Here are tips to help you sponsor a great contest with maximum publicity potential.

 Make your contest easy to enter. Let people enter at your web site.

 If you have a retail store, print ballots and post them near your cash register.

 Do a direct mailing to your regular customers, or announce a contest via e-mail and provide a link to your web site where people can enter.

 Write a news release announcing the contest and send it to your local newspapers.

 Get your morning drive-time disc jockey involved in a quick, one-shot contest. Donate prizes and suggest an idea for a contest that the DJ can conduct in one morning, or let the DJs come up with their own contest ideas. For example, callers might be invited to call in and describe the worst job they ever had. Be sure the DJ gives you credit for the prizes.

 Local businesses can include local celebrities to serve as judges. When you announce the winner, have the celebrity judges present the awards.
For more great tips to maximize contest publicity see Special Report #18, "Clever Contests That Will Tempt Reporters to Call"