Comments on: 2007 Wrap Up Contest

By: barbara wild

barbara wild — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:24:54 +0000

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!

By: Mary_Freebies

Mary_Freebies — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:45:38 +0000

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!

By: Auriette

Auriette — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:34:09 +0000

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.

By: Georgi Chisholm

Georgi Chisholm — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:11:19 +0000

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!

By: Stephanie Spencer

Stephanie Spencer — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:57:27 +0000

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!!

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:05:20 +0000

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.

By: Lori Swann

Lori Swann — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:51:31 +0000

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.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:41:43 +0000

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

By: Rosanne Morrison

Rosanne Morrison — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:09:57 +0000

by spreading the word with friends and family

By: DAVID BERTOLO

DAVID BERTOLO — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:09:32 +0000

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