There are many opportunities to promote your business by offering a prize. This could be by having a competition for your own business, or by donating a prize to one of your strategic alliance partners for their competitions.

If you have a business that sells products, it’s a lot easier because you can use something from your product range. If, however, you have a serviced based business, it can be harder. There are only so many free consultations or free time designing you can give away.

This weeks Friday Five will give you some ideas for prizes you can use if you run a service rather than a product based business.

1. Report – Have you written a report based on your topic of expertise? Depending on how much you sell it for, you could give away one of your reports. If it is an eBook and you are at an event or somewhere you need to send a physical product, print it out and have a copy bound that you can present to the winner.
2. Buy something – Do you have a book or favourite product that your customers would find useful? Then buy a copy and use that as a prize. If it is something you actively recommend to your clients, you may be able to do a deal with your supplier to purchase the item at a reduced rate.
3. Gift voucher – Do you have a favourite restaurant or service that you recommend? Purchase a gift voucher to use as a prize. Again, if this is a place you visit regularly or that you actively recommend, you may be able to get a discount on the voucher or the owner may throw in something a little extra with the voucher.
4. Strategic Alliance Partner – Do you have an awesome strategic alliance partner who may be interested in some publicity? If you are running a competition on your own site, one or more of your alliance partners may be interested in donating a prize for your competition.
5. Promotional products – You can get your logo printed on just about anything these days. If competitions and having prizes is something you are adding to your marketing strategy, one option for prizes is to get some items created with your logo on them. Depending on your business, it could be anything from mugs to diaries to t-shirts. These can then be used as prizes as well as giveaways to clients.

I hope this gives you some ideas for your service business. There are other ideas out there you could use, these are just a start. Whatever you do will depend on your business and the competition you are running or donating a prize to.

As with any marketing exercise, set yourself a goal and then test and measure your results.