Have you ever been interested in entering a contest on social media because of the lure of certain prizes? You should know that it is a form of contest marketing campaign or contest marketing campaign.
Similar to other marketing campaign strategies, contest marketing campaigns have specific business objectives stemming from the overall marketing strategy that the business runs. Usually, these contests aim to attract leads or prospects to participate, increase engagement rates, spread brand awareness, and increase brand image.
This type of marketing strategy is quite effective in trapping prospects. Above all first timer or people who have never interacted with your business. Because this strategy affects the emotions of the public, who hope to obtain prizes by participating in the organized contest.
So how effective is this contest marketing campaign strategy and how do you implement it?
What is a contest marketing campaign?
According to Chron, the contest marketing campaign is part of a marketing campaign or campaign to attract more target markets to interact with your business. The larger the target market or audience participating in the contest or competition, the better the impact for your brand.
This is because the awareness of your business increases. This way, there will be more leads or leads that you can nurture and the opportunity for lead conversion will be wide open. If the conversion rate or the conversion rate increases, of course the impact will be very beneficial for your business. From increasing business sales, profit and revenue growth.
That’s not all. When you open a contest entry, your target market will of course provide personal data (customer data). For example, data name, email or other contacts. When you provide this data, you can request permission to send marketing emails for promotions.
Additionally, you may also provide a number of other rules as a condition of entering the contest. For example, asking the public to use certain hashtags (if you use social media as a marketing channel), following your brand’s social media accounts, leaving a comment trail, sharing posts with friends, etc.
Thus, efforts to increase brand awareness and engagement measures will be more effective.
However, don’t let yourself be given too many conditions. Because if the requirements are too complicated, the audience may feel reluctant to interact and ignore the contest marketing campaign.
Additionally, also adjust the contest prizes with the budget your brand allocates. Don’t overdo it when giving gifts, as you also need to consider profitability. Either way, you can actually lose money because the operating costs of running the contest don’t match the profits.
Marketing channels for the contest marketing campaign

Indeed, the contest marketing campaign is an example of a successful marketing campaign that many companies have implemented. Both large companies, startups, and MSMEs at the same time. Because this marketing campaign strategy is considered to be one of the effective ways to grab the attention of prospects quickly.
Just like growth hacking in a business development strategy, contest marketing campaigns are also a useful strategy to instantly increase company brand image. Because as explained above, this strategy plays on the emotions of the public with the bait of the price.
Of course, almost everyone wants to get attractive prizes in an easy way, right? Well, this concept was later adapted by the contest marketing campaign strategy.
However, you also need to consider a number of other aspects before implementing this marketing campaign. No exceptions by choosing the right marketing channel.
From Vyper, here are some of the most effective marketing channels to implement a contest marketing campaign:
- social media. It is the most effective marketing channel because almost everyone has used social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok) in their daily lives. By creating marketing content in the form of social media contests, you can also increase your engagement rate while doing social media branding.
- Blogs and websites. You can also use the company’s blogs and websites to run contest marketing campaigns. The trick is to create personalized content with contests to engage more prospects. Thus, you can increase the amount of website traffic to the CTR.
- Advertising by e-mail. In addition to email personalization, one way to grab the attention of prospects is to send marketing emails in the form of contests or prize information. But to implement it, you first need to segment your email marketing to fit the target audience.
- Influencers and Affiliates. You can also take advantage of partnership marketing by using the services of influencers or other affiliates. By using the services of an influencer or an affiliate, the chances of your content being seen by many people will be even greater.
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Create an effective contest marketing campaign
After knowing the right marketing definition and channels, what forms of contest marketing campaigns can you use?
From Submittable, here are the 3 most effective types of contest marketing campaigns for businesses:
1. Gift
It seems that everyone is familiar with this form of competition. Indeed, giveaways are one of the most common forms of contest marketing campaigns used by businesses. Especially for companies that have a limited budget to fund marketing strategies.
The giveaway system is generally most popular on social media, especially Instagram and Twitter. Usually the giveaways are in the form of quizzes or product questions with additional requirements. For example, follow the brand’s social media accounts, or invite several other users by mentioning. So, indirectly, the public will defend other users.
To choose a winner, you can proceed in different ways. For example, do a raffle using the many online raffle platforms available, or actually gauge the audience’s responses and requirements individually.
2. Contests in certain events
The second type is event-based. This means that you can conduct a contest marketing campaign on a specific event. Usually, this type will be related to seasonal marketing or seasonal marketing. For example, marketing strategies for Ramadan, Christmas, Chinese New Year celebrations and other holidays.
For example, a travel company that takes advantage of the end of the year to organize a contest with free vacation prizes. With this marketing strategy, many prospects will be interested in participating in the contest.
3. Survey
The final form of a contest marketing campaign is a poll or poll. In addition to increasing brand awareness and attracting more leads, you can also use this form of contest marketing campaign as a means of market research to get audience feedback. Once the survey is complete, you can give your choice of prizes. So that the participants also benefit from this small contest.
This is an example of an effective form of contest marketing campaign to attract leads. Basically, this strategy leverages audience emotions to achieve a high engagement or engagement rate.
Along with implementing a contest marketing campaign, you can also take advantage of the services of a digital marketing agency that can help you grow your business. Some of the marketing strategies that can be implemented are growth hack marketing, inbound marketing, 360 digital marketing and data driven marketing so that the business can grow rapidly.