Running a competition

[wibble99]

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One of the things I'm considering trying in the next month or two is running a competition on my site. I thought that rather than have a general question or prize draw, I'd have a series of questions for it to choose from that sets the user the task of finding the answer on my site. The user would only have to answer one question, I'd just have a few to randomly ask them.

The reason is that I provide a service on my site that I want to promote and so if to get the answer the user had to use that service then they'd see how easy and useful it is and so maybe use it properly another time and go on to earn me a commission. I.e. to enter the competition it would be free and require the user to make use of my site rather than just enter the competition without really bothering to see what my site does.

As I've never run a competition, though, I've got a few questions that I hope people here have answers to as I'm sure that many other sites would benefit from running a competition too.

1) What are the legal rules?
Are there any legalities concerned with running a competition? What I'm thinking of would be a free to enter competition where the entrant just has to go through a couple of pages on my site to get the answer. Plus I'd also have to record their email address and name so they could be contacted if they won.


2) Is it effective?
Has anyone got any comments on how good competitions are? Is it worth the effort, or will nobody actually bother entering?


3) What kind of prize is best?
E.g. is it best to offer one big prize, or several small prizes? Are something like Amazon vouchers best or some specific prize? Or is it best to have a really fun/unusual/bizarre prize? Also, what value of prize is enough?


4) Mailing lists?
I also thought that to make maximum use out of this I should also combine it with signing them up to a mailing list. I don't currently have one, but really ought to I think. If I made it so that when they entered they were also subscribed to my mailing list is that ok? Actually, I'd want a double opt in mailing list so they'd be sent an email to complete the process rather than subscribing them automatically - but should I make that separate to the competition or say their entry is only valid once they've finished the process of subscribing?


5) Data Protection Act?
How much information can I hold about them before I need to consider the Data Protection Act? I'd only imagine holding an email and name. Possibly some preferences, too, but no personal details like their address.


6) Promotion?
What methods are best to promote a competition? Do competition sites happily list any competition, or do they expect a payment in some way?


7) Viral Marketing?
Another idea I had was to come up with a way to allow users to get extra entries into the competition for every friend they refer. That friend would need to also enter the competition (and so join the mailing list) and it could be a good way of advertising as it could bring in many other users that wouldn't otherwise see the site.


8) Anything Else?
Are there any other considerations?!



Phew - that's a lot!

[loquax]

See http://www.loquax.co.uk/webmaster/ for help with most of the answers.

2. Is it Effective?

Depends how you judge effectiveness... what are the aims of the competition? visitors? users? buyers? prospective buyers? email lists?

3. Best Prize?

Depends who you're targetting... a generic audience will prefer cold hard cash. A bunch of fishermen may like some nice tackle (!).

4. Mailing List?

Asking people to opt in and subscribe to enter may limit number of entries, but then it may help you achieve a better answer to Q2.

5. DPA?

Check it yourself for certainty... but you should be ok with name and emails.

6. Do competition sites happily list any competition?

Some do, some don't.

7. Spam/Refer a Friend?

Unless your viral is very good... I'd opt out of this unless you can effectively monitor it.

8. Anything Else?

See http://www.loquax.co.uk/webmaster/

(I will update it in the next few weeks - but it covers a fair bit of the basics).

Jason

[Darren]

My answer would have been, "See Jason's webmaster section on www.loquax.co.uk"

[wibble99]

Thanks - that's very useful Jason!

[NaturalInstinct]

jason, that's incredibly useful, wish i'd have known about it before.

[Elaine]

Date Protection Act - I'm pretty certain that even if you collect one name and email address you need to be registered - it doesn't cost much @ £40 and the folk are really helpful if you need advice.

The best comp I ran was the last one for SClub 7 - went down a storm. Most comp sites will list but want a reciprocal link in exchange. Expect a flurry of entries at the beginning and end of the comp.

[destinationexposed]

So if I want to run a competitonm and I just want to keep a name; email adress and some content they submit as part of the competition. Do I need to do anything with regards to the data protection act?