Earning Money

Although I have never run a contest on this blog, about a week ago, I agreed to sponsor another contest with the hopes of getting some links back to this blog. And it really has worked. I talked about how a contest could really help you out with your site if you planned it accordingly. So, holding a contest could be an incredible way to get traffic. However, there are times when you just don’t have the money necessary to get a big enough contest. I mean, it’s not easy to afford a Wii or an X-Box 360 or something like that. But, why do you need to offer such a huge prize? Or, better yet, why do you need to offer such a huge prize alone?

What I am suggesting is something that numerous people have done in the past. Set up a contest with two or three different people. If you’re looking to offer an X-Box 360, get three people to each chip in money to afford it and then voila, you have got promotion for cheaper. Now, there is debate over whether this is good or bad because now there will be three sites being linked to in each contest post on other blogs rather than just one. Yes, it does have its negatives. You’re not getting the sole attention of potential readers. However, when you’re a small time blogger and you can’t afford big prizes, sometimes you need to step back and be willing to lose a bit of attention to gain more in the end. Offering a big prize will get more submissions than offering a little prize.

Now, there are ways to get around losing out on the traffic. One thing that I would recommend is offer a point system. Each point is like a number in a hat. So, if I were to hold a contest with two other people, this is what I would use as the point system and the number of points that I would give each portion. Check it out, use it if you want and if you’d rather use your own system, go right ahead. But, here’s what I’d do:

• Ten points for writing a blog post about the contest.
• Two points for commenting on each blog that is part of the contest.
• Five points for subscribing to each person’s RSS feed.

So, in a sense, with three people, someone could walk away getting 21 potential numbers in the hat. Now, that’s a lot of submissions. However, the thing to remember is that you’re going to be getting a link back to your blog, guaranteed traffic because they need to visit each blog to comment on each blog and you’re getting comments which is nice. But, above all, you’re getting guaranteed RSS subscriptions. Now that is a nice thing. RSS subscriptions is how bloggers can determine how strong their blog is and frankly, we could all use a large RSS subscription. So, that’s what I would do if I was setting up a contest with two other people.

But, what about a huge contest with 12 groups of five different people? What then? That brings me to a contest that I am participating in. If you check out this One Heck of a Contest, you’ll see that in group seven, Dorm Earning is offering 250 Entrecard points. Is that a good prize? Eh, it’s moderate. It allows someone, though, to get some good advertising on people’s blogs and that is why I offered it. Am I getting a lot of links from it? I sure am. That is the great thing about the contest. I am getting a ton of links that will hopefully help me with my page rank, but above all, it is helping my technorati. For me, to continue seeing upward progress and by offering something that is not costing me a penny, it’s a great deal.

So, there are some great benefits to making a contest with more than just you involved. You can get some great links and if you set it up right, you could get a considerable amount of traffic and some easy RSS subscribers. I intend on holding future contests with other people because, hey, I’m a college student, my wallet isn’t that deep. But, I really recommend it. Get a sponsor. Whatever you do, it’s alright to do it with multiple people. If you want to do the above contest, you’ve got plenty of time and I really think you all have a chance to win something. There are some really awesome prizes available. But, check it out and try it out yourself. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the results.

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I am going to be honest with you. This blog post was inspired by a movie that I saw tonight. I saw the movie “In the Name of the King” and I am going to say point blank that this movie was horrible. It was two hours and it was basically Lord of the Rings except this was downright crappy. However, the one thing that they did do good with, at least in my opinion, was the advertising. When I saw the preview, I knew that I had to see this movie because the scenes that they showed were phenomenal. The movie looked great and that was what sold me. Only, the movie was not that great. And it brings up my point of tonight’s blog post.

It is incredibly important that you advertise something that is as good as you make it out to be. They made the movie out to be a phenomenal movie, but instead, all I got was a boring two hours where I thought about going home and getting on the computer. What does this have to do with you? When you are thinking of creating an e-book, a blog, a forum, or anything else, don’t advertise it if it is crappy. If the site is just downright stupid or the site is just downright useless, why are you going to waste your money to advertise it?

I ask that question and yet I see people doing it every single day. I see people writing e-books that say that they will make you MILLIONS! MILLIONS! Only, they don’t. The problem for people that make these sites is that they provide useless information, but still make money. Well, they make money in the beginning. And then viral marketing takes over. People start to say that the e-book isn’t all that great and soon enough, you have negative viral marketing rather than positive viral marketing. Because you are providing a crappy item, you’re not going to make money. However, you’re going to have to waste your money advertising.

So what am I rambling on about? In it’s opening weekend, the movie did not even make $3 million. In opening weekends, that’s not that much money. When I went to the movies tonight in a place where theaters are normally packed, there were about eight people in the theater. What does that say? Viral marketing had already taken its toll. The importance of having a good product when you are advertising is incredibly important. Unless you want it to back fire like it did with this movie, I think you need to have something good.

So, to put it simply, have a product or a website that is going to go good with people. If you are spending a lot of money advertising it, understand that you will only make money off of the people if the product is good. Don’t think that just because you are spending money, you will make money. Yes, you need to spend money to make money. But, you also need to have the fundamental thing and that’s a good product. This blog won’t grow no matter how much I advertise it if the content is not good. That is just how it is. So, have a good product before you start advertising it.

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