Note from Nick: This is a guest post submission from Cody over at Academy Success, and it’s a perfect follow-up to Tuesday’s post about book marketing plans. Consider using this exact tactic in your overall marketing strategy!

Being a bit of an efficiency addict, I believe there’s always a better way to do things, so when I ran a recent Amazon KDP Select promotion to promote my newest Kindle book (a pretty cool thing to do to grow your list), I decided to up the ante a bit from the status quo… and boy did it work well.

Rather than just going for the run-of-the-mill, “toss out a few emails” promotion, I coupled the KDP promotion period with a contest featuring an Amazon Kindle HD giveaway. Here are the results, and the blueprint on how you can do it too.

First, some numbers.

The Raw Results

By the time the contest was over, which ran for a period of about 10 days, I had generated:

• 277 Email List subscribers
• 151 Facebook Fans
• 143 Twitter Followers
• 1096 copies of my book downloaded from Amazon Kindle Store
• Around $300 spent including a Kindle Fire HD I gave away, the contest software, and a bit of Facebook and Twitter advertising

This was for small site which is just getting started with around 1000 visitors per month, so these kinds of numbers are pretty promising.

The social proof of the additional Facebook fans and Twitter followers is a nice added benefit and certainly doesn’t hurt, but to me the most relevant numbers here are the Email leads, and the KDP promotion downloads (there are links back to a squeeze page on my site within the book, which I highly recommend). Here are a couple of graphs that depict those.

So now that you’ve seen the results, you’re probably wondering the “how” behind those numbers, right?

Well here you go.

Setting Up Your Contest

I know the first thing you’re going to ask is, “What software did you use?”

Well, here’s the answer.

I used a premium WordPress plugin called Contest Domination for this particular contest, however they have since evolved their business model into a monthly service and you can no longer get the plugin. You can still use their new services, however I don’t have experience with the new version so I can’t recommend it one way or the other.

That said, there are a boatload of contest software packages available online. A quick Google of “Contest Software” will yield you plenty of results.

Here are a few of the more popular ones:

• Wildfire App
• Contest Burner
• Contest Domination

Depending on the type of contest you do, the features you want may vary.

My contest required an email opt-in on my own site, then had a strong viral sharing component, so Contest Domination worked well. I’ll leave the application choice up to you, and truthfully it doesn’t matter too much. The magic is in the execution.

Pre Contest Setup Process and Promotion

Because of the viral nature of the type of contest that I did (with a social sharing component), the more people I had in from the beginning, the higher the likelihood was that more contest links would be shared.

100 people sharing links is much more powerful than 10.

When you open your contest, you want to have those traffic avenues set up and ready to go, and you want to have a hungry email list ready to jump in on your contest on Day 1.

Here is a flow chart I outlined before my contest that helped me visualize how things would work. Please ignore the crudity. It wasn’t meant for presentation, but it should help nevertheless. Be sure to take a look. This will help explain the context of the content below.

As you can see, there are several sources of traffic coming into the contest.

Remember to focus on setting these up before your contest begins. Otherwise you’ll be coming out of the gate with a tiny fizzle. Also be sure to optimize each step as shown to maximize your benefit.

Along with routine emails you send out before the contest, drop a hint to your list of what youíll be giving away during the contest in the PS section. This will build the anticipation and get them chomping at the bit to enter, especially if it’s something awesome.

Day 1-2 of Your Contest Promotion

Once your contest is underway, you’ll want any and all of your guest post articles live that you decide to do to promote your content, and you’ll need to start actively promoting the contest link.

Here are some promotion methods to use to kick things off:

• Create a post on your own site announcing the contest. Make sure to clearly outline the benefits of entering to your readers.
• Ask Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Email partners if they will share your link for you. Make sure it benefits their readers. Often a freebie for entering will do this, such as a report you create, or in my case, a free copy of my Kindle book.
• If your list is Facebook fan page is large enough, create a well-structured sponsored post linking to your contest. You can also share it on your personal timeline if its relevant to your friends.
• Ask your friends to share the link for you on their Facebook wall and with their personal email networks. A good way to do this is to create a Facebook post on your wall, and send them the direct link asking them to share it. I got over 50 shares this way.
• Send a dedicated email to your main list on Day 1 of the contest with all of the juicy details. Make sure to let them know that sharing gets them more entries.
• Create a large ad on the homepage of your site linking to the contest
• Create a sidebar ad on your site linking to the contest
• Use “Hello Bar” to let your visitors know you’re running a contest

Many people will tell you to post your contest on sweepstakes sites. I did this thinking it would be awesome, but truthfully it was a waste of time. I got a couple of sweepstakers in the mix and the quality of the leads was very poor. I’d recommend not spending your time on it.

The methods listed above will get you a good flow of traffic from the beginning and should get your contest buzzing well.

Now youíre going to go into phase two of your promotion, which is where the real magic happens. This is where the viral piece takes over and will explode your entries.

Contest Promotion Phase 2: Where the Magic Happens

Most people that enter your contest are going to enter once and then forget, but for those people that really want what youíre giving away, theyíre going to come back and try their darndest to win. Itís up to you to leverage this competitiveness.

Run your contest for a long enough period that will allow you to send a couple of routine emails to your list, whatever your schedule is. Along with your regular email updates, drop in a reminder about the contest.

This will allow you to get your entrants sharing their links again, which will get you another nice influx of traffic. My biggest days were both of the days I emailed my list with reminders to share to get more entires. Of course be sure to remind them that the benefit of sharing is they increase their chances of winning your grand prize.

The Leaderboard Hack

Now here’s another sneaky tactic that will leverage those with competitive personalities.

• Create a contest leader board in your email updates.

Any good viral contest software will give you the ability to export everyone who has entered your contest, and the number of points they have.

Export your list and open it up in Excel.

Now grab the Top 5 or Top 10 first names and list the number of points they have next to their names in your email. This will get those at the top competing for more points, and will also spur others to get in the game.

This works amazingly well.

Note from Nick: I can vouch for this. Social proof is everything in this game, and this is a very effective (and creative) way to “prove” what’s going on. Way to go, Cody!

You can do this a couple of times, but don’t overdo it. You want to make sure to continue to provide value to your list throughout your contest. Make sure you continue posting your content as well. Donít make emails all about the contest. This will turn people off quickly and kill your open and engagement rates.

Continue social network updates throughout your contest as well as a reminder and send email reminders to partners who haven’t replied. Don’t send more than two emails to your partners though, and make sure to be very gracious for their support. You donít want to damage any relationships here.

Also be willing to return the favor if you’re going to ask for help.

The Final Day and Post Contest Housekeeping

Make sure you send out a reminder on the last day of your contest. This will take advantage of the scarcity of the contest ending, which is one of the best ways to get people to take action. This is also a good day to post another leaderboard to get those at the top competing again. You’ll hit two psychological triggers by doing this.

If you’ve done things well to this point, youíll have gotten a nice influx of traffic and leads, a lot of new people reading your stuff, and many new fans on your social media networks, but your job isn’t quite over just yet.

The reality of running a contest is that some people wonít care about your content, no matter how awesome it is. They just want what you were giving away. Don’t worry about losing them.

They weren’t going to help you out anyway.

Many will unsubscribe on their own, but many won’t. You don’t want untargeted leads on your list, so I also recommend sending an email to your newly found subscribers (either a standalone list, or a segment), letting them know what your site is all about and if theyíre not interested to unsubscribe. Those that care will stick around.

This will keep your list free of the people that may later complain or mark your emails as spam. Yes, youíre going to lose numbers, but trust me, this is necessary for the integrity of your list and your future deliverability.

Tactics to Optimize Your Results

Congratulations. By this point you’ve run an awesome contest, have a process that you can use over and over again, and have a ton of new relevant leads for your website.

Here are a few additional tactics and best practices not listed above that you can use to optimize your contest.

• Test your contest from multiple computers to make sure it works before turning it loose to the public.
• Offer a prize relevant to your niche to get more qualified leads
• Add a nice looking picture of what you’re giving away to increase conversions
• Keep your contest page content simple. The more copy you have, the less likely people are to enter. Stick to the process, and the benefits of your giveaway.
• Take advantage of your Thank You page If youíre using double opt-in, remind your readers to confirm to be eligible, and list enticing links to your special report, and social media networks.
• Configure your confirmation link to go back to your sharing page, so people can easier share their links
• Use an auto-responder to deliver any special resource, and to give people another opportunity to get back to their sharing link
• Ask a qualifying question if possible to increase reader engagement (template modification required)

While my contest was pretty successful, things could have gone a bit better. Here are some mistakes I made, and how you might go about avoiding them.

• I forgot to add an exception to W3 Total Cache which stalled the contest for Day 1 and certainly lost me quite a few leads. Make certain you do that.
• I offered a consolation prize of a gift card to a second place winner. Rather than thanking me, they were very upset they didn’t win and accused me of rigging the contest. Truthfully, this may have been a one-off circumstance, but it was still a hassle. I recommend only notifying your winner that they won, and keeping everything else out of the air.
• Didn’t make rules 100% clear. I chose a random winner even though I did keep track of points. This meant the person with the most points had the highest chance of winning, but someone with 1 entry could still win. Be sure to list this clearly in the rules and in your emails you send to avoid confusion and angry entrants, especially if you use a leaderboard.
• Used main list to initially add leads to. I used my main list to add the contest leads to, which resulted in them getting my autoresponder updates. This was a pretty bonehead thing to do and just an omission on my part. I switched the list on Day 2 and automated the resource delivery using a different list.

And there you go. That’s exactly how to run an awesome WordPress contest from beginning to end. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or improvements for the Academy, please share them in the comments below.

Cody Wheeler is a Self Improvement blogger at Academy Success. He believes there is always a better way to do things, and focuses on teaching his readers how to live richer and more fulfilling lifestyles through simple and actionable content. Grab hisProductivity Success Secrets Action Guide here, now available for free download.