You're a savvy marketer. You know your stuff. You probably already have a company blog, a Twitter account you update regularly and you may already be building a fanbase on your Facebook Page. You're happy with the way these tools let your company and its people interact with the public, but you wish you could grow your numbers a bit.

It's no secret that we believe in the effectiveness of online contest promotions, especially those involving user generated content and popular vote. With the right mix of theme, prize, and outreach, an online contest can be the most effective marketing investment you make. You have to do things right though, or you risk running afowl of the community you're working so hard to foster.

Online contests have even gained a reputation in some circles as being just a shortcut as a lead generation tactic. Admit it- you think twice before filling out any online form, and one of your biggest fears is being bombarded with unwelcome marketing messages after the fact. Not every marketer in the world conducts themselves as ethically as they ought to, so like any other marketing tactic that gets abused, contests can get a bad rap.

But when done properly, there's no denying that video and photo sharing contests can be good for community interaction, for brand visibility and yes, dear friends (I'm going to say it, and I'm not going to apologize); they're good for data collection too. It's how you use that data and how you interact with your new community that matters.

Starting at the Beginning

We've said it before, but it bears repeating. Before proceeding with your promotion, decide first what your goals are for the campaign, and let those goals determine the decisions you make in putting to the contest together. If you're after the perfect piece of user generated video, for example, your tactics might be different than if you were just trying to boost your online traffic.

Theme

Your contest theme and prize should be relevant to your company and its fans. Your campaign should attract the kind of people that you want to stay in touch with. Ask yourself: Who are we trying to attract? What ideas do we have that will motivate that community to get involved and interact? If you are lucky enough to make it fun for the right kind of people, you're miles ahead. And make no mistake, they'll appreciate your attention to detail. Let the answers to these questions guide your decisions about prizing and entry requirements. Remember to include an "opt-in" question, to obtain permission to keep in touch with people in the future. Since you've already considered the audience for your promotion, you should be able to convert a percentage of people to your email lists, especially by offering some especially useful information in the mailings.

Outreach: Spreading the Word

If you've dabbled with Facebook Groups or Pages, and you have a company Twitter account that you've been using for while, then you may already have some idea as to how to correctly communicate with an online community. If you're a fan of any Pages or Groups on Facebook, then you likely also have firsthand experience with marketers that are DOING IT WRONG. Your marketing messages and interactions should provide value for your community, not barrage them with information that only benefits you. Remember this fact: Facebook, Twitter and other social networks require that people first give you PERMISSION to contact them. If you conduct the rest of your online marketing with this same guiding principle, people will respond more positively.

If you've created an online photo, video, text or song contest (with Strutta of course) then it's time to tell the world. Yes, our tools come with the ability for contestants to share their entries with friends, via email and the various networks, but don't sit back on your heels waiting for that to happen. Rally some activity among your Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but remember to keep it relevant. Always be adding value rather than always asking for people to vote and enter.

Ask us about how to include your contest in your Facebook page using our widget (Example in photo above) to spread the message of your campaign even further within the network.

The Extras

Depending on your audience and your outreach, you want to consider additional tools and materials to help you get the message out. For larger scale campaigns, you may include ad buys in your plan, and/or physical materials like postcards or flyers.

The Aftermath

A solid campaign plan will take into account what comes after the contest period is over. So you've collected a bunch of contest data, and you've announced your winner. What next? Well, it's time to start again, but this time you have a head start.

Following Up

Well look at you! You have several online marketing tools in action, and now you're growing a database a folks who have opted in to your future communications (because we asked them when they signed up, remember?) You should be quite proud of how far you've come. But before you start filling those wonderful (relevant, interested) people's inboxes with emails, think about the best and most effective ways of getting in touch.

The list of people who opt-in via your contest promotions are special. They have given you a most precious gift- permission to send marketing info to them. Abusing this permission could be fatal to your business' future success. Careful execution of this outreach could lead to growth, so let's do it right:

1. Consider segmenting these subscribers into groups based on how they first signed up (ie. contest entrants on one list, past customers on a separate list). The goal here is to treat people who have engaged with your company in a different ways a little bit differently. By keeping these lists separate and adding a little mail merge magic, you can keep your communications with them extremely specific to their experience:
   
   

   "Greetings <their-name-here>,
   
   Thank you again for your participation in the photo contest. It was a huge success, and you can bet we will be having others going forward. We also wanted to announce...
   

   
   You get the idea. Keeping these lists properly segmented improves the communication experience for each subscriber. The numbers will prove me right; If you're using email marketing software (we recommend Mailchimp, for their ease of use, affordability and API), this extra bit of time and attention will yield better open rates, and subsequently better click-through rates from your messages.
2. Always remember to keep your information of value. If you know, for example, that all of the subscribers on one your list were from a specific industry or job category, shaping your message to be pertinent to them will also yield better open rates.
3. Have another contest! On the success of your previous efforts, you can continue to improve the ideas and executions of your campaigns, and you can encourage participation among the people how have entered your contests so far. Plus, this gives you more to talk about on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and your email newsletters.

Summarizing, the lesson here is simple. Decide first what the success of your campaign looks like, and devise the best strategy to achieve those ends. Treat your community every bit as good as you would hope to be treated, and reward their faithfulness with information that is of value to them.

They'll love you for it.