favorite blogger’s contests to get ideas of which companies “get it” when it comes to outreach to bloggers.
• You can directly target very specific audiences, whether you want to reach out to single moms or web 2.0 dads or photographers or geeky travel-junkie foodie mom types.
• Bloggers who win prizes tend to write, tweet, blog, and share news about it.

And just to prove my point, I will write about some of the cool prizes I’ve recently won. So if nothing else, you companies are getting that extra bit of exposure… and the cool bloggers who hosted the contests are getting some sweet link love.

• All three of my kids were thrilled when I won a cool retro 1983 Original My Little Pony set from Mama Loves Getaways.
• A very cool eco-friendly children’s birthday party set of tablecloth, cloth napkins and cloth favor bags from One Mom and a Party, from a great contest on Recycle Your Day.
• A mondo, ginormous set of Weiman cleaning products (including cool TV and computer monitor screen cleaning wipes) from This Mommy Gig.
• This is really cool, and I may have to hide this one from the kids. I won a Nintendo DS and Crosswords game from Socalmom.

And I will definitely continue entering blog contests.

_{Photo of standing out of the crowd with a blog contest, © andrej troha}

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