How to Build a Huge Core Audience Quickly, Using Contests + Facebook Ads (Includes Marketing How-To Video)

Hordes of wishy-washy followers will get you nowhere. But a core, passionate audience will skyrocket your business growth. The trick to getting your startup off the ground is building that core audience quickly and cost-effectively, and then selling them your products and services.

Ultimately, it’s this group of engaged people—the ones who follow what you do, buy what you sell, take advice from you, and look to you as a thought leader—that will allow you to make money, and lay the foundation for your future company.

To be honest, there are a whole bunch of ways to build this core following when you’re starting out. But in my experience, there’s one particular combination of tactics that does so in a fastest, cheapest, and most effective manner.

With this guide, I’m going to share exactly how to build your core audience, what’s known as your “seed audience,” using contests and Facebook ads.

I’ll show you:

Why giveaways and contests are beneficial for building an audience.
How to build the perfect contest for maximum growth.
How to properly market a contest that will get you results (Facebook ads).

We’ve got a ton of info ahead of us, and if you stick with it to the end, there’s a little offer for some personalized advice on how to build YOUR own audience using a contest. So let’s get started!

What’s a Seed Audience and Why Is it Important?

How to Build an Audience Using Giveaways and Contests

How to Build the Perfect Contest for Maximum Growth

How to Market a Contest to Get Results

A Bonus Giveaway For You!

What’s a Seed Audience and Why Is it Important?

Building your first 100 (often called your “seed” audience) is always the hardest step of getting a company off the ground. That number goal will vary, and it could mean email list subscribers, engaged followers, or even frequent readers of your blog. These are the people who know you, and are not cold prospects.

This is so important, as the people who know you, are familiar with your brand, and have interacted with you multiple times convert at twice the rate of cold prospects. The below screenshot shows the value of returning visitors and how they’re twice as valuable as cold traffic.

The conversion rate for new visitors to my site is 2.18% but the conversion rate for returning visitors (the people already familiar with my brand) is 4.96%.

Another example below shows that the channels that have multiple touch points (referrals, email, and direct) convert at much higher rates than those in which the prospect may have never heard of the brand before (paid search, organic reach).

This is the number one reason you want to build a large core audience, so when you have something to promote, sell, launch, etc., the people you share it with will convert at much higher levels than cold traffic.

The problem is that a lot of the advice on how to build your seed audience is vague and not very actionable.

For example, many experts will tell followers to start posting on social media, blogging, speaking at events, writing books, starting podcasts, or even building relationships one by one. But let’s be honest, that takes way too long!

Don’t get me wrong, they’re all things you should do in the long run, but not very actionable in putting together your “to do” list for next week to hit your short-term growth goals. Some of the things on that list are going to take months, if not years.

I’m going to be upfront with you on this—building an audience is not easy, and as you can see from the common methods mentioned, it can be very time consuming and expensive.

The good news is there are methods that are less time consuming and less expensive. One of the easiest to execute is the giveaway or contest.

How to Build an Audience Using Giveaways and Contests

Everyone is always busy, their inbox is continuously overflowing, and they’re not just going to signup for “newsletter updates” anymore.

As a business, you have to provide your audience with value and give them something they want or need before you ask them for something in return. That’s why contests and giveaways are the perfect incentivizing tools.

Contests and giveaways all work in pretty similar ways, no matter which company or platform you choose to run them with.

You give entrants a prize/reward/service as an incentive to engage, and gamify the lead generation experience to make it fun. In return, you receive beneficial information from them like an email address, user feedback, phone number, referral, and in some cases actions like a social follow. The list goes on and on, as this method is very flexible and can adjust to what your KPIs (key performance indicators) are.

Again, this is one of the most cost-effective ways to collect emails, followers, and more when compared to running generic lead ads (usually $3-5 an email), or organically building a list (which can take months, if not years).

Aside from offering incentives, they have a viral referral system built in, as entrants often need to refer others in order to increase their chances to win. For example, referring friends and co-workers might land the participant an additional 100 entries.

(Unedited photo source: Aurora Magazine)

The type of contest I recommend is a “leaderboard contest,” as it’s by far the most powerful and flexible online tool for building an audience and stimulating engagement.

What’s a Leaderboard Contest?

It’s a gamified contest that has a leaderboard/scoreboard, and entrants have to collect entries (points) to move up the leaderboard, beating others to the top while unlocking prizes along the way via milestones (e.g. unlock a prize once you collect 200 entries).

(collect entries on the left, to rank and move up the leaderboard on the right)

Leaderboard contests are fun for entrants, but they also expose you to a broader community and get you more exposure. Let’s dive into exactly how to set up an effective leaderboard contest.

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How to Build the Perfect Contest for Maximum Growth

Step 1: Plan Your Contest

Start with a few questions:

What type of people do you want to attract?
What are those people interested in?
Where do those people hang out (websites, social channels, Facebook groups, etc.)?

The reason you want to ask these questions is to ensure you attract people who will eventually turn into customers. There is no point running a giveaway and getting signups from people who would never buy your product or use your service.

Here are some examples from companies that attracted the right audiences with their contests:

Foundr offered a free ecommerce course and mentorship, which attracted ecommerce entrepreneurs, a core part of their audience.

Scott’s Cheap Flights offered a free trip to Croatia, attracting people who like to travel.
PageHabit offered 12 months of books, attracting people who read frequently.
VYPER (my company) offered free lifetime subscriptions to software, attracting business owners.

Keep your target audience in mind as you continue this process, making sure you attract them with whatever you offer.

Step 2: Choose Your Contest Prizes

Now that you know who you are trying to attract, find a compelling prize/service/offer that will really get these people excited.

If you already make or own the product or service you want to offer, great! If not, you can either buy the prizes or partner up with other companies to get those prizes for free. For example, if you run a coffee ecommerce store, you could offer free coffee for a year, or a free espresso machine, or an in-depth guide on making latte art, etc.

This is the prize structure that we recommend, using the example of the ecommerce coffee store:

1st prize – Espresso machine and six bags of coffee (largest prize and most impressive)

2nd prize – Six bags of coffee (less impressive but still good)

Random Winner – Espresso machine (randomly select one participant to win a prize that can be anything, as long as it isn’t as big as the 1st prize)

500 entries – Coupon codes for the best coffee products (20% off or $10 gift card)

2,000 entries – Guide on how to make the best coffee (could be a PDF or training video)

5,000 entries – The ultimate barista video course (could be an email drip course, video course, or in person event/class)

You can add or remove any of these, but the best-performing contests usually have at least a 1st prize, a random winner, and one entry milestone prize.

This will also depend on your budget and access to prizes. If you are just starting out, you might have to build up to bigger contests, so you could start with $100, $50, and $20 Starbucks gift cards for your prizes.

Here’s another example below of travel blogger working with companies and using the promotional products as a prize!

All these products were given to the blogger for FREE. The prize does not have to be super professional by any means!

As long as the prize offers value to your audience and is something they can get excited about, you will have a winner.

Step 3: Building the Contest

So full disclosure, I run a platform for contests, which means I’m clearly biased here. But in my experience, using a tool to create and manage your contest is much easier than building it yourself. Building it yourself requires a lot of manual labor and resources. You would also have to create formulas in Excel to pick winners and send a ton of manual emails, and ain’t nobody got time for that!

Of course, the other option is to just participate in someone else’s contest as a prize contributor and get them to do all the work instead. 😉 That’s not a bad route, since it still lands you some solid exposure.

But if you do go with the option of creating and managing your contest with a tool, you will want to make sure that the software has the following traits:

A good referral system – so people can refer your contest to others
Incentivization features – one of the most important features to make a contest go viral (we will touch on this later)
Easy to use
Cheater protection
High-converting templates and elements built in
A leaderboard feature

Note that we won’t go over the exact contest setup process in this article, because that will depend on which tool you use. Each tool will include setup instructions and tutorials. In this article, we will focus on the elements of an effective competition and how to get more people excited about it.

Create a Catchy Heading (Get People to Click)

This is one of the most important things about your contest. Really give it some thought.

The example from Foundr’s contest was “Win This Ecommerce Mega Bundle” and had a subheading of “Win everything you need to start and scale your online store! Including Training, 1-on-1 Mentorship, an Ecommerce Store, Your Branding Done For You, Our Latest Step-By-Step Training Course…and More!”

These are super strong titles because it’s clear who the contest is for, and they clearly explain the benefit of entering. One thing they could have also added was the value of all the prizes, e.g. “Win This Ecommerce Mega Bundle (Valued at $45,798).”

A few other title examples for other industries would be:

– Ecommerce clothing: Win a New Wardrobe Valued at Over $10k
– Ecommerce products: Win the Ultimate Yoga Gear Package!
– Gaming: The Gamer’s Paradise Giveaway (Exclusive Access)
– Subscriptions: Win 12 Months of FREE xxxx
– Speaker/Blogger: Win Mentoring & Training From xxxxx (Valued $20K+)
– Courses: Top 5 Winners Get Our New xxxxx Course For FREE (Usually $1,300)
– Artists: Win a Signed Copy of XXX & VIP Concert Tickets
– Travel: Win a Trip to Prague!
– Software: Get a Lifetime Membership to VYPER
– B2B: WIN $837 Worth of the Most EPIC Business Books

Create Compelling Images to Showcase Your Contest

Since you want your images to be shared a lot, design something eye catching. If you don’t know Photoshop, try user-friendly tools for amateurs like Design Bold or Canva.

Include the highest-value prize in the image and/or add a badge with the value of the prize. You also want to use your catchy headline as text overlay to get people to click through to your contest. Make your offer on the image as enticing as possible (increase your perceived value).

Here’s an example with a catchy headline, dollar value, and a visual of what they can win:

NOTE: If you are running ads on Facebook (more on this later), include the title but keep the text to under 20% of the image. Also, wherever you are running ads, you want the ad to stand out, so make the colors different from the platform. So if you are running an ad on Facebook for your contest, stay away from a blue/white color pattern. Use orange, red, yellow, purple, etc. to pop out!

You can also show off brands that are contributing to your contest to build authority.

Here are a few more contest images. Review them for inspiration and notice how they compel you to click.

Terms and Conditions

This is a very important part of your contest that protects you and your entrants from any complications.

Take a look at this download that highlights the terms and conditions in the United States for running giveaways and contests (Europe and other countries may be a little stricter).

Some software programs can auto generate these terms and conditions for you, just add any extra irregular terms you might need covered.

Showcase Your Prizes (Images and Descriptions)

If you’re running an ecommerce store, you already need decent product shots, and the beautiful thing about digital is the ease of repurposing. So take those product shots and use them in your contest (for the contest page and prize images). And it’s even better If you have some lifestyle shots (photo of people using your product or placed in a real-life situation).

HACK: If your product has a feature that can be shown, create a gif to show off the functionality:

These images don’t need to be uber professional. The key here is to show an exact representation of what the winner will receive as a prize.

If you are giving away something digital, it gets a little tricker because the prize isn’t tangible. Find a way to graphically represent what you are giving away.

Foundr used this image for its recent giveaway:

How would you showcase a prize that includes something like a night out on the town? Here is one way:

As long as you can visually illustrate your prize, the entrant will feel they are getting something rewarding.

Confirmation Emails

You will also need a confirmation email that people will receive when they enter your contest. These are great opportunities to upsell people on special offers, present discount codes, etc.

This is an excellent opportunity to add some extra value. Not only will this email confirm the entry, but it will also provide their unique sharing URL and introduce your brand. Plus, it can be a little bonus-delivery vessel.

These are a few things that we’ve seen people include in their confirmation emails that were just brilliant:

Coupon code (20% OFF)
$10 gift card (using an actual image of a gift card from their brand). This has a higher perceived value, but is still essentially just a code they enter at checkout to claim the discount.
Free training course (links to a private course or YouTube playlist)
Free educational download (PDF, white paper, etc.)
Free templates (e.g., a WordPress theme or plugin, a design PSD pack, a planning worksheet)

All of these things increase the value of your confirmation email and get people engaged with your brand and contest.

Use the Full Power of Incentivization

Some software will offer the option to add in additional actions for people to take to score more entries. This is the main part of your leaderboard contest, because the more entries participants make, the higher up they will rank in the leaderboard.

This is also important, as it allows you to leverage your contest for more than just emails. Collecting an email address is always good, but collecting an email + follower + review + app download + podcast review is even better (see more examples below)!

The way you get people to do all these things is by rewarding them with entries in your contest. If they want to win the prize you’re offering, they’ll want to collect more entries by doing all these things.

For example, a participant could get an additional 50 entries to the contest for watching a YouTube video (this increases the views on your video and makes it more authoritative/popular).

In VYPER, these are called “bonus entries,” which allow you to create an action for pretty much anything on the internet. See example below.

Make sure that whatever software contest platform you use, it has an incentivization feature.

These are extremely powerful as you can incentivize things that would normally only occur organically and over a long period of time.

Some of the most popular custom entries that you can use:

Join our Facebook messenger list
Read a blog post and leave a comment about what you learned
Subscribe to our podcast
Share our Kickstarter project video
Like, share, and comment on a Facebook post (build your social engagement)
Watch, thumbs up, and leave a comment on this YouTube video
Complete this short quiz (could be a Google form or Typeform you use to collect information about your target market)
Follow on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Spotify…

The list goes on and on, so you can see why this feature is so powerful!

Test Your Contest

Make sure you send your contest to a few friends, loyal customers, or mentors to get their feedback before launching. A second opinion never hurts and usually helps you pick up some things that you may have missed.

Enter your email in your own contest, make sure the confirmation emails send, that the pages look good, and all your coupon codes work (if you are offering them).

BONUS: Marketing Resources

We will go into detail on how to market your contest in the next section, especially how to use Facebook, as this is one of the best channels to choose when getting started.

Here is a free download to a fantastic guide on how an agency created and marketed an extremely successful contest for the launch of their clients eCommerce store. Here is also a case study on Foundr’s contest.

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How to Market a Contest to Get Results

This is the make or break of your contest. Think of it like owning a restaurant; you could have the most amazing restaurant, but if you don’t tell anyone about it, no one is going to show up.

There are two ways to market a contest. We will list off a few options, but only go into detail on how to use Facebook ads, as this has the highest success rate and is the most scalable strategy.

Paid Marketing Strategies – much faster but cost money

Facebook ads (good for pretty much all industries)
Pinterest ads (good for fashion and décor-focused businesses)
Twitter ads (good for tech, business, news, music, and event-focused businesses)
Paying to be featured in someone else’s email list
Paying influencers to post your contest (good for most, but really depends on the influencer). Some tips for making this work:
- Look for 10-50k followers
- Engagement rate over 5%
- 80% of their posts are directly related to your industry
- Try and offer free product before offering to pay them

Organic Marketing Strategies – much harder and more time consuming but FREE

Sending an email to your existing list (if you have one)
Adding your contest to your website
Posting your contest on all your social channels every 2 or 3 days while running it
Partnering up with another brand and getting them to share it
Posting in Facebook groups (or other forums)
Submitting your contest to directories
Putting your contest on StumbleUpon
Working with free influencers to share your contest (usually friends)
Sending personal messages to your followers (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
Going on podcasts and mentioning your contest

So when should you used paid and when should you use free marketing?

This all depends on the results you want. If you are happy to run multiple contests and build an audience over time, you can go the organic option. Just know you will have to do a lot more legwork to get traction. So if time is on your side and you want to save some money, organic is a good option.

If you want fast and scalable results and have a bit of cash in the bank to burn (we recommend at least $200 to get a contest started), it is better to go with paid acquisition. Instead of hustling for every click, you can work on other areas of your business or contest (like building out the follow-up email drip).

Using Facebook Ads to Market Your Contest and Build an Audience

Now we’re going to dive deep into Facebook/Instagram, as this is by far the best option for driving targeted audiences to your contest. This can drive leads for as low as $0.20 per email and is extremely scalable.

To get similar results, you’ll want to follow some of these instructions. I’ve also created a video that will walk you through how to set up your contest on Facebook. Below the video, I outlined the steps in bullet form.

Using Facebook Ads to Promote Your Contest

Watch this video on YouTube

Steps for marketing contests with Facebook ads:

Create a Facebook Business Account here.
Add a Facebook page
Add an ad account
Link your Instagram
Add your billing information (set an account spend limit if you wish)
Make sure you add your Facebook pixel to your contest (more detail in the video)
Understand the structure of the account
1. Campaigns (choose conversions or traffic campaign, set spend limits)
2. Ad sets (choose budget, run time, targeting, placement and bidding)
3. Ads (choose your ad type and create your ads with title, text, image, or videos)
Custom Facebook audiences to exclude
1. Converted leads audience (exclude from all campaigns – you do not want to show people ads to sign up to your contest if they have already signed up)
2. Website visitor audience (exclude from all prospecting campaigns – you do not want your prospecting and remarketing audiences overlapping)
How to optimize your contest campaign
What good metrics look like

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Build Your Audience

Whether you’re building your seed audience or you just want to grow your current one, contests and giveaways are a great marketing tool. Get out there, launch a contest and start raking in those leads, customers, social followers, and custom actions. 🙂

Hopefully, at this point, you have a few ideas on what type of contest you could run with your business, or even what you might be able to give away to attract your ideal audience. You should also have a huge list of ideas on how to market the contest and the exact steps to start with Facebook ads.

A Bonus Giveaway For You!

Want to run a contest? Comment below with with your business URL and I will reply with an idea for a contest and what you could give away as a prize to help you get started.