Paying for Communications Using Prizes, Contests and Awards

While participating in forums I found out that by offering just a few dollars in the form of a payment, I can get the attention of many hundreds of readers to a post that would have been “dead” without such an offer.

Offering a small financial incentive works tremendously well.

I started working on that idea, which let to my 2008 Rich Sage Contests, but what I didn’t count on was the affiliate software delay by 9 months.  It’s bad enough that I am against gambling, but my idea to award prizes turned into a nightmare when my affiliate software didn’t do what I needed.

Now my affiliate software is running, and I am ready to update the contest area, and add several monthly prizes as well.  My goal is to offer REAL CASH plus incentives, and prizes to “motivate” everyone who visits here to make a contribution by commenting, joining a forum or even becoming a member.

My plan is to generate as much “buzz” with the contests and get the visitors to participate in the various areas of the “community” increasing page views and time spent with the Rich Sage.

Obviously, the more time is spent the more likely that readers will stumble upon my sales pages and actually click an ad exiting from the site.

More about my Contests as my Discussion Continues…

These are the Contests that I’ll Run:

• The 2009 Rich Sage Make Money Online Contest –This is already running, but I’ll have to revise the dates and update some of the prizes.  I can also add many prizes from my own product selection.
• Monthly FREE Ad Forum Contest — I’ll award a monthly prize of $100 to $250 dollars to the most popular posts.  Obviously, the posts that are generating the most search engine traffic and reader views is beneficial to the Rich Sage Community.  I’ll award the prizes to such posts.
• Monthly Utopia Forum Contest — The same approach as the Free Ad Forum Contest will be taken here.  I’ll award $100 to $250 dollar monthly prizes to the posts with the most views.
• And lastly, a monthly contest for my Underground Member Area — In this case, I’ll again look at the most popular posts by the members and award prizes based on views and helpfulness of the posts to the general membership.

The objective of the first contest remains the same — to deliver a prize that the winners can count on to earn the amounts that I’ve mentioned in the prize information page.

With the other three contest, I’ll start by handing out $500, $100 to $250 (Free Ad Forum) and $100 to $250 in prize money (for the Utopia Forum).  That’s just the start  –as the site matures and the revenue increases I’ll keep adding more and more incentives as the amounts and prizes continue to increase.

From my traffic stats I believe the July and August along with December represent the months with the least traffic.  All of my planning is great timiming –as the summer months end, I can be ready for an ever increasing number of visitors to Rich Sage dot com.

Carpe Diem,
Rich Sage