Skip to main content

How do you know what the best type of competition for your business is?

With an overwhelming amount of options, it can be hard to decide which type of competition, or entry method, is going to be best for your business. Fortunately, we’ve got picking competition types down to a fine art and with a few questions, we’ll help you work out what type of competition is going to get your business where it needs to go.

What stage is your business at?

First and foremost: what stage is your business at?

If you’ve just launched and want to build an audience, a follow to win or like to enter competition might be for you.

If you’re an established company with a sizeable and engaged audience on social media, you might want to consider bringing them over from social to your email list with an enter your email to win competition.

In need of sales? A purchase to enter competition could give your revenue the boost you’re looking for.

What stage is your business at? Plant metaphor thanks to Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash.

Different types of competitions work best at different stages of a business’ growth. In general, for a business in its early stages amassing an audience of people interested in your product or service will be priority – but if you already have that audience and you need them to convert to paying customer, a competition aimed at converting them is the best type of competition for your stage of business.

Competitions and contests should be seen as part of your sales or marketing funnel, so choosing an entry method that will help move people from one stage of the funnel to the next, will help you take your business to the next stage too.

What information would be most useful for your business?

Each different type of competition and entry method will give you and your business different results, data, outcomes and information.

To pick the right type of competition or contest for your business, you need to consider what type of information your chosen competition type is going to give you – and more importantly, what type of information is going to be most useful for your business.

If you don’t understand the data you’re collecting, why collect it? Photo by Negative Space from Pexels.

If you don’t really give two hoots about social media and you find that you generate most of your sales from your super engaged email list, why would you run a like to win competition? It’s not going to give you emails you can drive sales from – likes are going to be a poor return on your competition investment.

Similarly, if you’re in the early stages of expanding your range and you’re wondering what new products your audience would purchase if you created them, a survey or vote to win competition would be the perfect type of contest or competition to run to give you exactly the data you would need to make the next move in your business.

Consider the type of information or data that’s most valuable for your business. The competition that gives you information that would help you achieve your business goals and grow your brand is the best type of competition for your business.

Enjoying this post?

There’s a lot more where that came from! Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more practical tips, tricks and how tos.

What do you want to achieve?

The final – and most helpful – way to decide the best type of competition for your business, is to work out what you want to achieve with your competition.

If your aim is to build your email list, an enter your email to win contest is naturally the best fit.

If you want to promote your latest product, then a treasure hunt through the product page to find the answer to a question is a great way to get your product in front of people and get them interested in learning more about it.

If you’re hoping to boost your trove of testimonials to create social proof for the services you offer, a leave a review to win would be a perfect fit for your competition.

When choosing the best type of competition for your business, match your competition and entry method to the goal or outcome you’re hoping to achieve with your business and you’ll naturally pick the best type of competition every time.

Hopefully by considering the stage your business is at, the type of information or entries you want to collect and what you actually want to achieve with your competition has helped you arrive at the perfect type of competition or contest for your business… If it hasn’t and you’re still stuck between enter your email to win or like us to enter, you know who to call.

Want our team of experts to help you design the perfect type of competition for your business? Why not book in a totally free strategy session, check out our done for you packages or get in touch and tell us a bit about your business and competition idea and we’ll do the hard work for you!