This is a Guest Post by John Saddington. John is a Professional Blogger at TentBlogger.com who makes a full time income writing blog posts on the internet. He aims to share his experiences and let other people know how one can earn a living through a blog. 

The challenge of the small business from an online perspective has never been about having quality products and services to offer - it's always been about finding ways for the right customers to walk through those "digital" doors!

Sure, sprucing up your website, spending time and energy around SEO practices, and even hiring digital marketers can help but perhaps you already have everything you need to bring a fresh group of eyes to your amazing business!

Why not try a contest or giveaway around one of your products and services? What do you think the result might be?

As a small business owner to another I can tell you that providing giveaways and digital contests is a foundational part of what I do online as not only a marketing strategy but also as a way to develop a much richer and deeper connection with the existing community.

What's nice is that my small business, 8BIT, which sells Premium WordPress Themes, is able to offer this product free via a contest with very little loss to our bottom line. In fact, here are three things that we get in return that is much more valuable than selling the one (or two) themes that we give away in each contest:

1. We get tons of free publicity and website traffic! This free marketing is priceless and provides new eyes to our fantastic product.

2. We sell product! Without fail more than a few people who see the "prize" are simply too impatient to wait for the chance to win and they have the finances to simply buy it instantly. We have always sold more product than the number that we were giving away!

3. We get increased customer loyalty within our community since our brand becomes more associated with giving. It implicitly suggests that we're for the community and not about profiting from it.

There are even more benefits but these are some of the largest.

Now, how does one go about creating a simple digital contest for your own small business? The easiest way is to simply follow these few steps:

1. Use a social network or blog to communicate the giveaway. I almost always opt for a business blog to promote the giveaway. If you feel you have a "small" network then feel free to ping friends and people within your existing network to promote it for you. It might feel shameless the first time but that goes away really quickly!

2. Provide explicit instructions on how to enter and the time-line of when the prize(s) are being given away.

3. Push social media big time by asking the contestant to not only comment on the blog announcement post as an entry but also to share it on Twitter, Facebook, and any other points of contact with their own network. Don't forget to collect these tweets and shares on Facebook if they count toward an entry!

4. Publish the winners and thank them graciously as well as everyone else who entered.

5. Experience the awesomeness of increased traffic, free marketing, and possibly increased sales!

From one small business to another I hope you experience a rich return on your investment and leverage social media and web technology for your business growth!

Best of luck and let me know how your first giveaway goes!

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