March Madness - How Contests Can Work For You
“March Madness” has been rampant around the VerticalResponse offices now for the past two weeks. You know, the springtime mania that takes a sports neophyte and turns them into an obsessive, score-checking, bracket-busting fanatic. Witnessed it firsthand? Fallen prey to it yourself? For those that might not be familiar, March Madness is a US phenomenon that revolves around the annual men’s college basketball tournament and inspires more fan involvement than the Super Bowl, the Olympics, even the World Series! Why is that?
Simply put, March Madness connects with fans (and non-fans) on a more personal level. The brackets and low-entry office pools make everyone from the hoops junkie to the novice feel they have a stake in the event and encourages them to “play along at home”. Doubt the appeal of this element? Check out the ratings on American Idol.
What’s more, unpredictable college kids performing under pressure combines with the single-elimination format to create the most unexpected results (George Mason, anyone?) This lets your co-workers who don’t know a three point-jumper from a three point-turn aspire to office pool glory.
Did you know that espn.com and cbsportsline.com receive more visitors on the opening two days of the NCAA Tournament than at any other point in the year? There are dozens of sites that offer free online bracket competitions and at espn.com alone, users submit more than 1,200 a minute!
What can this mean to you? Well it’s all about competition right? Like the March Madness competition, tapping into the competitive spirit is a great way for you to attract visitors to your site and generate interest in your products without heavy-handed selling tactics. Here are just a few examples winning competitions:
- Awards – We gave away iPod Shuffles last year for the most eye-catching emails and, in turn, our customers pointed their friends and colleagues to our site to show off their fortune. Do you have a prize that you’d want to give to your customers?
- Contests – Ban Deodorant offered a contest asking teenage girls “What would you Ban?” and directed them to a website to fill out an entry. Four thousand entries were received. Ban then sent an email inviting people to vote for their favorite choice online. In all, 61,000 participants visited and voted. Talk about a viral contest!
- Sweepstakes – Sopranos is doing an interactive sweeps where you go to a site and when a Soprano pops up you “whack em” with a virtual mallet as they emerge. Ouch.
A well-designed contest involves the customers in a way that’s more personal while making them fill out their information. Ideally, it tells a story that reflects your company’s image. You don’t need a 20,000 seat arena and a national championship trophy to get people’s competitive juices flowing. As long as the desire to compete exists, the future of office pools and similarly inspired contests will be a slam-dunk. Oh and don't forget, get the email address for that email marketing campaign!
Got any ideas of your own? Give us a comment!
Hey!
I am always inspired by your posts and the many innovative things going on in viral marketing. I have a challenge in that my company product is JAVA programmers. How exciting is that? Most of our customers view us as a necessary evil. They love us of course but its not sexy. Do you have any thoughts on how I can approach getting customers involved, market to them, build a community, etc.
I have a monthly newsletter thats doing well but I want to do more.
thanks
farida
Posted by: Farida Hasanali | March 29, 2006 at 07:21 AM