I’m a big football fan – Manchester United only – and I watch Astro’s Sports channels every weekend for live football matches. During some of the games, there will be this “Vote your man of the match” contest sponsored by Nokia. You just need to SMS them your man-of-the-match and you will stand to win a brand new Nokia phone worth more than RM 1500 !!

Let’s see….

From the perspective of a normal person, it is quite a good deal since I only need to spend RM 1 or RM 2 to get something worth RM 1500 but whether I get it or not, its strictly based on luck. But well, it’s still not a very bad deal since a meal outside would already cost me at least RM 3 – RM 4 nowadays. RM 1 or Rm 2 don’t really mean a thing in our world anymore.

And from the perspective of the contest organizer, it’s a very good opportunity to earn big bucks. There will be thousands and thousands of viewers for those “big matches”, and say 20% of them are feeling lucky and decided to join this man-of-the-match contest. 20% out of ….maybe 100000 viewers = 20000 people, each would vote once = RM 20000. Look at the profit margin?

And they have this more than once a week – maybe 4 or 5 times.

No wonder there are so many SMS contests nowadays.

Anyway, this concept does not apply to SMS contests only. It’s applicable to any form of products or services. So when you want to sell something using such concept, remember a few points.

• Make the process as trouble-free as possible. Example, typing a SMS is simple but sending an entry form is not. And typing the name of a player is simple, but writing why you chose the player is not.
• Make it as cheap as possible. RM 1 SMS charge is not significant and people will not notice, as compared to RM 10 entry form or RM 5 SMS. Also, if your price is cheap, people will be willing to send/purchase more than 1 unit.
• Make your contest or product or whatever you’re selling, as well-known as possible. Spread the words because you’re relying on numbers here.
• Get some partners, preferably the reputable ones so that whatever you are planning to sell will appear more trustworthy.

One bad thing about this is that, there will be a lot of work unless you are doing something like the SMS contests which should be automated. If you’re selling some small items/products, the large amount of items will add up to the cost and all those inventory problems (if you can’t sell them off).

So my suggestion to you is, try finding something which is automated (save time) and preferably, won’t take up too much space (save cost).