At Strutta, we love contests of all sizes, big or small. But when a company’s contest requires a bit more of a wow factor, we suggest a custom contest.

While custom promotions may take a bit more time to develop-as well as require a larger budget-they provide a huge advantage in terms of design, capabilities and reaching specific business goals.

We’ve built hundreds of custom contests, so we’ve put together a list from three of our clients to give you an idea of what is possible and provide inspiration for a future contest.

SCORE’s “What Makes Your Business Unique” Contest

The Background

SCORE is a nonprofit association that has been helping small businesses start and grow their business through education and mentorship for over fifty years and Sam’s Club is a large online store that stocks everything from food to electronics. The two have teamed up on a contest that will help small businesses grow their company.

SCORE has run the contest using Strutta for several years now, but for 2017 opted to go with a custom contest in-order to exert a greater degree of control over the design, and enjoy more options when it came to the functionality and information collected from participants.

The Contest and Prize

Three Grand Prize winners will take home a $25,000 cash courtesy of Sam’s Club in order to grow their small business. Additionally, Sam’s Club will award two businesses from each state and the District of Columbia a $1,000 Sam’s Club gift card. Winners will also be invited to attend a regional Championship Celebration, supported with a SCORE mentor and valuable business advice. Businesses that are already SCORE clients may win one of eleven SCORE awards and be invited to the SCORE Awards Gala in September. All entrants also receive a large amount of national publicity.

To enter, participants had to answer the question “What one aspect of your business will make you succeed over the next year?” through a 30-60 second video, or with a photo and write up of 1,500 words or less. To be eligible to win, entrants also needed to receive at least 100 votes by public voting and small business experts.

Follett “Dorm on Fleek” Sweepstakes

The Background

Follett is an educational products company with a large audience that occasionally runs promotions in partnership with other brands that promote relevant products and services to their audience. In this case, they teamed up with Pottery Barn and Awake Caffeinated Chocolate to launch a pretty sweet contest for students: The “Dorm on Fleek” contest.

Follett has run a series of Sweepstakes promotions in which Strutta custom development was used in-order to create an easy integration in-between Strutta’s API and Follett’s back-end information systems. The integration meant that participant information was directly populated within Follett’s backend upon entry.

The Contest and Prize

The “Dorm on Fleek” contest gives students a chance to outfit their dorm in style. The grand prize winner receives a $2500 makeover from Pottery Barn and chocolate bars along with other merchandise from Awake (perfect for keeping students awake during all night cram sessions)

In order to enter participants need to be at least 17 years of age and fill out a series of questions that will no doubt help Pottery Barn and Awake understand their young customers better.

Alcoholic Beverages Brand Photo Contest

The Background

This particular alcoholic beverages brand came to Strutta as they had been running this particular promotion to have the chance to win your picture on their bottle for some time, but were looking for more effective way to host the promotion and subsequently manage it.

The Contest and Prize

In order for a chance to see their picture on the label of a bottle of this alcoholic beverage, participants are encouraged to submit a photo of themselves participating in an activity related to the brand in question. In doing so, they include a short message related to the photo they have submitted.

This particular contest is a great example of how brand loyalty can be utilized in-order to run a contest in which no material prize is even required; the main prize/objective that participants are going after is simply to have their picture on the bottle.

If you think you’ve got a great contest idea but you’re not sure of how to get started, get in touch with us today and we can help you figure out all the details.