I wrote a piece a few weeks ago for Style Sample magazine where I advocated that you make your contests as easy as possible to enter; don’t make readers jump through too many hoops (twitter, facebook, RTs…). I always try to think of what I would do to enter a contest – I never enter giveaways where I have to write a haiku or send in a video, so I would never ask my readers to.
In my personal experience, the easier it is to enter the giveaway, the more entries I receive. I used to do comment contests, where entrants would have to leave a comment after going to the sponsor’s site with their favorite item, and those did okay, but once I switched to a simple form where they just have to enter their e-mail address and name (thus signing up for my newsletter), I got many more entries (wufoo.com is REALLY good for that).
So my question for you is, first, what do you require your readers to do to enter giveaways on your site? Have you ever done a comparison to see which methods get more entries? and then, what will YOU do to enter a giveaway on another blog or site?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
i definitely only make everyone do comments – I feel like asking for all the time to do the twitter, FB is unnecessary and unfair for people who don’t have twitter!
I love to do comment giveaways… your signup form idea sounds super awesome too! more details on that? (clicking over to wufoo)…
I used to have people leave comments, but now I use an embedded Google doc. I HATE when I have to reblog/ repost/ tweet a giveaway, so I don’t require my readers to do that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the free Wufoo form doesn’t work if you get more than 100 entries/ form. Google docs doesn’t look as snazzy, but it does spit results out in an easy to read spreadsheet (like Wufoo) and is completely free with no limit on how many form or how many entries/ form you can have.
you’re right about the wufoo form – you have to pay if you get more than 100 entries. but i use wufoo for my free!grechen submissions & all my giveaways, so it’s worth it for me. honestly, i totally forgot about google docs – i used to use them for some giveaways and forms also, but stopped for some reason. i think i didn’t like how i couldn’t make it integrate perfectly with the site. i’m anal like that