If you’re at a loss for what contests and other featured promotions to add to your calendar next quarter, perhaps you could benefit from a good old-fashioned brainstorming session (or you could snag some ideas from our free Campaign Guides). Why not grab a few co-workers and sit down to share and discuss your ideas? We’ve pulled together a few tips below to help you get started:
Set goals
Rather than planning a contest or sweepstakes purely for the sake of new content, stop to consider what you would like for the promotion to accomplish. Are you trying to achieve increased brand awareness for a sponsor, or is driving your own site traffic your top priority? Perhaps you would like to focus on growing membership in your database and boosting your email subscriptions. Be sure to identify your goal or goals first since they will shape your promotion and determine how you will measure the success of the campaign.
Set your promotion budget
Before conceptualizing your promotions, you should also outline the overall budget allotted for the campaign. How much can you spend on prizing? Will you need to hire a contractor to provide resources such as graphic design work? If you’re approaching a sponsor for a featured contest, how much money toward these materials should be factored into the cost of their sponsor package?
Gather promotion ideas
Here comes the fun part! Once you’ve determined your goals and your budget, you can begin collecting campaign concepts to share with your team. If your promotion already has a sponsor attached, you may have a built-in theme to work with. For example, if you are running a campaign for a car dealership, you will want to include cars in the contest theme, such as a Hottest Ride voting bracket or a sweepstakes for a chance to win a new car from your advertiser.
If there isn’t already a sponsor attached to your promotion, you can get ideas by checking your calendar for key dates or events that might allow inspire a theme. Look for upcoming holidays, sporting events, award shows, or local events in your community that you could tie into your contest.
Additional things to consider
Once you’ve selected a concept for your campaign, there are still some important factors you’ll need to determine:
- How long will you run the promotion, and on what dates?
- Where will you promote the campaign? (On the air? Social media profiles? Email newsletter? In person at events?)
- How will you spread awareness through each of those properties? (Write scripts for your on-air talent or show hosts, craft social media posts with strategic hashtags and eye-catching graphics, hand out fliers or post cards at events, etc.)
The steps above will inspire and inform your promotion planning next quarter and beyond. For more tips and some free contest template designs, check out our Client Repository.
