Aside from having a really good brief, it is vital that you engage with your contest for the best outcome.
Engaging regularly and consistently will encourage more submissions throughout the contest. The best part is that the more you engage and guide the creatives, the better the submissions get (and, typically, the more fun everyone has throughout the process)!
We highly recommend logging into your contest once or twice a day to follow these best practices to ensure that you get the best results from your contest.
Instant Feedback Ratings
Rating entries is the quickest and simplest way to communicate with creatives. Rating helps steer the engagement in the contest.
Read more about instant feedback ratings here.
Private messages
Private messages are a one-on-one communication between you and the creative. This sends a message directly to the creative, and it is only visible to you and the creative you sent the message to.
Read more about private messaging best practices here.
Public messages
Public messages are messages that go out to all of the creatives that are participating in your contest. You can write a public message by going to the “messages” tab on your contest dashboard.
We recommend writing public messages daily to communicate with your creative community. This leads to better collaborative efforts and clear communication, which will ultimately yield the best results.
Read more about public message best practices here.
Domain Registrations
In the case of Naming contests, our policy requires that you compensate the creatives if you register any domain names (URL) based upon the contest entries. All reported domain name registrations appear in your contest stats. Many creatives stop participating in contests with reported domain registrations because they are concerned about their Intellectual Property. Therefore, you should not register any names while your contest is active. If you register any names, make sure that the creative receives compensation either by selecting their name as a winner or by sending them a bonus.
Other tips
Here are a few more tips for getting the best results from your contest:
Guaranteeing your contest is a great way to encourage more participation from a wider variety of creatives. Guaranteed contests usually have 40% more creatives participating because they are assured that someone will receive the award amount.
Reach out. Another great way to encourage submissions as your contest winds down (about 24 to 48 hours before it closes) is by reaching out to your favorite creatives and encouraging them to keep submitting. A message like this works great:
Hey there, mrasparagus92, this is one of my favorite entries so far because it really captures the sense of freedom my product provides, but in an intriguing way. Can you please submit more ideas like this? You’re doing great!
Conclusion
Our platform makes collaboration with a large number of creative people over a short period of time fast and easy. Collaboration is the best way to get the absolute most out of your project. These tips will really help!
However, please keep in mind that more is not always better. Login once or twice a day and focus 90% of your effort on the top 10-20% of contest participants. Some creatives just won’t be able to get you what you’re looking for, and that’s OK--you can’t teach Picasso to paint like Rembrandt!
If you have any questions or need any further assistance, our customer support team is available to help you 24/7. Just click on the blue button in the right-hand corner of any page of our platform.
We wish you the best of luck with your brainstorming process, and we hope you can have as much fun with it as we do! Enjoy!
For more information, watch this brief video about increasing your contest engagement below: