Top WordPress contest entry plug-ins
Looking for a way to raise awareness about your business or drive more traffic to your site? Visit Carlsbad, the destination marketing organization for the city of Carlsbad, CA, hoped to accomplish both of those objectives when it launched a video contest around the phrase “Carlsbad is where…”
And the strategy worked: As a result of the contest, site traffic increased by 13 percent, social-media–driven site traffic went up by 240 percent, and its email open rates rose to 18 percent — besting the travel and tourism brand average by 3.5 percent.
If you’re considering running a contest and your business site is built on WordPress, you’re in the right place! WordPress has a number of contest entry plug-ins that can help you execute and manage an online competition seamlessly. We’ve rounded up a number of them you can use below. But first, let’s identify the reasons contests are so beneficial and well worth your time and effort.
5 ways contests help your business grow
Stories like the one above aren’t uncommon. Contests can generate a lot of excitement — as well as some healthy competition. When that excitement is associated with your business, it can produce a number of benefits, including
- Increasing your brand awareness: Word about the contest is likely to spread beyond your usual fan base, reaching many people who may not have previously known about your business.
- Increasing site traffic: Those who are hearing about you for the first time are likely to visit your website and learn more about your products and services.
- Increasing audience engagement: Contests prompt both potential and existing customers to share contest news and submit an entry. This type of positive interaction is good for business.
- Increasing your data collection: The information you collect about your new site visitors and contest entrants will provide invaluable insights about your audience that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
- Growing your email list. By requiring entrants to submit their email address to enter the contest, you can include them in other company communications designed to turn them into leads.
There’s no doubt that the right contest can give your business an added boost. Just keep in mind that it’s not wise to run a contest simply because you can. To make it a success, you need to identify a clear goal, design a contest that will help you achieve it, and stay true to your company’s brand and messaging.
Lastly, you need to actively manage and monitor a running contest. All the following WordPress contest entry plug-ins will help you do that, so let’s dig in.
6 WordPress contest entry plug-ins to choose from
1. Jotform
Build contest forms — and any other type of form your site needs — quickly and easily with the Jotform Online Forms plug-in for WordPress. It offers more than 100 contest entry and registration templates to start from (or you can create your own from scratch), all of which are simple to customize with a drag-and-drop builder tool.
Jotform integrates with most popular marketing tools, payment gateways, and cloud storage providers, which simplifies contest entry payments, mailing lists, and more. You can also track contest entries in real time using Jotform Tables, a tool that makes sorting, organizing, and managing contest-related data easier.
Pros:
- It prioritizes data security.
- It has an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop customization tool.
- It can handle all your site’s form needs, so you won’t need multiple plug-ins.
Cons:
- It isn’t a dedicated contest management tool.
Pricing: You can use Jotform for free with its Starter plan. Jotform also offers four paid plans if you find you need more forms or higher limits on submissions than is offered with the free plan. Plans start at $34 per month. You can choose between monthly or annual payment options.
2. Contest Gallery
If your contest involves photo submissions, Contest Gallery is a good choice. It makes submitting photos easy for contest entrants and accepts a wide variety of file types. It supports engagement with attractive photo display galleries and a simple star rating system. Website visitors can even search for photos using its handy search tool.
Contest Gallery also makes administering your contest easier, allowing you to create customizable upload forms, search gallery files, send emails automatically to entrants, and more.
Pros:
- It provides excellent customer support.
- It includes a vast array of features.
- It’s easy to use.
Cons:
- The free version is limited.
- The number of features can make the learning curve a bit steep.
Pricing: Contest Gallery offers a free version, as well as paid tiers of $59.99 for one year per website and $99.99 for two years per website.
3. RafflePress
RafflePress’s giveaway solution aims to make contest creation quick and easy for WordPress site owners, who can use it to create contests in just minutes. It also offers features that help drive engagement, such as refer-a-friend functionality, social media and marketing software integrations, giveaway landing pages, and more.
Pros:
- It allows you to track engagement inside WordPress.
- You can limit fraud with email verification.
Cons:
- Customizations are difficult to make.
- Basic functions (like submitting images) require at least the “Pro” version.
Pricing: RafflePress offers a free version as well as four paid tiers, which range in price from $79 annually for the Plus version to a one-time fee of $999 for the Ultimate version.
4. Contests by Rewards Fuel
Rewards Fuel’s WordPress contest entry plug-in lets you offer participants 35 different entry methods. You can combine as many of them into your contest as you like.
You can produce attractive-looking contest pages with its easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor and get real-time information about your contest through Google Analytics. It also supports video contests and includes basic automation features that help manage start/end dates, notifications, and winners.
Pros:
- Rewards Fuel offers custom contest builds if your needs are outside of what the tool currently offers.
- Users say it has great customer support.
- Users say it provides good value for the money.
Cons:
- Some customers have said it’s difficult to distinguish between the free and paid features, which leads to a lot of trial and error.
Pricing: Rewards Fuel offers one free plan and three paid plans that range in price from $11.63 per month (for 15 entry methods) to a fully loaded version for $24.96 per month.
5. Simple Giveaways
Simple Giveaways is part of a larger WordPress ecosystem of tools by AutomatorWP that helps you create automated workflows to promote business growth. For instance, you can give contest entrants reward points for participating or add them to an email list automatically.
Simple Giveaways handles everything related to website contests, from creating the contest template to providing a landing page to sending automatic entrant emails and more.
Pros:
- Users report getting excellent customer support.
- It offers a relatively full-featured free version.
Cons:
- Some users have noted that the documentation isn’t as complete as they’d like it to be.
Pricing: There’s a free version as well as a Premium version ($49.99 yearly) and a Business version ($69.99 yearly).
6. WP Contest Creator
After many years and thousands of customization requests for its initial plug-in offering, the team behind WP Contest Creator eventually came to the conclusion that no standard plug-in product is capable of meeting everyone’s needs. That’s why WP Contest Creator isn’t a product but a service — it produces WordPress contest entry plug-ins tailored to individual customers’ requirements.
Essentially, you tell them all the features you want, and their team will prepare a project draft along with a quote for your review.
Pros:
- You get exactly the contest plug-in you want.
- You own your plug-in and can update it whenever you want, with no fees involved.
Cons:
- Creating a plug-in typically takes anywhere from three to five weeks.
- The initial cost is higher than that of a prebuilt plug-in.
Pricing: Contact WP Contest Creator for a custom quote.
A final tip
The analysis that takes place after a contest is equally as important as managing the content itself. You’ll only know whether you achieved your goal if you monitor incoming contest data and track conversion rates (or traffic) following the contest. That’s part of why choosing the right tool is so important to the success of your next contest campaign.
Sign up for Jotform to get access to our analysis tool, Jotform Tables, as well as the Jotform Online Forms plug-in for free.
Photo by Burst
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