You can make someone do just about anything if they think that there is something good in it for them. This is one of the reasons that lots of businesses run contests. With the boom of technology, you no longer have to leave your home to enter a contest. Use that fact and the tips in the following article to run a contest that will help drive customers to your business.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that the rules are clear. Do not put too many important rules in the fine print. While a lot of businesses do this, it makes some customers feel like you are trying to deceive them. Be very clear about what the rules are and how the winners of the contest will be selected. Also, make sure that you do not use language that is so complicated that it cannot be understood by the average user.

If you want your business to become popular internationally, you should think about opening your contest up to people that live in other countries. You may not want the contest to be open to every single country in the world, but you want to make sure to include those that you can reasonably foresee having a lot of potential customers.

Internet contests are great, but you want to make sure that there are several methods in play for contest entry. While this is an Internet marketing strategy, you should allow users a way to enter by calling into a toll-free number and/or sending a text from their mobile phone. You can offer them the opportunity to enter by postal mail, but keep in mind that this will mean a lot more work on your end.

Offer customers a chance to share the contest with their friends through social media buttons. You want to attract as many people as possible to your business. Adding share buttons is like opening up a brand new way to advertise. Without investing any money you can have customers spreading news of your contest all over the Internet, and this means more publicity for your business.

It should not be very hard to enter a contest because that might turn people off. The simpler the rules and entry, the more customers you will attract. If a person has to spend 15 minutes entering your contest, it may get frustrating and they may leave and never return. It should not take anyone more than 5-7 minutes to enter any contest you are running.

Make the contest as fun and exciting as you can. Use cool graphics to advertise it and provide up-to-the-minute updates on the progress of it. You can also hold mini daily contests in addition to the larger one, so people who do not win a large prize feel like they had a chance at winning something.

Now that you have read this article, you should know what it takes to run a successful contest. Use all of the information you glean from it to help in your future marketing plans, but make sure you let people know that you will be doing that so they do not feel like their privacy has been violated.