Competitions and reader offers are a good way to get coverage, and make you seem like a thoroughly nice business owner! The media love them because they get to give something to their readers which costs the publication absolutely nothing, and you can utilise them when, perhaps, you don’t have a particularly newsworthy story to pitch in but don’t want to lose momentum, or to accompany a particular event or milestone at your company.

Your giveaway

First of all, you need to decide what you will be giving away. You might give away a small number of prizes, like one wedding dress, 2 x a year’s supply of beer, or something like that. The other thing you can do is give every reader of your chosen media a discount, so every reader gets, for example, a free cocktail with this voucher, or 20 per cent off, something like that. If you’re not in a business where the prize or giveaway is immediately obvious (like you sell cars, for instance, and don’t want to give a whole one away), consider offering something like a case of wine or champagne, or a cash prize. You’ll still be able to get your point across in the competition copy.

Pitching in

Now you need to decide which media you’d like your offer to appear in. Look back to your target audience and key media (previous posts) and pick from there. You may decide to first target a publication which is key for you, but in which you have struggled to get coverage through the straightforward media relations route. Before you phone them, you need to know the monetary value of your prize and how many you can give away – for competitions. For exclusive offers you need to have to hand what the service/product would normally cost, and what it will cost with the discount.

So, phone up your first target publication. Ask to speak to someone about promotions, then explain who you are and where you’re calling from. Ask if they run competitions/reader offers and, if so, explain your offering to see if they think it’s a good fit for them.

If you’re in agreement that this sounds like the right kind of thing for their readers, there are a few things you need to find out:

1. The minimum prize value. You’re going to be getting space which advertisers would normally have to pay for, so they can’t let you have it for less than a certain value, otherwise there’d be no point advertising with them and they’d make no money. So your prize will have to meet a certain valuation. This can range from £50 to many, many thousands for large consumer titles. If your prize doesn’t quite meet this, consider throwing another in, so that there are two prizes, or add a makeweight like a bottle of champagne for the rest.
2. When they can schedule the competition/offer in to appear.
3. What their copy deadline is for this issue. You’ll need to prepare all your materials for this date.
4. How much copy they need. This is their word count limit for competitions.
5. Can you include images and logos? How many? One image and one logo is standard, if you don’t have an image just a logo will be fine.
6. What will the closing date be? Check that they will provide terms and conditions.

Then you just need to agree that you’ll send them all the materials by their deadline. If they’re not interested, don’t worry, just try another title. 

With competitions you can set up as many as you like in various different tiles, but with exclusive offers you risk upsetting some of your key media contacts if you double up – these are supposed to be exclusive to their readers.

Competition materials

Now you need to write some copy for your competition. How much detail you can include depends on the word count which you have been given, but this is a rough guide to what to include:

‘[media title] has teamed up with [your business] to give readers the chance to win [one/two/three etc] fantastic prize of [prize]‘. If this is for a particular occasion or event, include details: ‘X is promising to make Easter extra special for one reader, with a luxury chocolate hamper!’

Then put a bit about your business here, making sure to include a couple of key messages (see key messages post).

Then, if you have enough word count, put a bit about the prize, or the event.

Then: ‘To win, just answer this simple question:’

Think of a question which everybody knows the answer to. Like:

‘What kind of animal is associated with Easter?’

1. Pig

2. Ostrich

3. Bunny

Put: ‘Send your answer to….’ leaving it blank so that the publication can put their preferred means of correspondence in.

Reader offers follow the same format, but obviously without the question, and maybe with a voucher, if appropriate. Or you may just say ‘mention this magazine to claim your discount.’ 

If you don’t have any images, you might consider getting some done professionally – a good photographer costs in the region of £100 to do a nice set of photos, which you’ll then have to hand for all future uses. 

Now get someone to proof read your copy, and send in your collateral by the agreed date.

For any help with competitions, reader offers or any other PR topics, email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com.