Enormous PublisherForums.com Contest
November 8, 2007 Posted by Tyler CruzI can’t believe that nobody is participating in one of the best forum contests ever! I’m here to remind everyone of the ongoing contest running on PublisherForums.com.
There are so many great prizes up for grabs, and winning them is so easy, that it’s amazing to me that nobody is participating. I mean we’re talking about really awesome prize packages here…
But perhaps you never heard about it, or simply forgot. Whatever the reason, I’m here to remind you!
Contest Recap
On October 22, 2007 I launched the PublisherForums.com "Prizes for Posts" contest which is giving away a total of 45 prizes, bundled within 12 prize packages, worth over $3,600!
The contest started on October 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 PM Pacific Time (6:00 PM Eastern) and runs through until December 3rd, so there is still plenty of time to participate and win.
Most prize packages contain between 3-5 prizes, and some packages are enormous such as the 1st place prize for Quality Posts which has 7 prizes worth $1,125!
Below is a small sample of some of the prizes we’re giving away:
- Choice of custom WordPress Theme or vBulletin Skin, fully coded ($650 Value)
- Social Media script from EntertainmentScripts.com ($297 Value)
- One-Year Free Hosting Package & Domain Name ($140 Value)
- 3-Month WordZe Subscription ($135 Value)
- 1-Year Sitewide 120×60 Ad on PublisherForums.com ($153 Value)
- $75 Cash via PayPal courtesy of NeverBlueAds ($75 Value)
- 1-Hour phone consultation with Tyler Cruz ($75 Value)
- Full Blog Review courtesy of BlogLOUDER.com ($95 Value)
- And many more prizes including DVD’s from film studios and the Discovery Channel!
Below is a screenshot of a list of all the prizes we’re giving away:
Marketing Efforts
I’ve done a fair amount of marketing for this contest, yet the results of the contest thus far have been far below what I had expected.
I’ve posted it on Digg, announced it on my blog, e-mailed the existing 500 PublisherForums.com members, and posted it on DigitalPoint forums.
I posted it on Sitepoint, upgrading to all the possible advertising enhancements available, received permission to post it on Pixel2Life, and purchased 20 paid reviews from ReviewMe, to which only 3 have been made so far.
John Chow briefly mentioned it in a post, and Kevin from BloggingTips.com was kind enough to post about it for free as well as list it on the side of his blog as a Featured Site.
ContestBlogger, one of the contest’s sponsors, blogged about it. As did WinningTheWeb, DotMySpot (ReviewMe), BloggingCents.com, and TechTreak.com (ReviewMe), and BlogIsEverything.com (ReviewMe).
Effects of the Contest Thus Far
Unfortunately, the contest has seen very little interest, and the effects of the contest thus far are very disproportionate to the number and quality of the prizes we’re giving away. Here are the results, two weeks into the contest.
Traffic
Traffic has changed little, save for the large spike which occurred the date the contest was launched.
Before the contest, PublisherForums was receiving an average of 50 uniques per day. The day the contest launched, it received 500 uniques. Two weeks after its launch, it now receives about 50 uniques per day again.
Forum Activity
Prior to launching the contest, PublisherForums had 6,797 posts and 546 members. The forum now has 7,221 posts and 573 members, an increase of 424 posts and 27 members.
The week before launching the contest, a total of 7 posts were made. The week the contest ran, a total of 296 posts were made. So, the contest is obviously helping to spark life back into the site, but the amount of people who are actually participating in the contest is very disappointing.
Participate! There are still 4 weeks left!
The contest is only 2-weeks in, meaning that there are still 4 weeks left to participate in the contest! And considering the low-turnout for the contest so far, it means that you stand a very good chance of winning some of the prizes.
Take our Top Referrers prizes for example. So far, only ONE person has made any referrals, and that person only referred one person so far! There is a 50-post minimum requirement and your referrals must make a combined total of at least 50 non-spammed posts, but other than that, you’re a shoe-in to win as long as nobody else fights for that category.
First prize in that category contains $275 in Prizes:
– 3-Month WordZe Subscription ($135 Value) (More Details)
– Full Blog Review courtesy of BlogLOUDER.com ($95 Value) (More Details)
– Karas: The Revelation DVD* ($15 Value) (More Details)
– $50 Cash via PayPal courtesy of NeverBlueAds ($50 Value) (More Details)
Check out the PublisherForums.com "Prizes for Posts" contest!
Contest added to my site in review form Tyler , good luck with it
just a thought…. maybe you should lead by example and start posting on your own forum 😉
myself, i dunno what to talk about on your forum. you haven’t set yourself apart from other forums because you’ve setup the ‘default’ topics to talk about, slapped your own theme on it and seemingly left it. most of the discussions there are either *yawn* or stuff that’s been discussed 100times over on other forums which doesn’t encourage someone like me to post. i’ve also come across postings from users that are posting incorrect information which makes me discredit the forum all together. when I need to ask a question, I go elsewhere. when I need to waste time, I go to your forum.
invite some friends to post. invite some people who know what they are talking about to start some discussions. or better yet. start posting your own knowledge on the subject!!!! I mostly go to your forum to try to learn from you – but you rarely post! let alone a gold nugget of information on being a web publisher. if i didn’t read your blog, i would have forgotten about your forum months ago because it doesn’t stand out as an authoritive source for information.
I don’t mean to be harsh Tyler but trying to tell you what I’ve seen and what has prevented me from posting on a website I’ve been a member of since you launched it. If you are not posting on your own forum, why should I? Why should I fill your website with content which translates to profit for you, when you don’t share anything on your own site? Quite frankly, what good are your prizes to me if I don’t have a clue as to how to put them to good use? There’s a clue for you, start posting about these prizes and why people should be posting like mad to win them 😉
I agree with fumbler’s comments in so far as the theory that if the forum owner doesn’t post on his own forum, how can he expect others to follow suit?
I have posted many articles on my community building blog about the importance of the forum owner posting original, quality, unique content on a regular basis if they want their community to succeed.
Tyler – you appear to have the passion, but not the motivation to put in the work yourself and post great content on the forum.
– Martin Reed
AHA! You didn’t count on people’s laziness eh? Even though your barrier for entry into the contest is reasonable, people are inherently lazy! Sorry to say… They look at the 150 post mark and say… hmm… 150 posts for A CHANCE at some prize? Meh… back to Sitepoint, DigitalPoint or whatever other forum they are already part of.
Good Luck man!
Thanks for the tips guys. I’d certainly love to be able to spend more time on the forums, it’s really just a matter of there being enough hours in the day.
Hopefully once (if) I get caught up in work I’ll be able to post more there.
No worries Tyler – us too. You cant expect your users to meet minimum post requirements when you cant find the time to do it yourself. I was always taught you lead by example and no offence, but with the lead your setting and the content of your reply, it does not make me want participate in this contest let alone tell others about your forum. Maybe after a second failed contest, you`ll get what we`re saying and start listening to feedback from your users on why we are not participating 😉
Jon offers tidbits on WF as does Lee on EF. They are setting good examples by answering posts from their users regarding the forums they`ve started. They also try to get conversations going when their forums are slowing. Why should we
helpbuild a community for you? Is that not your job as the site admin? As if we`re not busy enough ourselves trying to make our own money without lining someone elses pocket who can`t be bothered with their own website 🙂yeah right, so you need more hours in a day because you can’t do all your gaming + work in the 24 h? Seriously you laze ass, you have to sacrifice some to gain some. Nothing comes free in life.
Tyler while the prizes are good, all your competitions seem to make the barrier of entry probably 10 times as difficult as anyone else. I’ll just be honest.
John Chow asks us to subscribe to his RSS for better prizes than you’re giving away, but for your one we need to register and clock up 125 posts?
Also, a lot of the prizes are either not that great or overvalued. I can’t see why I would want a blog review, consultation, domain and hosting (given everyone with a website should already have this), or any of those DVDs. The blog skin is cool, so is the cash, but as someone else said… 125 posts just for the chance of this? No sir…
the reason Boone is participating is because first the prizes suck. Boone wants a 1hr phone conversation with mr Tyler cruz, LOL. Thepruces you valued the prizes at are highly inaccurate. Secondly the work involved is way more then its worth, I’d rather work a job.
Im pretty sure i left a comment before, i dunno what happened. But as i said there are just too many options out there for webmaster forums. Like for me there would have to be a good reason to stray from say sitepoint or digitalpoint.
And as other have said, most of those prizes wont do anything for me. Sell some of the prizes and put some cash up there.
Ill sign up for the forums and give them a chance though to help out.
Like you say yourself Tyler you hardly work long enough, put in like an hour a day solidly answering people’s posts on your forum and you will see it grow, people want your advice not some numb nut’s advice who wants to win $50 cash for 5 hours of spamming a forum with 4 word replies to posts.
and the fact that the net is saturated with forums about pretty much everything makes it harder to get people, the forums that have a steady membership amount and are active, is pretty much the ones that will stay. Pretty much all of the new and other ones remaining are not going to succeed.
Tyler, if you’d know anything about the internet phase right now you’d know that forums right now are pretty much dead.
A forum should be a community feature, a extra add-on for members to talk. Not the main feature!
the prizes aren’t worth spending that much time on.
Also if this sounds more like you trying to buy your readers, a big turn off for most people.
That no one is participating was pretty much the outcome I anticipated.
Also this sounds more like you trying to buy your members to start writing, a big turn off for most people.
PublisherForums has zero value – and it always will. It is competing in one of the most competitive areas with zero competitive advantage. You didn’t look at the big picture on this one.
Not to mention a lot of Tyler’s advice is beginning to lose credibility…
Tyler: if you want this contest to work for you, then you’d have to post a few threads yourself to get the ball rolling. Users want advice on webmaster communities and your community is no exception.
[…] Once prizes are awarded, you will almost certainly see activity drop back to pre-contest levels. Tyler Cruz’s recent contest announcement has further reinforced my opinion on the value and effectiveness of forum […]
hi tyler im new in ur website
i have 3 w ebsites for now and i have problems with the adsense
i dont make money like you do lol anyway i have decent traffic
but im looking for more
hope in near futur i still young lol
i have some nice ideas but i dont wanna start making them now
im learning php
to do them
How’s the contest going so far?
http://www.business-cards-print.com/
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about entrepreneur.
Regards