by Dana Viktor
Whether you have a well-established blog or you are just starting out, hosting contests and giveaways is a great way to market your blog and help it grow. It doesn’t matter if the prize is big or small. Whether you are offering a package of organic cookies on your healthy living blog or a brand new iPad on your technology blog, your readers will love it.
Here are 5 reasons why you should be hosting contests or giveaways on your blog:
Creates Excitement:
Creates Excitement
Everyone loves to get something for free. Even your loyal readers will feel excited at the prospect of winning something. A well-placed contest with the right prize can add a jolt of excitement to your blog, helping it to seem fresh.
Boring your readers leads to losing your readers, which leads to the slow death of your blog. Keep your readers interested with contests and other features that make them excited to be a part of your blog and to find out what’s going to happen next.
Builds Traffic:
Build Traffic
All the excitement that your contest generates will also help you to build traffic. Previous readers will be reminded to return to the site, and new readers will come to your blog after hearing about the contest.
You can leverage the ability of your contest to draw in more traffic by requiring entrants to do things like share a link to the contest on their social networks, become subscribers of your blog, or to become your fan or follower on social networks.
Creates Brand Awareness:
Creates Brand Awareness
With all the increased traffic you’ll be getting, you’ll be getting more opportunities to create brand awareness. As readers share your content, link to your blog, or become your fan or follower, their friends and followers will see your content, learning more about your brand. This is called “reach” and you will be expanding yours exponentially with each new activity.
Builds Relationships with Other Bloggers:
Builds Relationships with Other Bloggers
You don’t always have to buy the items for your contests and giveaways. In fact, most bloggers don’t. Many get their prizes from companies or even other bloggers.
When you host contests and giveaways that feature the products and services of your fellow bloggers, you are building stronger relationships with those bloggers that could benefit you even more in the future. You may be able to leverage those relationships for greater promotion of your blog or even a partnership for a new product or service.
Shows Customer Appreciation:
Shows Customer Appreciation
Even if you don’t get a single new subscriber or a single new visitor to your blog, hosting a contest or giveaway is a great idea because it shows your current readers that you appreciate them. You are offering them the chance to win a product or service that will help them solve a problem or make their lives better somehow (even if just to entertain). Showing customer appreciation is the basis for building customer relationships that last.
Contests are a great promotional tool for your blog. Hundreds of contests are held on blogs every day, and they are used to build traffic, create brand awareness, and build relationships with both readers and other bloggers.
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