How To Have a Great Blog Contest

I am so pleased with the results of my 1st Blogoversary contest. I felt that my first contest was a success; here are some stats on how I promoted my contest and handled my contest entries. The winners were announced on Sunday, September 28th as promised.

As the entries came in, I entered them into an Excel spreadsheet.

210 individuals entered
471 entries
56 of the 210 (26.6%) left no contact information whatsoever

After I had all the individuals listed in Excel and all their additional entries, I went to Research Randomizer and entered the numbers (Sort Order 1-471).

You can download the random numbers in an Excel format, so I chose that option. I cut the row of random numbers from the downloaded file, and pasted them into my contest file, giving each entry a random number all of its own. For example, instead of Brian having numbers 316 through 331, he was given 12 random numbers.

Next I went to Random.org and chose the Random Integer Generator. I told it to generate 3 random integers, with a value between 1 and 471 (the number of entries in my contest).

While researching prior to holding my contest, I found there are sites to announce your contest:

During the course of the contest, several contest announcing blogs found me, announced my contest. Thank you to all these sites for mentioning my contest.

How many people signed up each day:

Sunday the 14th (13) .06%
Monday the 15th (48) 23%
Tuesday the 16th (15) .07%
Wednesday the 17th (6) .03%
Thursday the 18th (7) .03%
Friday the 19th (9) .04%
Saturday the 20th (6) .03%
Sunday the 21st (9) .04%
Monday the 22nd (6) .03%
Tuesday the 23rd (10) .05%
Wednesday the 24th (11) .05%
Thursday the 25th (15) .07%
Friday the 26th (26) 12 %
Saturday the 27th (29) 14%

I believe the highest traffic day (Monday the 15th) coincided with my announcement at Online-Sweepstakes.

Traffic Sources according to Google Analytics:

Online-Sweepstakes.com (322)
Sense to Save (47) Thank for blogging about my contest, Kacie!
GoliathDebtor (39) Thanks for blogging about my contest, GD!
My Dollar Plan (39)
Chicky Finance (35)
Living Simple in Vegas (26)
Funny About Money (23)
Counting My Pennies (21)
Millionaire Mommy Next Door (16)
My Two Dollars (11)
Graceful Retirement (10)
Financial Ramblings (9)
Submit Your Contest (9)

A note regarding the nearly 27% of entrants who did not provide me with contact information. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle contacting those folks, but I left them in the running and figured I'd cross that bridge if and when I came to it. Luckily, Random.org didn't pick any numbers for people with no contact information. I was clear in my original post that I would email winners individually. I think if I have another contest I will specifically state if contact information is not supplied in some way, the entry will be disqualified immediately.

Thank you to everyone who joined in! My Feedburner subscribers did not quite reach 100 as I'd hoped, but I am closer to 100 now than I was prior to the contest! I visited every site that blogged about my contest, and I also visited many who gave me a link to their site. I put quite a few of you into my feedreader to visit in the future and look forward to getting to know you better.

Yours Truly,

OUT OF DEBT AGAIN is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. OUT OF DEBT AGAIN is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. This post may contain affiliate links.

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