As we speak I am in the middle of a grueling campaign to win a competition based on the amount of voters.
The winner will be announced on Monday 15th December. If I win, it will be a cool $1000! So this is a big deal and I am treating it like any other campaign.
When you come to a situation like this you need to pull out all the stops. Laziness will not help you get that special post ranking number one in Google or bring you several thousand visits from Stumbleupon. Hard work and persistence and pulling a few favors will! Most important I think you need to get help from your friends.
Yesterday morning when I discovered that my site “A Taste of Christmas” one of the 7 finalists in the Pepperjam Store builder contest I only had 1% of the votes and the leader was at 49% of the votes.
I realized at that point that to even come close to winning that i would have to pull….. cue a quote for fans of Spaced….
Something Bloody Spectacular!!
This is the point in a campaign where your friends come in handy. For a long while I never bothered my friends with such things but when it comes to time to promote something for whatever reason your friends should always be there to help you out. How many dancing cat forwarded emails have you had from them, it’s about time you sent some stuff back?
Currently I stand in 1st place with 36% to 32% for second place and need to hold the lead to Monday to win it.
This lead has been gained by not being shy and actually contacting pretty much everyone I know. Real friends will always help you out and through this event I have found myself contacting many people who I have not spoken to in a long while and having some very pleasant catch ups.
So that is where I am at. Everyone has really pulled out the stops and as long as I give them time, I know they will do it for me again.
I still have 3 days to keep the lead and win or lose this will be a great campaign experience. I know I could not have come this far without my friends and I feel that this is a resource that everyone should tap more often.
Just remember that friends are there for you and you do the same for them. If anyone passes a message on to take a look at a post or cast a vote always try and oblige.
Thanks for reading. Please could you also help me out and cast a vote for “A Taste of Christmas” over at the Pepperjam Store builder contest post.
Also don’t hesitate to add me forest.parks@gmail.com to your instant messenger and let me know if you ever need any campaign help.
I will post a more comprehensive guide to my strategies once the competition is over.
Image Source: SXC
13. December 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hmmm I am the first person to comment on this post…..interesting!
13. December 2008 at 1:39 pm
Hi Colin,
This is my personal blog and as you can see from the title it has many uses and therefore not the hugest following when it comes to posts as the subject matter can be very random.
It’s good to see you here and I did want to have a chat with you and ask you an honest question…. But I can do it here….
This competition for the $1k prize over at PJN has excited me very very much and I have been working extremely hard to get to where I am right now.
I received an email from Mr King Pepper himself this morning saying that somebody had lodged a complaint about me using automated (non human) voting.
This upset me very very much and I would like to know if it was you who lodged the complain? If you did I may be able to understand why you may think this. However Pepperjam can investigate all they like as my methods thus far have been completely legit and will be until the end of the competition, win or lose.
I will be writing an extensive post about my promotional methods when this competition is over.
Best of luck.
Forest.
PS, I subscribed to your blog and voted for you in this competition.
13. December 2008 at 5:59 pm
Forest,
I voted for you! Job well done! And I got about 15 of my friends to vote thus far. All of them wish you luck. Too bad one of the competitors has domenstrated bad sportsmanship.
love ya!
15. December 2008 at 4:48 am
I voted for you too.
*DONT* get upset whatever you do. Life is too short!
15. December 2008 at 12:07 pm
Forest, it has bee confirmed there has been no fraud voting going on from anyone. Except this appology for my witch hunt so to speak, but like I said. If you got the emails I did you would understand why I acted the way I did.
Great Job on getting support and votes. Looks like your going to be the winner so congrats to you. You earnt it!
15. December 2008 at 7:51 pm
“Using Your Friends For Campaign Success” says it all. It is very clear this contest was about you spending 2 minutes of cut and pasting Pepperjam code on your homepage and hours of rallying your friends for votes, not who had done the best job of using Store Builder. Wirelesscellaccessories.com hands down spent more hours building a top-notch website around Pepperjam’s Store Builder than rallying friends to win money. So yes, you did cheat.
16. December 2008 at 11:21 am
Hey Scott,
I understand what you are saying in some ways but it just seems like resentment. I am not going to sit here and say which sites were better or worse.
The code for the store never appeared on our home page. Our site is a complete site with the added functionality of having a Pepperjam store to allow visitors to purchase gift related items. We also provide things like Fun Christmas Facts and History posts…. much more than just some code slapped on a page…. go take a look if you need to see http://atasteofchristmas.com.
Also I did rally friends and I did win in this way. I also personally really liked the watch store and if I was voting in a non-biased way I would have voted for that. Strangely, as I did not know I was in the comp, I rallied to Colin’s blog as Garry Conn asked me to!!
Colin’s blog came in 2nd place. Why did this happen? Nothing to do with it’s build…. It was to do with bloggers from Garry Conn and John Chow rallying behind him to vote…. You CANNOT deny that Colin pulled the same tactics as me so you CANNOT rationally sit here being bitter.
We all know that this was a contest that worked the way it should have. Traffic was drawn to Pepperjam, we all sat on the edge of our seats (well me anyway!) waiting to see who won and we all worked our damn hardest.
16. December 2008 at 12:20 pm
Forest
I did NOT do the same as you. I did NOT send one email to anyone who is not online. Not one family member nor offline friend voted for my site. I could of very easily sent traffic from Facebook but to me that was not good traffic to send.
Don’t think for a second bud, you and I think the same.
My loss came down to one thing and one thing only, I did not want the win as bad as you. You wanted it more, you fought for it more, and you won…..its that simple!
Once again good job!
16. December 2008 at 12:37 pm
Colin…. My methods will be in writing soon… we won by 90 solid votes. I don’t believe that 90 OFFLINE people, as you call them, voted for me. Most of my votes came from email lists and online social networks.
I would also very much like to see the emails that incited a witchhunt for me. I can’t let it rest until I see why a man would be pressed to actually threaten another person “You don’t want to see what I am capable of doing”. That is not a way to treat another person. I strive to be a good and amicable blogger and help out 110% whenever I can. You wanted to win enough to imply that you would ruin my online reputation and do some bad things to me. OUT OF ORDER COLIN!!! I did nothing wrong, nor have I to any blogger that I know of!!!
John Chows post did nothing to try and get quality votes either. It simply said vote for my friend…. these were not quality votes in my eyes…. if we are going to pick at which of the votes were quality or not.
Please also define good traffic. Garry Conn users already use Pepperjam, Many Facebook users don’t. Facebook votes have introduced new people to the idea of affiliate marketing (and I have quite a few people interested in blogging after this comp). This is as decent as any traffic Pepperjam could have wished for.
We could argue about what is right and wrong for hours…. but it would be silly as we obviously have our own opinions as to what is good for what.
Simple facts. My votes were legit, I introduced new people to the blogging and affiliate marketing as well as strengthened relationships with many other people.
I am a social blogger. I love to help and have introduced many of my friends to the concept of blogging which in the long run will only work out to be a good thing for me and in many cases Pepperjam too.
Now can we just bury this arguing over nothing important crap, you send me the emails that you got so I can find out who is trying to dash my reputation and I will be happy as Larry.
16. December 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hey, I am not arguing with ya….how many times have I said good Job dude. And, if you read the pepperjam post I even offered to help you guys further.
The John Chow traffic was perfect traffic….its all people looking to make money online…..thats what johns blog is famous for dude.
The threats or witch hunt was based strictly on he emails I received from Garry Conn himself. Like I said yesterday, once I get my thunderbird issue fixed (piece of crap email system) I will gladly send them to you. I also forwarded the emails to Kris Jones, if he still has them ask him to send them to you. You have ever right to know why I was pissed off at first. Sorry Garry, if you read this, Forest does have a right to know the truth about why I was chasing down the truth. Which forest, that was all I was doing.
In competition things get heated up. Myself, I hate cheaters and will always take a very aggressive stand against them. Don’t believe me! watch episode 2 or 3 of the top affiliate challenge. Look who called out on that show!!
And, as soon as it was confirmed you were getting solid votes I did send you my deepest apologies. I was glad to find out everything was legit…..you have no idea dude.
16. December 2008 at 1:38 pm
Thank you very much for the information Colin. These emails are of extreme importance to me.