How to Organise Successful International Contests?

By: Irene Byvalkevych
Date: Mar 25, 2019
Comment: 0
Category: Abstract Management, Awards Management

International contests make a significant contribution to the social and economic life of the region where they are organised. Understanding this, the local authorities strongly support international contest rules and contest activities, as they receive a considerable indirect profit from their conduct. These international contests are large-scale events involving a large number of people, attracting media attention, and more.

What is an international contest?

An international contest is a competition that aims to select the best from among its participants on an international level. International contests unite and gather participants from various countries and diverse areas and may be organised and conducted via an online contest management platform.

Reasons for running an international contest

International contests provide more prestige to participants and are a great tool for building your fan base. Whether you are starting with 100 or 100,000 likes on your social media pages, international contests offer a proven way to increase that number. Contests enable you to engage more audience from broader geographic areas, which is a rich source for new potential customers and sponsors. Running an international contest guarantees publicity and more commercial success for your business.

Types of contests

There are various types of international contests, nominations and contest rank lists that you can apply in organising your contests, including:

Open/closed contests
Team/individual contests
Online/onsite contests

To run online international contests of any type is possible with the help of reliable contest management solutions.

How to organise an international contest step-by-step

To create an international contest and achieve success with an international contest of any type, you must come up with good organisational ideas and use the following tips.

Before the contest

There are certain preparations to make before you even start!

Determine the goals, requirements

After you have an idea to organise an event dedicated to a particular subject, think about what results you expect from the planned event. This will determine exactly how the contest participants will present their skills. Perhaps it will be presentations with the definition of winners and the presentation of gifts or trophies or master classes, lectures, round tables or even a parade; think about how to match the goals and requirements.

Create rules, FAQs

Do not forget about judging criteria for international contests. Create rules and include them in your contest terms and conditions. Develop FAQs to make the cooperation of contestants and judges easier, clearer, and more fruitful.

Create a website

You should make an official site for your international challenge. This is the main method for going global and making your competition truly accessible to everyone around the globe. Additionally, your official event website is the most important starting point for the contestants, so the easier it is for them to reach it, the higher quality entries you will get.

Define a time to run a contest, contest duration

Contest duration is another vital aspect of contest organisation. When you publish official terms and conditions, you will also indicate it there. This is the core of your contest, so you should make it clear and tough; limit time carefully.

Define type of contest

To organise an international competition successfully, you must also indicate the contest type. Do not confuse your entrants. Include the contest type based on your event strategy (social media contest, open/closed contest, online, etc.).

Set a budget

After the preliminary preparations are done, you may move on to defining the budget and allocating it to the chosen contest type. Make sure you set your ticket pricing strategy wisely and be sure to account for other costs.

Define theme

You should also pick the theme for your international contest, a concept for your event, and play around to create designs, choose ticket types, come up with the nominations and criteria, etc.

Create judging criteria

To invite professional judges to your event, you should set the right judging criteria and fair judgment mechanics. Dive into the details. Be as careful as possible. The more subtleties you incorporate into your official judging standards, the smaller the odds you will get defective entries and unseemly issues.

Define prizes

Picking prizes or awards trophies is the most pleasant stage of organising events. You should come up with the best awards trophy ideas and branding.

Create a contest and prepare it for publishing

You should also widely publish your contest program and other details. Choosing the right audience is very important, but that’s only a segment of the big picture. The official terms and conditions of your international contest and the program should be published.

Promote the contest

You cannot organise an international contest without a good promotional campaign. Use social media to popularise the event. Twitter and Facebook can make your contest a lot more recognisable, so you need to consider using them.

During the contest

During the contest, it is highly recommended to continue promoting and track the results via top-notch event apps for mobile devices or RFID equipment.

After the contest

Organising a special event for the awards

After the contest, you have a chance to organise a cool after party or any other special event.

Choose the winner(s), reward winner(s)

Announce the winners, attach some pictures of important people, show the winners to the public and display the trophies they are given, etc.

Announce your next contest etc.

End a contest with an official press release or an announcement of future events.

International contest checklist

You should look up a useful contest checklist and get some tips on how to organise an international contest, which will teach you how to boost your contest so that it will be a huge success. Also, feel free to apply for some help and get more ideas from the Judgify contest management system.

Tips for contest organising

Here are some effective tips for international contest organising for the most curious event planners.

Create a strong mobile friendly website

Provide important information and tell the world what you’re offering through your contest via your website landing page and mobile version. Create eye candy! Don’t hesitate to hire professionals to get the job done or use our website builder.

Give your contest value

All of your contest participants should receive an incentive. This can be in any form you choose. The prize itself needs to be relevant and of value to your ideal customers, but you also need to convince users that it’s worth their time and effort.

Create a media kit

There are numerous incredible news gateways and sites on the web that will share data about your international contest, so be prepared for this. A media unit comprises pre-packaged special materials for the press and generally consolidates textual and graphical materials. You can make sure that the media will value your contest by using this tool wisely.

Use social media

In addition to our social media accounts, provide data on StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicios and Reddit. Use all of these websites to promote your event and reach audiences all over the globe.

Choose the right audience

Based on the focus of your contest, determine who can participate in it: organisations, individuals, or creative teams. You may have restrictions related to gender and age or the geography of the participants. After you send your invitations and get a positive response, take care of their travel, arrival, and resettlement arrangements.

Publish official terms and conditions

Also, never change the official terms and conditions once you distribute them. Your actions should be completely justified if you want your contest challenge to be effective. The minute you begin changing authority rules, you will lose your competitors’ trust.

Provide support

Now that you have provided information in the official terms and conditions, FAQs and media kit, you should also be available to provide quick info via your support channel.

Follow the official announcement date of the winners

Once you’ve released the final date of the winner announcement, stick to it. Don’t change your mind in the eleventh hour, as it will cost your audience trust and the contest reputation.

Conclusion

The Internet is an extraordinary place for making open contests, spreading quick messages, and reaching out to individuals from across the world. An international contest is the best way to popularise your events and the brand and works as a valuable tool for almost any event type organisation, so why not give a contest a try when arranging your next global event?