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41 Comments to “2007 Wrap Up Contest”

• Tanta
  November 22, 2007 8:51 pm

  I would sponsor an internet contest, exactly as you are now doing, then offer all entrants, via email, a sign-up special involving first and last month FREE on a one-year hosting contract. I would also offer entrants an additional free month for each referral who enters into a hosting contract of any length. The specific incentive offered is less important than the breadth of your broadcast, and an internet contest on multiple popular sites will net you the most traffic.

• Gary Martin
  November 22, 2007 9:30 pm

  whooo hooo! this thing rocks!

• Kayce
  November 22, 2007 10:35 pm

  The first thing you should do is write a privacy policy.

• blogadmin
  November 22, 2007 10:37 pm

  We have one on our main site here…

  https://www.bluefur.com/support2/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=334&nav=0,1

  But your right we should add it to the blog.

• Win A 22” Flat Screen Monitor | the Link Bait
  November 23, 2007 12:35 am

  [...] to Enter: You can enter by posting your idea in a comment here Prize: 22″ Monitor DeadLine Date: November 30 2007 Applicable to people from Countries: All [...]

• NSpeaks
  November 23, 2007 12:41 am

  Order a review on JohnChow.com – I am sure only a single review of his is enough to send you around 200 customers.

• Karen Mead
  November 23, 2007 3:58 am

  I would have my entire family wear signs and stand near major roadways with contact info.

• Deborah Rosen
  November 23, 2007 9:18 am

  The best advertising is word-of-mouth, so I’d set up a contest open only to current customers. If the customer refers a friend who signs up before December 31, the current and new customer are awarded a single entry into the contest. The prize would be $100 for each of them. Referrals would be unlimited, but only those that result in new customers would be entered.

  I’d announce the contest via e-mail to current customers, and have the entries compiled via whatever application you use to sign up new customers (ie: were you referred by one of our customers? To enter our contest, please provide the name of the person who referred you).

  Good luck reaching your goal.

• veronica
  November 23, 2007 10:28 am

  I would run a sweeps like you are doing. Also ask them to link back to you. Another trick would be to offer something free. Anything to get people to see your site.

• julie
  November 23, 2007 1:40 pm

  I would also set up a referral-based entry system and offer a cash prize or a hot electronic item as the incentive in a lottery-style gift with purchase.
  For example, customers who sign up for at least 3 months are entered into the the drawing. Additional accounts earn an additional entry and referrals of one or more new qualifying customers earns you a bonus entry. There could be one $200 cash prize or you could have a $100 grand prize and several smaller cash awards. The rules, restrictions, prizes and incentives are up to you, of course. This was just an example.

• Rosa Bartolucci
  November 23, 2007 6:09 pm

  Hi, my old school idea is to make up flyers and put the phone number / contact information on a tab at the bottom and sides of the flyer so the reader can rip it off and take it with them.

  This tab should have contact information to direct the customer to where you want them to go.

  Now this will require a bit of leg work on your part by posting these flyers at your local shops and stores. Now the stores you choose will be based on the market you are interested in.

  Once these potential customers have made the initial contact then you use your sales skills to keep them. My husband business customers are all word of mouth and is continuing to grow.

  Your flyer should promote your amazing service with an amazing price and once they sign up, keep things real with true communications and explanations for all services and costs.

• Craig
  November 23, 2007 6:32 pm

  Go to the nearest college wth a Marketing Program. Explain your goal of 200 new customers in 31 days.Propose that you donate 1/2 of the annual fee for each new customer signed up by one of their students to the University. Use the $200 to reward the individual with the most new paying customers. Good Luck!

• Win a 22" Flat Screen Monitor - Shaaa-weet! | Blog Contest Site - Where Every Blogger is a Winner!
  November 23, 2007 6:49 pm

  [...] Where: Submit your idea in a comment at the following link: http://blog.bluefur.com/2007/11/22/2007-wrap-up-contest/ [...]

• Win A 22 inch Flat Screen Monitor | My Blog Contest
  November 23, 2007 7:36 pm

  [...] name and URL: 2007 Wrap Up Contest Deadline:November 30, 2007 Prize: 22″ Monitor How to enter: Submit your idea here How to win: [...]

• BT
  November 23, 2007 7:46 pm

  Offer lifetime web hosting to the first 200 sign-ups for a reasonable fee. Lifetime subscriptions are great for both the company and the customer as it means the latter need not worry about monthly fees any more while the former will gain a lot of new customers in a short period of time and get full fees upfront. Us the $200 to cover any expenses in doing this and while this may seem disadvantageous to the company in the long run, in fact, how many customers will actually use it for a lifetime? And how many will be contented with the same hosting limitations? Thus, the company can have upgrading packages for a small fee. This also builds buzz and may attract more people so all in all, the company benefits and more importantly, customers are happy! You kill two birds with one stone!

• Matt
  November 23, 2007 9:19 pm

  How about something like this:

  Starting December 1st, for the first 200 people who sign-up for either the Mini Unix or Basic Unix hosting plans on either a 1 or 2 year payment, will get the next plan up (Mini gets Basic, Basic gets Starter) for free for the duration of their payment.

  As for advertising, I have no idea. :P Buy some cheap ad spots, and persuade loyal customers and active Blog commenters to write a post by offering a month a free hosting ( ;) ). :P

• Dr. Cossack
  November 23, 2007 9:51 pm

  A simple idea: write a post on your blog saying that you have some milestone to reach, and that you’re aiming to complete your goals before the end of the year. You might want to try including a contest in order to motivate people.

  (Read here: do exactly what you just did. :D The simple reposts about this mini-contest might just be enough for you to reach that extra 200 customers!)

• Jennifer B
  November 25, 2007 10:49 am

  I would create a really cool video and post it on Youtube.com If it’s really cool, people will forward it to all their friends and will be able to send it in emails and would circultat to lots of people

• 200 New Customers for 200? - Blog Contests, Link Contests, Any Contests
  November 25, 2007 12:23 pm

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• Contest Beat
  November 25, 2007 12:52 pm

  Hi there

  I blogged about your contest here – http://www.contestbeat.com/200-new-customers-for-200/

  All we do is write about contests in the blogosphere so hopefully we can send you a few more entries too!

  Regards, Matt.

• Tracy
  November 25, 2007 9:47 pm

  Pick me to win the monitor, If I win, way more than 200 will know about it, and visit the site just to see my name on the winner page. Once I get them there, it’s up to you to dazzle them! ;-)

• Swift
  November 26, 2007 2:37 am

  Give free accounts that lasts for a month (they need to pay after that). That ought to hit to $200 budget if lets say one plan costs you $4. you got 50 customers already. Host a contest among the 50 customers to say the one with most referrals get a whole year free of hosting. For example 50 customers an average bring in 3 people. That sums up to 200 customers.

• trudee
  November 26, 2007 8:19 am

  I would love this it is an excellant prize

• Gina B
  November 26, 2007 9:48 am

  I would display your sign on my twins stoller, no matter where I go I get attention with them!

• MrPrizes.com
  November 26, 2007 10:31 am

  Just dropping you a line to let you know that I have added your contest to several related categories in our “Free Online Sweepstakes, Contests, & Competitions Directory” (MrPrizes.com). Please feel free to keep me up to date on future listings. Have a great day!

• Barbara
  November 26, 2007 11:36 am

  I would love to win this!

• Jeff
  November 26, 2007 2:57 pm

  I would run a contest with John Chow to give away 2 monitors if they sign up for a highly discounted package.

• Sandy M
  November 28, 2007 11:27 am

  I would have people add a link to your site on their Myspace page… Offer a prize for the person who gets the most hits to your site from their page. I did that for another site that I really like, and they got over two thousand hits just from my page.

• Michelle Simons
  November 29, 2007 8:42 am

  I would have a youtube video contest about coming to this website and promote it to number 1 so everyone can see it. also run it like a contest on there. offer something like free shipping or a free inkpen, hat, whatever deems nessasary. The Whole World will be in tune to your Website and will bring people in to purchase your goods.

• Peter
  November 29, 2007 10:44 am

  Promote offline. You want 200 *new* customers — meaning preferably people who do not already have hosting services anywhere else.

  Call up all your local community colleges, business clubs, clubs and homes for retired people, boys and girls clubs, YMCA, etc., etc. Tell them all that you are Canada’s top hosting company and want to offer to do a free educational presentation on blogging (or some other web-related activity) as part of your public outreach program to get people involved with the Web. Tell them you will do a free presentation for any group of 50 people or more (get places where people are already congregating on a regular basis — like schools, clubs, etc. so you don’t have to promote much just to get people there).

  Then line up about 10-20 presentations over the next month — that gets you an audience of about 500-1000 interested people. Do a presentation that really hooks the audience on the service and shows them how easy it is to do it (especially with the help of the excellent customer service at BlueFur).

  At the end of the presentation, hand out a flyer to every attendee that offers introductory blog hosting (or whatever service is appropriate) for something like $1/month for the first year. Have a mail-in sign-up form along with a URL for online sign-up. Make the sign-up procedure as simple as possible (remember, these are newbies — any slight difficulty with signing up will deter them).

  Also — very important — have a sign-up sheet for a free info, advice and tips newsletter — both postal mail and e-mail. Ask people to sign up so they can receive follow-up information to what you covered in your seminar. Then send them on a weekly basis (or more frequently) a newsletter (by e-mail or by postal mail) that makes them want to start their own blog (for fun — not for profit) and keep reminding them about the $1/month offer. You need to hit them 3-10 times with your message before they buy — so do as many follow-up mailings as possible.

  And send out press releases to all media outlets (newspapers, tv, blogs, etc.) explaining how you are doing community outreach because you are “community web hosting” and that means reaching out into the offline community as well. So you get PR value as well as 200 new customers. In your press releases, mention the $1/month offer and offer it to anyone in the community who wants to start a blog (or whatever service you are promoting). You can get a lot of new business off just a press release — so this reinforces the seminar sign-ups to ensure that you get your 200 customers. Remember to follow up on press releases you send out to make sure they get published.

  And all the above can be done for less than $200. It’s basically a PR program that gets you new customers and good press. You can even make it a Holiday Goodwill offering — helping the community for the holidays (“Feeling lonely these holidays? Start a blog!”, etc.)

  So long as you make it into a positive beneficial program for the community and get a lot of attention for it (from press, etc.), you will easily get your 200 new customers.

• Mark
  November 29, 2007 11:31 am

  I would do an eGift certificate where you purchase a $20 gift certificate and get a $10 bonus. So they have $30 in credit to use with your company.

• DAVID BERTOLO
  November 29, 2007 11:09 pm

  I’m glad I finally had the opportunity to enter.

• Rosanne Morrison
  November 30, 2007 7:09 am

  by spreading the word with friends and family

• Chris
  November 30, 2007 8:41 am

  I would offer current customers a free year of hosting if they sign-up another customer in December.

• Lori Swann
  November 30, 2007 9:51 am

  I would have a raffle. Sell the tickets at $.50 to $l.00 and offer a free raffle ticket for referrals. Word of mouth is the best. The prize should be something like a 22″ monitor or maybe a really nice framed Christmas or Holiday themed painting or print.

• Peter
  November 30, 2007 10:05 am

  Do something similar to my idea above, only make it a blogging seminar for the community that costs $10-12 to attend. The $10-12 gets each attendee a year’s worth on blog hosting for “free” (in reality the seminar is free and the $10-12 goes toward the hosting — but you promote it the other way around). That way, you only need 200 attendees (4 workshops of 50 people each, or just one large workshop with 200 attendees) to reach the 200 customers goal.

  Promote it to the elderly, students, local business clubs, and anyone else who has a little time on their hands and/or would be interested in interacting with others online. Run ads and classifieds in your local newspapers for the elderly, college newspapers, etc. Also send out the press releases about it. And make sure all your local community calendars (radio, tv, online) are promoting it too.

  You might also be able to get some company or organization to sponsor the workshops and pay the $10-12 for the attendees. That helps promote it (because the sponsoring organization would also promote it). How about something like “Local TV Station Sponsors Holiday Workshop on Blogging for the Boys and Girls Club” (do you have the Boys and Girls Club in Canada – http://www.bgca.org ?). You get 200 youth engaged in a constructive activity (blogging) and the local TV station gives you a lot of press on it and pays the blog hosting costs for the kids. Everybody wins.

• Stephanie Spencer
  November 30, 2007 10:57 am

  I would post an ad on gottadeal.com. Their traffic for bargains like yours is in the tens of thousands a day. I am sure you would get more than 200 people to take you up on the offer!!

• Georgi Chisholm
  November 30, 2007 1:11 pm

  Current customers are the way to go. Nothing better than a satisfied customer telling all their friends how great you are ;)

  Find which page of your site is the most viewed by current customers. On that page place a eye catching ad announcing a contest. The contest would be limited to the first 200 current customers who refer someone that opens an account with you. The prize will be $200 in services or a $200 gift card from Visa or a popular retailer. The key is limiting it to the first 200. Hopefully the current customers will hop to it in order to be one of the 200. The odds of winning would be quite high! You’ll have your customers in no time at all!

• Auriette
  November 30, 2007 2:34 pm

  Someone else mentioned word of mouth as being the strongest way to reach new customers, and I agree, but you have to give people a good reason to tell their friends and associates about BlueFur.

  How about offering a discount to customers who get you new customers? For example, if I convince three friends to sign up and maintain an account for at least three months, I get $3 off my monthly bill for the rest of my time with you. If I get 20 new customers, I get $20 off. Maybe you’ll end up giving some people free service, but if they have brought in that much new business, it’ll be worth it.

  An incentive program like this would give people a strong reason to talk up your business and it would create a lot of buzz.

• Mary_Freebies
  November 30, 2007 4:45 pm

  Host a contest for contest blogs only. Have each sf these blogs run a contest of their own, in which they’ll offer a number of 2 months packages of free hosting from your company. Each blog will try their best to promote their contest, and get the largest number of entries. Whomever enters this contest (we’ll call it the BlueFur contest) on one contest blog, is not allowed to enter it on a component blog.
  Have these contest blogs also put a button of your company on their sidebars, for advertising purposes and more exposures. Other contest blogs might feature you and thus get more entires into their contest.
  The contest blog with the biggest number of entries wins a cash prize of $200.
  I am not counting the expenses of the 2 months packages you’ll be giving to 200 costumers, because it’s an investment that will pay off later.
  Or you can have $100 from the $200 to cover a part of these expenses, and still reward the contest blog with the biggest number of entries with $100.
  Why limit this to contest blogs? Because it’s their job! Otherwise, instead of entering these contests on some blogs, many people will decide to host it themselves, which will turn into a mess.
  Let’s imagine only 10 contest blogs take up this challenge (and I can tell you there are more than just 10), they will need to attract more than 20 entries, to select 20 winners from them. It won’t make sense to have 20 participants or less, and make them all winners. Another way to do it, is to keep the number of hosting packages to give away on each blog proportional to the number of their entries. If one blog gets 38 entries, and another gets 22, the first can have 20 winners, and the second just 10.

  I hope you like my idea!

• barbara wild
  November 30, 2007 6:24 pm

  i would post information on an ice cream truck at cape cod and Myrtle Beach and offer people free ice cream if they sign up for the service. Everyone loves ice cream…and friendlys can donate the ice cream!