Thread: Ideas for a contest

Yeah, I wanna hold a big contest at my blog, but I want to attract a few different sponsors, like blog designers, coders, hosting providers and people that will throw in an ebook or two or some cash.

But I need an idea for the contest that will benefit these types of people enough that they would pitch in.

What I want to get:
- Subscribers
- Traffic
- An online "image" for the site

So any idea?

I was thinking of something that alot of people can enter but again something that not only I benefit from.

p.s. If I like your idea enough to use it ill send you like $10 or somethin

Thinking of ideas for contests is a very difficult task. I don't have any ideas at this time but if I do, I'd be more than happy to let you know. I wouldn't mind becoming a sponsor...At the moment, all we have to offer is hosting. Once we get organized with a new, better server...Will let you know

You could give out prizes to people for things like:

• subscribing to your blog (random)
• commenting on posts (random)
• commenting on your posts (most useful)
• commenting on your posts (most comments)

After that it really depends on the main focus (topic) of the blog.
I mean you could hold a contest for designers to design a new blog skin for you, come up with a logo, something like that. Or you could set up a referers script and give out a prize for the most referals.

Blogs are a bit limited for contests.

NOTE: Do not expect to only give out prizes from sponsors. Give out some prizes out of your own pocket too (it will probably attract more sponsors if not anything else).

I added that entries must post about the contest with sponsor links. This got a lot of back links for me and them.

The subscribing thing sucked because a lot of people just unsubscribed once the prizes were passed out.

Mine did bring a surge in traffic. Next time I would do more with comments like TS suggested. Just be aware, the more sponsors you have, the harder it is to manage the contest. Some sponsors screwed me over and I ended up losing money to fill the prizes. Winners took forever to get information to me. Just keeping the whole thing organized became a pain in the ass.

Next one will be just a couple of big prizes and I would have the sponsors pay upfront.


[MENTAL]Just to be clear, all WTF sponsors but one fulfilled their promises. [/MENTAL]

HOW ABOUT A POLL

LINK BANNER CLICK TO TRACK TRAFFIC

INVITATION, AN EXISTING MEMBER INVITE A LOT OF PEOPLE AND THE MEMBER WHO RECEIVED AND REGISTER MORE NEW MEMBER IS THE WINNER

To TS:
Your Goals:

- Subscribers
- Traffic
- An online "image" for the site

Subscribers - Maybe you put up a contest about designing. (e.i. your new blog/site banner)

Traffic - Then you're going to post a date wherein you're going to pick the top 10 designs. In that way, friends of those who managed to get into the top 10 will going to vote at you're blog/site.

An Online "image" for the site - And after the contest, you're going to have a new banner that will be the trademark of your blog.

An idea that I'm going to implement ( traffic only ):

Best Referrer - Who brings more traffic to a site, gets "the prize".

How about a guess the eyes competition - get some photos of celebs and people in the news at the moment. Crop the photos untill you can only see the eyes and then people have to guess who they are. Not specific to your goals, but its simple and fun. Sometimes webmaster like a break from talking shop