After reviewing all the submissions and ideas for my How to Buy a Click Once and Resell It 1000 Times contest, it is time to announce the winners.
Before I do so, I want to reveal the marketing lesson behind the contest (some of you very smart marketers saw it from the beginning). Yes, a big part of the contest was, indeed, to get ideas for improving the RPM of my internal landing pages, and I definitely got many ideas for that.
But an even bigger part was to get networks to contact me with relevant offers, as well as people who wanted to buy traffic or sell traffic. Everyone who contacted me had, obviously, read my posts as well as the contest ideas, so they are familiar with who I am and what I do, which always makes business a lot easier.
Many of these people I will probably do business with for quite awhile, and there’s no way they would have contacted me if I hadn’t had the contest and been prolific in my posts, providing good content. If I’d just put up a post or two asking for offers or buyers and sellers, sure, I might have gotten a few bites, but nowhere near what I did get, and that’s the “big lesson” from the contest.
Being prolific and consistently demonstrating knowledge in a venue where very smart people “lurk” in the background can lead to big business. It’s a very important lesson, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the contest. Remember, it’s not just the people who post and comment, it’s the “players” who tune in on occasion to keep up with what’s going on, and scan the posts quickly to see if there’s anything of value to them.
So, without further ado, here are the winners.
First Prize- $500 and eternal glory: jack01
Second Prize $300 and eternal glory: sushiparlour
Third Prize- $200 and eternal glory: hawaiimon
BONUS Prize- $100 Ksenia from Vortex Ads. I am awarding this to her not just for contributing to the ideas, but for being a good affiliate manager, very patient while I get my complex money-making system set up. And also for having excellent taste in music.
I will PM everyone above, get your Paypal information, and send you your prize.
Now, you might be asking, what ideas were the winners? Ah, we will get to that, but not in this post. I will make separate posts over the next few days for each winner, discussing their ideas- this is part of their “eternal glory,” a standalone post that will forever live in STM.
I would highly encourage everyone to review all the ideas and submissions by clicking on these three links below and reading through all the ideas:
Contest Part 1- Improving Page RPM
Contest Part 2 Wholesaling Traffic
Contest Part 3 Strange Ways to Make Money
Doubtless there are many ideas you can use on your own, and it’s always good to keep the discussion going.
Thanks to everyone who participated, and I am planning on doing more articles in the future, perhaps even another contest. After I implement all the ideas you guys gave me, of course.
Thanks @johna5150. Your post and the contest definitely gave me some ideas that I am probably going to test it out in the next few weeks. Also the $$ can be used to fund my STM subscription :P
Update: Just got the $$ from John, guess its time to go pop some champagne.
congratulations to all the winners
Thanks John! I really appreciate you running this contest, sharing your ideas, and inspiring the community to come up with so many interesting ideas.
I have also received my prize money from John.
Congrats to winners!
John - Very Cool contest!!
Congrats to sushiparlour and hawaiimon as well.
I'm looking forward to discussions of the ideas brought up.
Congratulations to all the winners! Well-deserved.
And of course a big THANK YOU to John for this contest!
Amy