Guest Blogger: Donna DeClemente
I'm in a bit of a bind this week, so I asked my good friend and promotion expert, Donna DeClemente, to write something for you about promotions. I believe using promotions is a good way to build attention to your blog and to interact with your readers. Here's what Donna has to say:
Yvonne and her partner Tom inspired me to join the world of blogging and have been instrumental in getting my blog off the ground and helping it grow. Donna's Promo Talk is a blog targeted to marketing professionals with a focus on interactive promotions, specifically sweepstakes, contests and games, as well as social media and blogging. Since my business specializes in these services my objective to starting a blog was to enhance my expertise, raise awareness of my business and drive more traffic to my website.
Interactive promotions, such as sweepstakes are one of the most powerful ways to motivate interaction online. A sweepstakes is defined as a random drawing that anyone who meets the eligibility requirements as written in the “Official Rules” may enter. Sweepstakes not only offer the excitement of a chance to win great prizes, but created effectively they can also work on building a brand and creating awareness around a product or service.
Marketers are now starting to look more and more at bloggers to help reach their audience and I anticipate that this trend is just going to continue to grow. Many bloggers are starting to be approached by marketers who would like to donate their products so that the blogger can use them as prizes to run a sweepstakes or contest promotion on their blog. This appears to be a growing activity and a win-win situation for all:
- The marketers can get some very targeted awareness and publicity
- The bloggers can attract more people to their blog
- The readers have a chance to win something that's very relevant to them
However, promotions are new to most bloggers and most really need sound advice and guidance on how to construct an online promotion that will not open them up to legalities.
Yvonne wanted to do an interactive promotion so back in July we launched the Lip-Sticking Monthly Sweepstakes. Because the nature of blogs is to create community, it seemed natural for Yvonne to use interactive promotions to help promote other bloggers in her network. So each month Lip-sticking started to include products from a different blogger as the monthly prize giveaway.
We have developed an easy and affordable way for bloggers to have interactive promotions up and running on their blog. For the Lip-sticking Monthly Sweepstakes I wrote the Official Rules and also created the entry form that’s used to collect each person’s personal data. Both are accessible through links that can be put right inside a blog post or added to a blog’s sidebar. I manage the database and after the end of the month do a random drawing to award the winner. I then submit the winner’s contact info to Yvonne (the blogger) so that she can contact that person and send them their prize. Sometimes I do the prize notification and fulfillment of the prize as well.
When done correctly, interactive promotions are one of the most powerful ways to connect with key customers and grow those relationships for success. That makes them a win-win tool for both bloggers and marketers.
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