So you will do-doubt have noticed Darren Gave Away $60,000 of Prizes in a Week. You can already see Darrens conclusions, but after reading his list I had a thought I want to share and get your opinion on.
The Problogger give-away was a big success I am sure, and Darren has learned a great deal that will make the next much better, but what struck me about the prize bonanza makes me wonder about doing competitions at all.
Could competitions be a turn-off?
I don’t for a minute think Darren lost any subscribers, in fact he gained some. But for me, watching the blog, seeing all the competition-related posts fill up the RSS, made me think about the nature of competitions.
Say you have 10k subscribers and 1,000 people enter a competition with 5 prizes. That is 955 disappointed people and 9,000 people who were not interested in the first place.
Yes, you gain attention, links and some new subscribers, but how loyal will those people be longer-term when the prizes stop coming.
Perhaps the key is to combine the competition with lots of other great content at the same time so your main topic gets equal billing?
As I say, this is not a criticism of Darrens or any other competition, I just wonder if competitions in general could be damaging as well as great publicity?
What do you think?