by Erum Zehra
A contest is a great way to attract traffic to your website.
However, handling contests manually can become very difficult
if you receive a huge number of entries.
Here’s a secret: You can use follow up autoresponders to automate
the dreary tasks involved in running a contest. All you have to do
is set up your contest once and the follow-up autoresponder will
take care of the rest.
Choose an autoresponder service
The first step is to get an autoresponder service. You need a
service with the following features:
Personalization
You should be able to place codes in your message which
get replaced by the subscriber's info. This way the
message will have their name and other details.
Subscription Form
The autoresponder should let you generate a subscription
form with multiple fields. You should be able to add
your own custom questions to the subscription form.
Automated and Manual Messages
You should be able to set up autoresponder messages and
send out manual messages. (Ecourse wizard at this URL:
www.ecoursewizard.com/features.php offers all
the above features and a lot more)
Set up the contest form
Decide on the questions you will ask your contest participants.
Then enter these questions in the custom fields of your
autoresponder service. A sign up form containing these
questions will be generated. Place the code of this form
in the HTML coding of your web page and upload it. Your
contest questionnaire will appear on your website. Make
sure you inform your visitors that entering the contest
will also subscribe them to your list.
Set up your welcome message
Set up a "welcome message" or a "thank you message" for entering
the contest in your autoresponder account. This will be pasted
in the first window of the autoresponder message sequence. It
will be sent immediately when someone fills and submits your
contest form.
You can add more messages and set up the number of days after
which each message will be sent. These can be a follow-up of
your contest or any other info you want to pass on to the
contest entrant.
Personalize your messages
Most autoresponder services let you customize the emails that
go out by putting in generic fields like ~~First Name~~ which
will get replaced by the first name of the contest entrant.
They will think you sent them a personal message and pay
more attention to it, when in reality the whole process is
automatic.
How the process works
If people want to enter your contest they will have to fill
up the contest form. As soon as they fill the form and send it,
they will receive the first autoresponder message. They will keep
receiving the follow-up messages that you have added after your
welcome message until they unsubscribe or the message sequence
comes to an end.
Ending the Contest
The announcement of the winner or the ending of the contest
can be sent via the manual message option in your
autoresponder account. You can also personalize this manual
message.
Gather valuable visitor information
When your visitors enter your contest, their answers will get
saved. You can view all the information they submitted in your
autoresponder account. (You can also download this information).
Once the contest is over you will have the whole list of contest
entrants saved in your autoresponder account. You can now send
them manual messages and manage them easily, through the
autoresponder service. You can gain a huge number of subscribers
to your list in this way, and use this list to promote your
product or service.
Discuss this in our Forum
About the Author:
Erum Zehra runs the autoresponder service Ecourse Wizard at
www.ecoursewizard.com. Learn all about writing ecourses
by subscribing to her free ecourse. Send a blank email to
[email protected]
