Referral Contests - A Marketing Marvel

Referral contests can be a great way to motivate your existing members into promoting their affiliate links and gaining you, the business owner, new members. It can also motivate new members to market their respective affiliate pages and gain even more members. Think of it as a viral marketing concept. It works.

You can offer prize money, upgraded membership privileges, or a combination of both. The general rule is, the better the offer in prizes, the more motivated your members will be.

But, there is a catch to this that must be adhered to. You must have rules in place to govern the contest and these rules must be enforced.

The first, and probably most important one is no spamming. In today's world, it is very important to keep this rule in place and enforce it. Make the rules simple and easily understandable, and then terminate the violators. While this may seem harsh, it is important that your affiliates understand that you have rules and there are consequences for not following them.

You can include whatever advertising rules you feel are needed to keep your membership on track. One good point to this is that you can do a little research and add a number of places your members can advertise to help them get started. You can add anything you wish as long as it is a valid place to advertise. This can also include other viral marketing sites.

Any work you can do to help your members get started in their marketing campaigns will only help get things moving faster for them. The reason is simple,you are making it easier for them to promote your site.

Also include some advertising material for your members to use. This can be in the form of buttons, banners, splash pages or even text ads that can be used as email messages or classified ads. You would be surprised at how far this can go in helping to build your membership.

What are the benefits?

First of all, you have a growing membership. That's the first and most important benefit. Another benefit can be a growing sales force. Along with the latter, you should have growing sales.