25 Father’s Day Contest Ideas Your Target Market Will Love

Father’s Day is right around the corner, and it’s an opportunity that many businesses shouldn’t miss.

If your target market is women or teenagers, a Father’s Day contest may be just the thing you need to boost summer sales.

This article will give a breakdown of a hypothetical campaign run by a company like yours. I’ll give you a walkthrough for setting it up, the essential parts of a contest like it, as well as 22 proven Father’s Day Contest ideas.

Want to run a Father’s Day contest? Get started by talking with a contest expert today!

A Father’s Day Contest Example

I quickly put together an example of a Father’s Day sweepstakes which could be run by a (totally made-up) outdoor equipment company.

Here’s the page I created using one of Wishpond’s contest templates in about 15 minutes:

Essential Elements of a Father’s Day Contest:

• A Background Image Which Resonates: This is a big part of creating a professional-looking page. And that’s hugely important. If your page doesn’t look like it’s part of a professional, modern business, nobody will trust you. Nobody will submit their contact information to win your prize.
• The Value of the Prize, Front and Center: The prize is the real reason people are giving you their information. It’s not because you’re awesome or they want you to have their email address. They want to win. So don’t be around the bush about what you’re giving away as a prize (or how much it’s worth).
• A Contrasting CTA Button: Don’t hide your page’s conversion goal in a small link or button that nobody can see.
• A Countdown Timer: Often people don’t need a reason to convert, they need a reason to convert now. Laziness is a powerful motivator for inaction. Give them a reason to convert now, with a countdown timer, and you’ll see a higher conversion rate on your Father’s Day contest page.
• A “More Information” Section: Some of your page visitors want to know exactly what they get to win, how to enter, and more. Be sure this information is somewhere on your page.
• No Nav Bar: In fact, don’t have any links on your contest page which might drive people away from conversion (except a link to your T&C, which you’re required to have). You’ll just drop conversion rates.
• Terms and Conditions: Even if you’re not running your Father’s Day contest on Facebook (which has its own contest rules and regulations), you still need to have them. This page has linked them below the “more information” section. Adding your T&C’s in another page of your website and then linking to it is definitely the way to go. You don’t want long, boring legalese filling up your page and overwhelming visitors.

There are a few more parts of this campaign…

Father’s Day Contest Idea #1: An Exit Popup

Why This is Important:

An exit popup gives you a last chance to convince people who aren’t sold by your page. It’s not going to determine the success or failure of your campaign, but you might get a few people who change their mind. And it takes about 5 seconds to build with the Wishpond contest app, so what’s the harm?

Father’s Day Contest Idea #2: Social Share Incentive Popup

Why This is Important:

These are super cool, and a newer strategy to drive the success of your Father’s Day contest. Essentially, you give your contest entrants a bonus entry if they take an action you want them to take, such as Liking your Facebook Page or Sharing your contest with their network.

They’re a super powerful tool, as well. Your prospective customers are far more responsive to seeing a recommendation from one of their friends or family than they are to an ad or social media post from your business. If you can get your contest entrants to share on your behalf, you create ambassadors who can make the difference between a successful campaign and a failure.

Father’s Day Contest Idea #3: An Ad Campaign

There’s no point in creating a beautiful Father’s Day contest page unless someone’s going to see it.

Contest promotion is easily 50% of the work which goes into a successful Father’s Day contest.

Step 1 is to send a newsletter mailout to your list, and encouraging them to share with their own networks to get bonus entries (after all, you already have their contact information).

Step 2 is to use social media posts to spread the word. Create multiple posts over the course of your campaign and then schedule them using a social media management tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.

Step 3 is advertising. But before you dive into it too deeply, you first need to do some math…

If you pay $1 per click on your ad, and convert 40% of the people who arrive on your page to enter your campaign (both numbers are about average), can you convert enough of those new contacts into sales to make the ads worthwhile?

Let’s say your average customer value is $50. You spend $200 on social media ads and get 80 new contacts. Your prize is valued at $500. Convert only five of them and you won’t make any money on the campaign. Convert 50% of them, however, and your promotion will turn $1300 profit.

But consider, that those 80 people may refer another 20 with the share incentives. And then your newsletter (free exposure) drives another 50 people, who refer another 15. Suddenly the ad spend is only a fraction of your total profit.

Here’s what an ad for this Father’s Day contest might look like on Facebook:

Here’s what an ad for this Father’s Day contest might look like on Instagram:

22 Father’s Day Contest Ideas

For more Father’s Day contest ideas, check out our article “101 Best Prize Ideas to Give Away in Online Contests & Competitions.”

Wrapping it Up

Hopefully this article has given you a better idea of how you can run a Father’s Day contest successfully.

If you need any more ideas of how get set up or want a hand with design, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comment section. I’d be happy to help advise!

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