You have some excellent ideas!!! I thought I had a winner chosen, but I may have to rethink that, thanks!

The winner of this contest will be announced sometime today.

For another book, you could have a guess the object contest. And every day you could release a new hint at a predetermined time. But keep this type of sweep short or interest will be lost. Now if it were a larger prize, you could get away with a longer term contest.

You could hide a contest phrase on your site. And everyone who emails it to you will be entered.

Or you could just keep it random. With each person submitting a comment for an entry. (My suggestion)

You will need to advertise it a lot. Perhaps by going the usual route for blog giveaways. Give an extra entry for a person that posts about your giveaway on their own blog. The contestant leaves the link under the comment section. Thus they would have 2 entries. One for the comment, and a second for the link. Or if email entry is used, they could include the link in their email. Of course, the extra entry wouldn’t work with a “guess the item” type of contest.

Anyways, I know how you could get hundreds of hits (or more) on your contest. Can you handle it? But your contest will have to be simple. And not everyone will be intrerested in your sites content. But there is always the hope that interest in your site will increase.

I have an idea or two:

When you give away those books, I would put a CD in the back with a copy of the latest (AMD) report, or copy of whatever it is ( software ? ) that would make something “viral” happen. I am a health-nut – - using that word “viral” in a positive way is foreign to me. Maybe just give out part of your info, enough to make a “hook” on the CD and give folks a discount if they want to buy the rest.

Secondly, I would start a “free real book” giveaway site or blog around the same topic, with a contest about every other week or so, to give out more real free books and round up more visitors, who when they get the free books, also get your report/software on a CD in the back.

Thirdly, make the site so as it tells others how to do exactly what you are doing.

Good luck,

Steve

The general idea does sound good. I think it may turn into a big hassle, which would be worth it if it did indeed bring in enough regular readers, but I could make it a little more basic as well. It’s definitely food for thought.

Thanks again!

If they were correct, based on how far back they had guessed from, they would recieve entries into a drawing for prizes totaling thousands of dollars (since I would have hundreds of thousands of dollars, why not!)

Ahh what a naive internet marketer I was when I first began! *end anecdote*

As for an idea for your contest, you could throw what I like to think of as a participation contest. Now the key here in my opinion, is to make it interesting so that people come BACK and check on their standings. Therefore generating lots of interest for your site.

A good way to do this is to work on a points system. For example, a user could earn 1 point for commenting, 2 points for signing up to rss feed, 3 points for trackback from their own personal blog, 5 points for emailing you an idea that you later use for a blog post, etc. etc. etc. etc.

You can then have a block on the side with a top 10 users list, where the top 3 get prizes. You could reset the stats and hold this contest monthly if it is successful. I think this would get people really interested, and quite possibly go viral! People can be quite competitive, and instead of thinking of this participation as just to win prizes, you are actually motivating them to learn more about internet marketing! Which could lead them to buy your products!!

The only concern is say people spamming comments or posting JUST for points; however, YOU are the master moderator, and you can easily reject comments or trackbacks if you feel they are not up to your blog’s standard.

Honestly I could probably go on, but I think you see the picture here so I’ll let your imagination pick up from here!!

A bunch of great ideas you have there. One book a piece for the best 3 ideas or something similar. Definitely noted and considered!

Thanks

Tonight, I had a couple minutes to think about it.

How about a “best creative idea for” contest(s)? Like…

- best cheap way to get 20 one-way inbound links
- best creative tip for increasing blog subscriptions
- best way to make a few extra bucks a day with your blog or web site that most people don’t know about or stop to think through
- best little-known resource for outsourcing stuff that takes me too much time (article writing/submission, directory submission, link building)

This way, you actually get some valuable content in exchange for your prizes.

Looking forward to your contest idea Not much competition so far, so theres a good chance of winning it.

Not sure how you go about it, just let them know of it I guess?

I’ve been giving it some thought, however, nothing has yet occurred to me worth posting!

My last contest was a flop too – I asked people to give me a little feedback on their hosting companies and got only one entry

Anyway, if I can think of anything remotely useful/workable, I’ll send you my thoughts