UPICKEM Promotion Center | Share. Brainstorm. Profit.

We recently hosted one of our partner’s favorite webinars (okay, it’s one of our favorites, too) – 30 Contest Ideas in 30 Minutes. During this webinar, Julie Foley, our Director of Affiliate Success & Matt Coen, our President, reveals the top 30 contest categories run on UPICKEM in the past year. Each category comes complete with several examples for you to get your contest-building creative juices flowing to help build out your year-long contest calendar.

If you weren’t able to attend the live session, watch a recording in our resource center.

Be sure to check out all the contests mentioned in our webinar.

Prince William and his bride-to-be are mere weeks away from tying the royal knot. The date was even declared a national holiday in the UK!
What are you doing to capitalize on the excitement? This is a great opportunity to get creative and line-up an advertiser related to weddings or romance. Tie in the royal wedding to your promotion to create more buzz!
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1. Wedding Giveaway: A complete wedding giveaway is becoming one of the hottest contests to run on the UPICKEM platform. Here are a few of our affiliates who’ve done it, including our 2010 contest of the year.
- Newsday‘s Wonderful Wedding Giveaway
- The Orange County Register‘s Wedding Contest (contest of 2010)
2. Run a sweepstakes or a submit an engagement photo to win a part of a wedding: reception hall, cake, photographer, etc.
3. Submit a photo of your wedding to win a weekend getaway.

Newsday (Suffolk, NY) hosts this wedding contest (quickly becoming very popular on the UPICKEM platform) that was a huge hit with readers.

– Total Revenue: $31,000
– Prize Value: $26,000 wedding package, including venue, entertainment, photographer, floral design, videographer
– Winner was chosen by title sponsor because of their touching story (Their story wasn’t about deserving it more than anyone else, but about how they got through hardships together and they are best friends and look forward to a long life together or friendship and love.)

“The success of this contest was great considering we were catering to an extremely niche audience. This is not only a contest for engaged couples to win a wedding, but the wedding had to be in March of 2011 which is a challenge in itself to plan everything that quickly!”
– Joe Marmer, Interactive Product Manager

Here comes the bride…The Orange County Register (Irvine, CA) hosts this spectacular giveaway to award one betrothed couple the chance to tie the knot at the wedding of their dreams. The prize package (valued at over $150,00!) includes fantastic prizes from an array of sponsors that covers the pre-wedding perks (tanning, gym membership, invitations), the wedding day festivities (limo, dress, hair/makeup, wedding coordinator, venue, photography) and post-wedding perks (all-inclusive honeymoon). Aside from the incredible prizes, this contest boasts beautiful branding (look at that welcome page!) and excellent incorporation of sponsors (love the scrolling bar).

KTLA-TV (Los Angeles, CA) supports small businesses with this essay contest – sponsored by Ford and KTLA. Each small business owner submits their reasons they could benefit from a Ford Transit Connect – winner receives a brand-new one. What a clever contest!

May the best couple win – a $100,000 wedding giveaway, that is! WPIX (New York City, NY) hosts this extraordinary wedding giveaway for its viewers. The lucky couple wins arrangements for a full wedding (dress, tux, cake, rings, etc) from the following sponsors: Scotto Brothers, Pronovias, Perfect Wedding Planner, JCPenny, The Chateau, Almond Resorts, Sleepy’s and more! The look and layout of this contest is phenomenal – great job!