Here’s a great opportunity for businesses that have grown wildly over the last few years: Inc. Magazine wants your story.  Winners of the Inc. 500|5000 will be featured in future Inc. print and online stories- a great way to gain publicity and recognition for your efforts in growing your company.

“Potential investors pay close attention to the Inc. 500|5000 list, and we received much investor interest over the past several years,” says Doug Fowler, CEO of SpectorSoft, a company named to the list several times four times since 2004.  Adds David Mammano, CEO of Next Step Publishing, named to the list in 2007: “Inc. has done a great job with the Inc. 5000 brand by making it a well-known, credible award known locally and around the world. It’s a nice universal stamp of approval.”

The award not only increases visibility for your business, it can also help feature your local community as a hotspot for growth.  Here are a few benefits winners of past awards have cited:

• Recognition: Company awards let employees know that their hard work matters

• Publicity: Along with the magazine feature, your business will be searchable on the Inc. 5000 database, and you’ll be eligible to attend the 2009 winner’s conference.  The Inc. award is recognized by customers, investors, and other businesses as one of the most prestigious for growing companies.

• Reputation: Many companies cited the boost in applications after winning the award.  National recognition allows you to attract and retain top talent.

• Community Visibility: Inc. also highlights winning companies by industry and geographic area.  Winning the award can be a great way to highlight your achievements in your own neighborhood.

• Inspiration: Women-owned and community-based companies are highlighted, allowing your business to serve as an inspiration to other entrepreneurs.

The mission of the 500|5000 contest is to reward those companies that are helping to jump-start the economy with rapid growth.  Applicants must have begun operations prior to 2005, and have sales revenue of over $2 million for 2008.  The contest deadline is approaching fast on May 22nd so visit the application page here for more details and specific qualifications.

If you are still starting out and don’t qualify yet for this contest, start now and grow your business with online marketing experts.

Contests are genius and typically can create hysteria if done right. If you are looking for a way to get your business out there, this is it. Create a contest and give away money. Especially now.

Just type in ‘contest’ in Twitter and you’ll see thousands of people promoting some sort of contest. Contests are ideal for companies trying to brand, sell, or engage people. They give businesses a platform for developing a voice and spreading a message.  The key is to make the contest voteable so participants share with friends and friends of friends gaining even more traction to your site. With online marketing sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon, contests can go viral in a matter of minutes.

Before you run off and create one though, make sure you do it right in order to generate the publicity and buzz your business is looking for. For one, the ‘prize’ needs to be significant enough for anyone to care. Don’t even think about creating a contest to give away a book or you’ll be known for the hellacious contest creator. No one wants a free book – they want money.

Here’s a short list of killer contest conductors. Follow their lead if you want to do it right.

• StartUp Nation. Between the Home-based 100 and the recently launched Leading Moms in Business in partnership with LadiesWhoLaunch, StartUp Nation doles out the correct amount of genius to make contests a success. The Home-based 100 contest drove thousands of participants and 249,000 votes were cast in support of contestants. Why? Because people tweeted, blogged, digged, widgeted, podcast’d, emailed, flickr’d. StartUp Nation finds a trend, targets the people following the trend and offers a big reward. Those Sloan brothers are whiz kids.

• Ideablob. Lets members post brilliant schemes for starting up a business and the community votes each month. Winners receive $10,000 grant and can turn the business in to reality.

• Zumanity. Recently announced a contest to create the next Zumanity game. The money here is small, but the real prize is significant for those people entering the contest: travel and accommodation plus VIP tickets to the show and backstage passes.

• A band called Making April created a contest with Brickfish where entrants had to design a T-shirt and in return the band would write a song for the winner.  Results? Additional 100,000 hits to page in two weeks, winner got a shirt, a personal call from the band and song written.