Without question, word of mouth advertising is absolutely and indisputably the best form of advertising that has ever existed.

This has been the case, good or bad, for a very long time. No one can deny that word of mouth advertising is, in it’s most basic form, free and highly effective.

In most cases the people who hear the advertising message are usually listening to someone they trust when they hear the message and because the person who spreads the word is usually unpaid, word of mouth rocks!

So why then are some bloggers running prize awarding contests to get attention? Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net ran a Birthday Bash Competition where over $60,000 dollars in cash and prizes were given away. I don’t know about you, but that’s a heck of a birthday party.

So why then, if word of mouth is free and effective, do bloggers run expensive contests and give away cash prizes? Well, the answer is simple really. Its for attention.

The kind of attention I’m talking about isn’t the destructive self involved kind of attention seeking you might expect, but rather a highly focused, intense form of attention that captures an audience and drives them to take a specific form of action.

You see for the most part our attention is competed for all day long. We have obligations, desires, and distractions that clamor constantly for our attention and action. So, sometimes it’s necessary to do a little creative advertising to generate a little word of mouth buzz.

If you’ve read the Rich Schefren’s Attention Age Doctrine then you’ll know that attention is as valuable as gold and in order to generate some buzz and grab our attention, sometimes that involves creative ideas. By running an attention getting contest you are effectively generating buzz worthy news that can be distributed to others by word of mouth.

Here are a few tips for running a successful contest:

• Make a very attractive offer, a juicy one even to encourage participation
• Clearly state the requirements for winning to avoid confusion
• Define a short participation window to create urgency
• Be transparent about the process to foster trust
• Announce the winners publicly to create a sense of community
• Prime the pump for the next competition to build anticipation

In Chris Walker’s case at BusinessBlogger.net he’s doing all of this in text book fashion, just on a smaller scale. For the entire month of February Chris is giving away $500 cash and a BFG NVIDIA graphics card as part of his blogging contest to promote his new business directory.

Chris does a great job of spelling out the details of the contest on his blog, but basically he is asking that people blog about his new project. During the whole month of February he is taking entries and the winner gets awarded a prize. If $500 interests you then check out his blog for more details.

Ultimately Chris is being creative with his marketing to get a specific response. He is also giving contestants an incentive to participate for a chance to get what they want, a chance to win some cash. Personally, I’d eBay the video card. So either way I’d go for the smackers.

So yes, word of mouth is free and yes it is highly effective, but don’t forget that it’s up to you to come up with creative ways to create something to talk about, and that sometimes can cost money.

In Chris’s case and in Darren’s I’m sure there is something working behind the scenes of value for them beyond the initial cost of the contest. In Darren’s case, I can only imagine the benefits of getting that kind of buzz going around such a large event. And for Chris I would guess that he has a long term strategy for his business directory. He is most likely willing to give away cash and prizes on this end of the business journey to accomplish some goal on the opposite end.

What’s your creative idea for generating buzz worthy word of mouth advertising?

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Listen To This Article Podcast