Promoting your business through online competitions is a great way to:

• showcase your products and services
• provide direct links deep into your website - up to 2 links per competition
• promote your business through a great viral marketing tool as people share the news about the competitions in forums, blogs, groups and social network sites
• build your email newsletter customers with signups so you can further develop your relationship with potential customers

Use the image for the competition to promote the products and your website name. See the CreativelyBelle.com competition image as an example of using the space to tell the news about the competition - what is the prize and showing images of it - as well as the website address. So the image is working for you.

All competitions are featured repeatedly in the She Inspires email newsletter and social media marketing.

"I've decided to build up my email newsletter and ran an online competition last year with She Inspires. It's worked so well I'm back here again with another competition because it's the fastest, cheapest and quickest way I've found to ethically build my list.

"I recommend this to anyone wanting to increase their sales and customer base. Belinda's been great to promoting the competition and my business!" - Julie Stacey of TrollBeadsExpress.com.au

So what happens now? You want to run a competition online here with SheInspires.com.au and need to know what to do.

It's easy. To book your competition simply use our online ordering cart for the Competition Promotion.

Once your payment and materials are through we'll run, manage and host the competition for you. All you need to do is send out the prizes. It's that easy, we do all the work for you.

All we need from there:

0. your graphic for the ad that shows the prizes and your website address
0. 1 - 2 URL links that you want visitors to follow into your website
0. 1 - 3 paragraphs about the competition prizes
0. 3 - 6 keyword phrases you want included in the promotion
0. minimum of a $80 RRP prize value

 We'll do the rest, we'll set it up, run it, tell you who the winners are and their contact details and promote it on our website and in our email newsletter.

Here are 7 great reasons why online competitions are great for building your internet business:

0. building your customer list
0. gaining links from other sites that are vital for getting a good Google PR ranking
0. create buzz through viral marketing and people sharing the news
0. bring back repeat customers for those lovely sales
0. build and increase brand awareness that's important for building trust online
0. creating a conversation with your customers via your website, e-newsletter, blog and social networking sites
0. provides material for a press release that can be picked up by content driven sites

The image sizes to consider for the online competition are:

* 350 x 350 for showcasing the competition prizes on the page promoting the competition - probably an ideal size

* 125 x 125 for promoting the competition in the right or left navigation bars and needs to have less detail in it that the larger ones

* 500 x 500  for showcasing the competition prizes on the page promoting the competition

The images need to be set to 72 dpi so they are web ready and in the .gif or .jpg image file format.

Online competitions are great for growing your internet business so it's important to do them well:

* there must be winners - make it real and winners will help in the promotion of not just your competitions but also your website with links bringing more people to you, more traffic through viral marketing.

* keep to the competition rules for the state - we look after that for you to keep it easy.

* look after your customer list by respecting anti-spamming laws. Yes, this is purely logical, especially as your customer list takes a lot of time and effort to build up but people are worried about being entering competitions and suddenly getting a heap of spam in the emails. So take away this worry by running an ethical business.

* by regularly running competitions you can consistently grow your customer database list and achieve really good results over a 6 - 12 month period with relatively low unsubscriptions.

* tell your existing customers in your email newsletter about your competition, give them a direct link to it and invite them to tell their friends, colleagues and family about the competition.

* have a RRP Prize Value that is attractive as it will help get the word out there.

* send prizes off promptly with a congratulatory letter to the winners.

* publish the winners in your email newsletter and online so people know about the competition results and it let them know about upcoming competitions

* running competitions let you communicate with your customer list via your email newsletter - tell them that a competition is coming, when it starts. again when it is about to close and an update in another email newsletter to announce the winners with news about upcoming competitions. You don't want to hammer you precious newsletter list with excessive emails but you do need to have copy and news for your e-newsletters.

* use your blog and social network site profiles promote your competition - again with news of the competition coming, starting, closing soon and winners. This is a great way to get your viral marketing plan kicking into action.

* use your competition graphics here with SheInspires.com.au but also on your website, in your email newsletter, blog and social networking sites - make once, reuse multiple times. This is part of the reason why the 350 x 350 image is a good choice.

Competitions are a fantastic internet marketing tactic for bringing people right to you as well as getting the word out there about what you do.

Get a great shout out in our email newsletter with your competition too!