Group Give-aways/contests?

[IntraHost]

Hi everyone,

Ok, so I had this brainstorming session to think of a purple cow last year (if you know what I'm talking about, then you should get a prize). Anyways... so I had an idea.

I wanted to see if this could work on a small scale more doing anymore with it, so maybe ya'll could help out.

We all have a tight budget (small hosts)... so marketing gimmicks generally aren't on our radar.

So I was thinking of a group contest. Basically... 10 hosts would pay $20 to get a chance to give away like an xbox to a group of their visitors.

So for 20 bucks, you can submit a list of people. Then a random name is pulled from the 10 lists together, and that person wins!

I was thinking of seeing if any of you were interested... and if it works well, or sounds like a good idea, I'd get something made that would basically be an easy form to put on your website that feeds into "one" database and tracks people submitting (so your IP addy couldn't submit multiple people (like online polls)). And then you as a host would get a log in to view and export the people that filled out the form from your website.

So you don't need to plop down $100+ to have a promotional contest, together we only need to bring $10-$20 and everyone can participate and it helps everyone with marketing.

Sound good/bad? Anyone want to try before I get some program made? Would you participate?

[Chicken]

The only problem I can see is that often a contest is used to gather potential leads, names if you will, to use in further marketing efforts. I suppose multiple providers could use the same list, as that's pretty common in the leads business (you don't get a unique list.... ever).

[acidbase]

How about deciding who the winner is? What type of prizes to give out? As well as how the prizes are delivered if the customer is not in US?

Well the idea is good but it might need alot more to make it feasible.

[IntraHost]

Originally posted by Chicken:

The only problem I can see is that often a contest is used to gather potential leads, names if you will, to use in further marketing efforts. I suppose multiple providers could use the same list, as that's pretty common in the leads business (you don't get a unique list.... ever).

Right, the contest is used to gather leads... the idea I have now is that each host would get access to only the leads that came from thier website. So you as a host would put a form on your page to enter the contest that is flagged as "your host"... then when you log into the lil system, you get a spit out of the users who submitted via your website.

So host 1 gets 10 entries, host 2 gets 15 entries, and then the program selects at random from the total 25 entries who wins.

Does that make a little more sense of what I'm thinking?

[IntraHost]

Originally posted by acidbase:

How about deciding who the winner is? What type of prizes to give out? As well as how the prizes are delivered if the customer is not in US?

Well the idea is good but it might need alot more to make it feasible.


Deciding who the winner is will be as simple as picking some random entry. What prizes to give out I guess would be decided by "me" but I'm thinking a lil forum that hosts participating can suggest prizes. Maybe one month it will be an xbox, the next a playstation, the next and xm sat. radio or something.

In addition, the host could give away thier own prizes with the people who enter, like free hosting for a year, or month or whatever.

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The other idea I was having was the fluctuation of hosts who participate would determine how much the host would pay to enter.

Like say you have a $150 xbox. And I as admin want to get $200 to cover the cost of the xbox, shipping, and overhead (the creation of the program)

So I need, say, 10 hosts that pay $20 a pop or 20 hosts that pay $10. My idea is.... (numbers can change, but you'll get the overall idea)... that a contest will only "run" if at least 10 hosts participate. But the more hosts that participate, the lower the price the host will have to pay. But there is a cap on the number of hosts that may participate. So you, as a host, would sign up and agree to pay between $10 and $20. Then hosts would sign up and say 15 joined... at the end of the "signup time" the price charged to each host would be $13.33 or something.

That make sense? Sound like a good/fair idea?