Holding a competition is an awesome way to promote your brand, and thanks to the socially-driven digital age, running one is easier than ever (Toledo, 2014). Competitions are a way of brands putting themselves out there and getting their consumers involved within the business. This can lead to increased brand awareness, a drive in product or service usage and often leads or sales.

Competition Time (Oceanfinance.co.uk, 2016)

There are many different aspects to creating an online marketing competition, all of which have to be carefully planned in order for the competition to meet company objectives and be successful. It has to be advertised well and relevant to the business and the consumers. Too short, and the contest will be pointless but too long, and you run the risk of becoming annoying, and the prize has to be something valuable to consumers, otherwise they will not enter.

One aspect of any competition can include consumers sharing information about an organisation with their friends on social media. For example part of the competition could be to ‘like’ and ‘share’ a specific Facebook post in order to be put in the running. This is something that can be done at the click of a button, yet is broadcast to such a large audience instantly, with the average Facebook user having 338 friends (Mazie, 2014). Competition details could be shared and shared again, increasing the number of views it receives and in turn, the number of competitors who enter in to it.

Another benefit to running an online competition for marketing purposes, is that it can be very low cost option to getting a brand to stand out within a given market. Apart from providing the prizes for the winning entrants, there a few other costs involved. Some regular updates on the competition and reminders are useful in the duration, but that is something that can be done via social media and therefore is a minimal cost as well.

             Here’s a link to another blog identifying 10 different online competitions that were very successful…

10 Companies That Hit the Bullseye With Online Contests – Mashable UK

A substantial drawback to an online marketing competition is the large number of legal and ethical requirements that come with it. There are some very strict regulations that must be adhered to under the Gambling Act 2005, such as all competitions must have a clear start date and finish date. Also they must either be free to enter or require a reasonable amount of skill (Pezaro, 2016). In addition to legal requirements, there are also many ethical requirements when hosting a competition. When entering a competition, in order to gain the prize, entrants must provide some confidential information such as their address or a telephone number. When gathering, storing or using information about customers or potential customers, the data must be protected under the Data Protection Act 1998 (Gov.uk, 2016).

Another limitation to hosting an online marketing competition is that due to these extensive rules and regulations, it could take time to implement it. Because it must adhere to various laws, the competition must be carefully thought through in terms of what it includes and who can take part. Time = Money. Therefore in some circumstances, it may not always be a less expensive way of marketing the business.

Overall, holding a competition can be a quick and frequently inexpensive way of consumers marketing on the companies behalf.

References

Gov.uk. (2016). Data protection – GOV.UK. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/data-protection/the-data-protection-act [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Mazie, S. (2014). Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?. [online] Big Think. Available at: http://bigthink.com/praxis/do-you-have-too-many-facebook-friends [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Oceanfinance.co.uk. (2016). [online] Available at: https://www.oceanfinance.co.uk/content/uploads/competition-sign.jpg [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Pezaro, N. (2016). Running a competition. [online] Out-law.com. Available at: http://www.out-law.com/page-6780 [Accessed 6 May 2016].

Toledo, R. (2014). Using Competitions to Promote Your Brand. [online] SteamFeed. Available at: http://www.steamfeed.com/using-competitions-promote-brand/ [Accessed 6 May 2016].