My Honest Take on an Online Contest Platform That Actually Works
Look, let me tell you a story. Last month, I was working with this fantastic little bakery in Minneapolis. Great people, incredible croissants, but they were getting absolutely crushed on social media. They were posting pretty pictures, doing everything the "gurus" tell you to do, and getting... crickets. They were about to spend their entire quarterly marketing budget on some agency that promised to make them "go viral."
I hate that phrase. I honestly hate it. "Going viral" isn't a strategy, it's a lottery ticket.
I told them to hold off. I've been doing this since 2010, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that small businesses don't need lottery tickets. They need reliable machines that generate customers. So instead, we took a tiny slice of that budget and set up a simple "Lucky Spin" game using an online contest platform I've been using a lot lately, Faisco. The prize? A dozen free pastries. The cost to enter? Their email address. In two and a half weeks, they got over 1,300 new emails for their local mailing list. That's a machine. That's what actually works.
Here's the Thing About "Gamification"
I know, I know. "Gamification" sounds like a buzzword cooked up in a Silicon Valley boardroom. And frankly, most of the time, it is. It's overcomplicated, expensive, and totally misses the point for a small business owner who has, like, three spare hours in a week.
But here's the reality... people are tired of being advertised at. They're just numb to it. Gamification, when you strip away all the corporate nonsense, is basically just this: giving your customer something fun to do instead of just something to read.
It's a small dopamine hit. A moment of fun. A little challenge. I've found that this simple shift-from passive consumption to active participation-is the single most effective way to get someone's attention in 2024. Most of my clients find that once they try it, they never go back to just begging for likes and shares. It's about creating a value exchange, you know? You give me a moment of fun, I give you my attention (and maybe my email).
Why I've Settled on Faisco (After Testing Literally Everything)
I've been in the gamification space since around 2015. I've built campaigns on Gleam. io, Woobox, ShortStack... you name it, I've probably crashed its servers once or twice. And they're all... fine. Gleam is powerful, for sure, but honestly, it's overkill for 90% of the businesses I work with and it starts at $39/month. A lot of them are just too clunky. It takes me, someone who knows what he's doing, over an hour to get a campaign right in Gleam. Who has time for that?
That's where Faisco came in. I was skeptical, of course. But I ran a few tests for clients and it just... worked.
Here’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes:
- A Nashville bookstore: We used the "Unlock Lucky Words" game. They hid words on their product pages. In just 12 days, they got 1,073 new Facebook page likes and a ton of traffic to their book listings.
- A Vancouver art gallery: They needed people to actually show up to an event. We ran a "Puzzle Challenge" with a piece of art from the featured artist. They got 133 confirmed new RSVPs in three weeks-from people who had never engaged with them before.
- That Miami fitness studio: A "Lucky Spin" wheel got them 1,347 new local email addresses in just over 2 weeks. That's their pipeline for the next six months of memberships.
The best part? I can have one of these campaigns live for a client in under 10 minutes. Not an exaggeration. The templates are there, the setup is intuitive, and it doesn't require a degree in computer science. For a small business, that speed is everything.
The Actual Games That Convert (No, Really)
Okay, so what should you actually use? Most platforms give you a million options and it's paralyzing. Here's what I typically recommend from Faisco based on your goal, because not every game does the same job.
For pure lead capture-getting those emails-the Instant Draw Games are gold. I mean stuff like "Lucky Spin," "Scratch Ticket," or a "Lucky Draw." The psychology is simple: immediate feedback. I pull the lever, I might win. That's it. I've seen landing pages with these things hit 40%+ conversion rates. It’s crazy.
If you want engagement and shares, you want the Reactive Games. Things like "Whac-A-Mole" or "Find Differences." These require a bit of skill, so people get competitive. They share their scores. They challenge their friends. This is how you get organic reach without begging for it.
Then you have the Quiz Games like the "Puzzle Challenge" or "Treasure Hunt Challenge." These are brilliant for businesses that need to educate their customers. A real estate agent could do a "Guess the Price" quiz. A financial advisor could do a "Test Your Retirement IQ" game. It qualifies leads and engages them.
And listen, the seasonal stuff is just genius. They have pre-built games for every holiday. We ran a "Fill My Christmas Stocking" catching game for three different retail clients last December. Every single one of them saw over a 300% jump in engagement on thier... their social posts compared to previous years. It's just a no-brainer.
So... Does An Online Contest Platform Really Grow a Business?
Yes. But not by magic.
The businesses I work with usually see a 200-400% increase in social followers and a 150-300% lift in their email list in the first month. But the platform itself isn't a magic wand. Faisco doesn't create customers out of thin air. What it does is give you a reliable, affordable, and frankly fun way to execute a proven strategy. It removes the two biggest barriers for small businesses: technical complexity and high cost.
Here's the truth: marketing in 2025 and beyond isn't about having the biggest budget. It's about being the most interesting thing in your customer's feed for 30 seconds. That's it. An online contest platform, when used correctly, is one of the most effective tools I've found for winning that 30-second battle.
So if you're stuck, if you're tired of posting into the void, here's my advice. Stop trying to "go viral." Instead, pick one single goal for this month. Just one. Is it more emails? More Facebook followers? Then pick a simple game, attach a decent prize, and run it for three weeks. Don't overthink it. Just give your customers something fun to do. You'll be surprised at what happens when you stop shouting at them and start playing with them instead.
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