Competition as a marketing tool?

[buyithere]

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am currently getting my own shop built. Apart from it having great design, easy to use menus and a affiliate program. I was considering running a competition as well to get people to my shop. Like link below.

http://www.tshirthell.com/contests.htm

Has anyone done anything like this before. How did it run? Also do you think that it is worth it?
Look forward to all your feedback. Thank you very much in advance for your help.
From
Doug

 

[KingPin36]

It depends on what your shop is selling to be honest.

If people come to your shop they obviously want to buy an item (in theory) so rather than hold a competition, run a special BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) or 10% of your first order.

KP

 

[OldWelshGuy]

How are you going to generate initial traffic? and will the competition be big enough to generate word of mouth/viral attention?

 

[buyithere]

Thanks KP

Hi there,

Thank you very much for your message. I am going to be selling clothing, watches ect...

I think that you are right. To start with it will be better to do a percentage off their first purchase or something.

Thanks Again

 

[buyithere]

How are you going to generate initial traffic? and will the competition be big enough to generate word of mouth/viral attention?

Looking at it that way, it just seems another one of my hair brain ways to build traffic but to be honest after looking at it in a different way. I think that I am going to wait until I have the shop up and running before I start anything like that.

From
Doug

 

[camp185]

I started one site with a competition, and regretted it. Financially it is still profitable, but the money spent only captures those interested in the prize. Stop giving prizes away, and you lose them. I would rather spend money on content, or marketing, than go that route again.

 

[Fuzioned]

I think it depends on what the competition is. We once used a gaming tournament to launch a gameserver company. All tournament games had to be played using our gamservers which resulted in the teams seeing how good the quality was. With the odd discrete text advert appearing randomly during the games with the gameserver prices on it. Resulted in some pretty good publicity and a good number of initial sales. I cant see how a competition would help generate sales in an shop environment though, although maybe if the competition involved them moving around your site and being exposed to your products, hmmm. Find the 5 hidden treasure chests or something:applause: