Fitness Expert Reveals Contest Marketing Tactics
Today I talk with Craig Ballantyne who has been featured in Mens Health Magazine and runs the popular fitness website TurbulenceTraining.com.
Inside the fitness industry the concept of Contest Marketing is a huge wave spreading like wild fire. Craig just spoke about this exact topic at Underground Online seminar in Washington and I was there. In our interview Craig steps us through the reasons why contest marketing will be visiting a niche near you! (I also managed to squeeze in some fitness tips!)
What is Contest Marketing?
You hold a contest so that your prospects and clients get more involved with you and have increased communication. The before and after contests also generate a huge amount of content such as photos, testimonials and extensive feedback on the program. The consistancy and commitment aspects of Contest Marketing increase your influence. Also you get to serve the community and provide a support forum for yoru clients. In fact you create celebrities and an entourage effect with your clients that can have a magnetic effect over time.
How it works
You can use this in any industry to get people involved so long as you come up worth creative ways to incentivize people to take action. There are three main stages.
Stage 1 – Taking actions
Stage 2 – Getting results
Stage 3 – Getting the success stories
People would often not take any action unless they had a contest to participate in. Humans like incentives and deadlines. The business to business contest provides the means for people to take action. Prizes are awarded to people forgetting results and forum participation is encouraged but not compulsary. The contest is open to anyone around the world whether they are clients or not.
Rules
There are legal implications so you need to check the rules in your area and also get legal advice. If you want to see the rules Craig uses listen to the audio. Making it free exposes the widest audience to your marketing.
Rules of the 2nd Turbulence Training Transformation Contest
Rules of the 6th Turbulence Training Transformation Contest
More Benefits
People who participate in the forums the most get the best results. You get a lot more contact opportunities for you to develop the relationship. You get to announce the pre-content start then the close of the session. Then you get to let people know when the end is nigh and then the final close. Then you have the voting and then the final results. Then if you like you can let them know about the next contest. Craig runs three contests per year. People are so involved they get upset if you do not contact them!
Where The Idea Came From
People have a huge WIFM (whats in it for me) motivation to do this. Craig got the idea for this from Mark Joyner and the number of entires shocked him!
Other Applications
I asked Craig how I would involve readers in my blog contest. He suggested using something like an essay submission. In the past he had people submit the best answers about how the product he was selling enhanced for them. There were over 120 emotional submissions. They were combined into a report for helping others learn about the benefits of his program. Getting interaction from your client base has similar aspects to the social networking going on at the moment. There is no iron curtain bewtween the consumer and the expert.
The Entourage
Craig details the entourage technique. This is where your celebrity helps you bring others into your area. The celebrities are the first winners of the contest. Otrher people then are attracted to them and they get a big profile. Eventually other people will start to interview your celebrity clients. It then grows far more powerfully. Using before and after contests emplys the great aspects of visualization. Show a before and after results is the easiest way to demonstrate results. All of this can be done without a membership site.
Market Research
Running contests also helps you gather immense amount of ideas for market research. People think your products are about one thing and we may think it is about something different. The best way is to open up the lines of communication and feedback because you will have people talking about things they will then act consistantly with their statements. People tend to follow through with what they state publically.
Increase Success
Serving clients should be the model you focus on so contest marketing is a perfect fit. By asking people to state goals you have a very strong chance of people to succeed so creating an environment for them to be able to do that more often makes sense. If you run an international forum you will find the different time zones end up supporting each other. This provides a higher level of support than some of these people get outside of your product.
Social Boost
Craig uses Twitter to run sub contests and it is a powerful source of accountability. People posting updates there can help them be more consistant to the goal. People will call them out if they skip parts. You can also do this with facebook or a forum. It will work in any market. Craig posts his nutrition habits every day to his readers and he finds it helps him be more congruent with his one message. It allows him to be a better role model.
Athletic Videos
Perspective
You may think you are doing a great job until you measure it. Contests allow you to introduce accountablilty into your own life. Transformation style contests have very strong self improvement results.
Prize Time
Craig discusses prizes in detail and he mentions you do not need as much cash as you think. A little bit of cash will motivate people to do amazing things. If you are small start out small with prizes. Even a T-Shirt will be heavily competed for. If nobody in your industry is doing it right now then you stand to gain a lot by offering this. You will get much more exposure for your products.
Craigs Fitness Tips
I asked him to summarize all his best information into a few best tips.
1) Cut out processed foods and sugars from the diet. Do it slowly and try to be better today than yesterday. You will get more mental energy if you skip sugars.
2) Having a routine where you build in fun activities to do. Make sure you do different things that encourage a range of movements. If you can get into a great habit of doing stuff early in the day then you will be improving your health. Craig recommends early to bed early to rise for the ultimate metabolism. If you wake up too late you can eat more than you need to.
At the end of the interview I let go a great tip about promoting foreign language health products. Well worth listening to. Please post your comments on how you applied this information in your business.
Craigs Site is TurbulenceTraining.com
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz