Hosting a contest

[jdubs]

Hi,

This may not be your average post since I am not a blogger, but I am looking to market my services on blogs, and wanted to see if any of you had suggestions for ways to contact these blogs.

What I want to do is offer to sponsor a contest where I would give out numerous sets of 1000 business cards to readers of whatever blog hosts the contest.

I have been looking for relevant blogs on technorati and individually calling or emailing bloggers, but I have had very limited success with that.

If anyone has any suggestions on better ways to get in touch with bloggers that would be great.

I am not sure if it is against forum rules to post a link to my site, so I have not included one here. If I am allowed please let me know and I will edit this post.

Thanks for the help

Jeremy

[QuirkyJessi]

I think that's a great start actually. There are lots of bloggers who host contests and having sponsors for those are great. Maybe it's more an issue with who you're targeting, how you're approaching them, etc.

And in this case, I think we'd need to see your link. It doesn't look like you're trying to spam and have asked for permission. Personally, I'd like to see in order to be able to offer more help.

[jdubs]

Thanks for the reply.

My website is Business Cards, Letterheads, Envelopes and more.

The number of business cards I would give away would greatly vary based on the traffic of the individual blog, but I would distribute at least one set of 1000 business cards, and up to 50 sets if the blog is large enough

[jdubs]

woah, my last reply used my title tags as my anchor text, I've never seen forums automatically link like that.

[QuirkyJessi]

Yep, Bloggeries automatically formats links to something relevant.

And one of the major problems you're going to run into is that you're trying to advertise/offer physical products to people who are likely much more focused on the virtual world. Meaning...most bloggers who advertise, do so in digital format, not paper format. The people who are commenting on other people's blogs aren't always people who need a 1000 business cards either.

That being said, what kind of blogs have you been targeting?

Try thinking outside the box. Have you looked at mommy bloggers at all? There's a huge group of mommy bloggers and many of them do "work at home" type things. They're running Ebay stores, making crafts, etc. I know several who order business cards for their small businesses, so offering up cards to their viewers as a prize, isn't such a bad idea. Are you familiar with Etsy at all? You might seek out bloggers who mention their own products on Etsy. I know these are smaller things, but I don't want to see you focus just on strictly business blogs who you might think would desire cards....when really, they're probably focused on online adventures more so.

On that same note, you might have better luck offering up a different prize package. You also have letterheads, envelopes, etc, which might be enticing to an entirely different group of people. Just throwing out ideas in case maybe you're having issues with low return rate because of who you're focusing on.

[jdubs]

Thanks for the tips,

I have been targeting graphic design blogs mainly. But perhaps you are correct in that I should thinking outside the box. Mommy blogs are a great idea!

[Nathan]

Some sort of custom writing paper may appeal to readers of writing blogs such as my Imagination Manifesto. That said, I am thinking of hosting a contest in the near future, but it isn't quite ready to launch yet. (I'm working on a secret surprise for my contest! )

[jaypeeonline]

I'm currently holding a blog contest and I would've gladly accepted an offer from you to be a sponsor for the contest. Let me know if you still plan to do this again as I'm already planning for my next blog contest.

[Hot Alpha Female]

You want blog traffic, then start a blog.

Hire someone to write it if you want and then make meaningful comments on other blogs getting them back to yours.

Then on your blog also have specific posts which are money posts, which market your product.

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