Help iboats design a contest

[bvassel3]

I need your help with some good ideas. The goal...we want to increase the number of people who receive and then look at our new e-magazine, the "iboats.com Review". As you have seen, we are already promoting the Review heavily on iboats.com, including in these Forums, and we are getting more people to sign up to receive the Review.

I'd like to get even more people to sign up to recieve the Review e-magazine. Here's the core of my idea...iboats would run a contest where people could recommend to their boating and fishing family members, neighbors and friends that those family, friends and neighbors should sign up to receive the Review...by providing iboats.com with their email address so we could then send them the Review for free. When someone who was recommended then did sign up (and told us who referred him/her), we would put the name of the recommending person of that new subscriber into a drawing for some cool prize. And maybe the winning person would also have his/her recommended friend who signed up also win a prize.

As you can see, both figuring out the details of how this contest would work, and then explaining it so that people could easily understand the contest, is a bit of a challenge for me. So....I'd really appreciate your help in fine-tuning this idea. Or maybe I need to throw this idea out and come up with a better, simpler idea of how to rapidly increase the viewership of the Review e-magazine.

So maybe I'll offer a prize to the iboats Forum Member who comes up with the best suggestion on how to design and offer a simple, powerful contest that will rapildy increase our viewership of the iboats.com Review. Maybe an iboats MegaMall gift certificate???

 

[bvassel3]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

I'm both interested in and a little frustrated with the fact that I have not gotten any help with this so far from any of our Forum members.

Is the idea just a bad one or is there some other reason why you think people are not responding with suggestions to the idea of a contest?

BV3

 

[patrickray]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

How about a $300 gas card to the member with most referals. $200 for second $100 for third. Then mabye something for 4th & 5th from the iboats store. You have to keep in mind. Everyone here has a boat. And the price of gas well you know......

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

The Iboats gift certificate idea is probably the best approach so far. Given the international membership the gas card idea probably isn't going to cut it unless this is a U.S only endeavor.
This is Iboats call obviously, but you might be cutting out some of your own membership (with the gas card bit) in taking that approach.
The tougher part is getting the Iboaters to come up with a good sell angle to their contacts that will compel them to sell the e-magazine and then have the 'sellee' feel interested enough to then look into it and thus sign up.
There is something missing in this process that I can't put my finger on. Too many steps? ....hmmm, have to ponder it a bit more.
My two bits.
BP

 

[aspeck]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

BV, I just saw it now ... been a bit hectic around here ... I am sure that is why you are not getting many posts yet. It sounds like a great idea, and I know I will push the review even more ... I think the review is AWESOME! Will get back with you on the idea when I have had a chance to think.

 

[JB]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Suppose you embed the contest in the Review, BVIII? People would then have to read it to have an opportunity to win something. Win what? Maybe a Megamall gift certificate or discount.

Once they read it they will want more.

 

[bvassel3]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Thanks for the suggestions, so far. Keep them coming. We can, of course, do several things if that makes sense.

BV3

 

[Kiwi Phil]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

hmmmmmmmmmm.......same horse, different course.

I see 2 distinct areas to deal with.

1. the prize
2. the mechanics of the whole op

I think #2 is the most important nut to crack. The prize (#1) will be simple to work out.

Now to # 2. Why re-invent the wheel.
Down here there are many products doing exactly what you want to do....so why not go thru your grocery store etc and buy items that have prizes for "doing something". See how they work, and copy. Take the best ideas, throw the rest.

I have seen TV programs where they interview people who make it a hobby to enter competitions with prizes. Try and find some and ask them what they look for....best way to lay out your competition etc.

Now lets go one step further.
Every magazine on the planet is trying to do what you want to do....increase circulation....that equals better 'figures' to present to your advertisers......

My brother (the Englishman) has a few publications and he is always trying to sell his subscriptions, plus get effective mailing lists for "free copies" hoping they will lead to subscriptions, plus encourage advertisers to continue because of the size of his 'runs'.
( I actually have 1,500 mags delivered to my door yesterday, from his printer in Indonesia, to get to the organisers of a Conference down here. They are free-bee's for the delegates.)

So i am guessing you want to increase your lists.

1. how many people do you have contacting iboats daily (purchasing or forums).
It would make sence to me to use this list to forward your mag too....with a polite note that "if you have an interest in boating, then I would like you to accept this free mag. If you don't wish to recieve it, please click the 'no' button and we will stop it"
Make sure you don't send it to the same address twice.
After they have recieved say 3 issues, then ask for a referral.
From the outside, I would guess you already have a good list of people with an interest in the area of your product.

2. content is important....articles have to be 'good and informative', and broken up in to sections (like the reciepe section down the back....a life-style story.....reviews of products etc)

3. What I am aiming at is....if you can have 2-3 articles that will interest anyone, then that may overcome scepticism = people accepting it and not replying "no", which takes the gas off you running competitions etc.
In other words, the usefulness of your product (value) creates demand.

4. Be careful with articles. The 'average bloke' is average because he makes up 80% of the population......and while he can't afford a new 30' Cruiser and his old lady dosn't sit out front in a thong and a glass of wine, dosn't mean he dosn't spend a lot of money on his boating and fishing interest......so make sure you meet his needs.....he is the man that keeps your economy going....so meet his needs.....cover cheaper tinnies......how to tie a fly......what lures work where......motor maintanance.....trailering......use articles people want to know about.

What I am asking you to consider is: give the reader content that he gets something from, so he wants your mag.
In other words, don't attack the problem from the front, have a go at it from the back!!

Another trick, is to suggest to your advertisers, you will run an article on their product, in appreciation for their ad, so long as it is a factual article, put together by them, edited by you to comply with your standards.
You have to kill 2 birds with one rock.

I don't spend 1cent on advertising......I survive on price.
My product retails in the Supermarket for $1.99....my opposition is $3.69. The 2 products are near identical.
I spend my money in mechanisation of plant, equipment and systems, which reduces costs and maintains margin.
The customer holds mine in one hand, the oppositions in the other hand....and chooses.

My suggestion for you to consider is....copy me.....get the customer to 'want' yours which = increased circulation which = your goal.
Aim for a self-perpetuating cycle

Our very close friends have 27 mags covering the leisure market....boats included.
Every 2 months I get 27 free mags.
The lowest selling ones are the ones covering the most expensive products.........
We will be with them for dinner on Saturday.......if you have any questions you want answered, let me know and I will put them to them.

Just re-read this.....hope I havn't missed your point.....if so, just ignor me and accept my apologies.

Cheers
Phillip

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

What he ^^^ said.

 

[bvassel3]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Thanks Phillip for some very thought provoking comments and ideas. I'll need to re-read what you wrote a few times and do some thinking.

From your comments it almost sounded as if you have not taken the opportunity yet to look at our Review e-magazine. Please take a few minutes to do so as some of your comments and concerns may get answered or change somewhat after you look at the content that we have been including over the last several months since we started the e-publication.

I really do agree with your suggesting we focus on who our audience really is, and make sure that we are true to them 1st and foremost. Amen. Of the 4 million people who visit iboats.com each month, the vast majority are not yacht owners...although we love them too and have a good number of them visiting us...but most are more "typical" boaters and fishermen...and so their interests are primarily in seeing and reading about the stuff that they do, not the yachting they will never do, even if it's fun to dream about that fancy stuff a little.

Certainly we want to increase the number of readers of the Review for advertising reasons. However...iboats.com did not start out with an advertising model, nor is that our primary focus or revenue stream today. My son and I started this company 10 years ago this October to help boaters and fishermen by offering them terrific boating and product information (including these Forums), purchase deals with excellent pricing on more products than anybody else offers, and great support and customer service...including our toll-free phone numbers and service center, a rare find among dot coms .

But I still say all the time that iboats.com remains, unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets around to far too many millions of boaters. That's my real frustration and that's what continues to powerfully drive me to push to get more people to see and read and pass on the iboats Review e-magazine to other boaters and fishermen, so that more and more people will find out about iboats! That's right, the Review is a means to an end...for more millions of people to find out about and come visit and share in iboats.com! Advertising is nice...but spreading the word about iboats and how it can help all of us "regular" people with our passion of boating and fishing is far more important to me.

I'll climb down now off of my little soap box.

Please keep the thoughts coming.

BV3

 

[Kiwi Phil]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Quick reply BV3
Got a lot on....but still thinking.
As mentioned, going to dinner tonight (in 14hrs time), so will raise the topic with this couple and take quick notes on their views.

Think I have the jist of the subject.
If you have anything to add or question to ask, let me know beforehand.

Cheers
Phillip

 

[rolmops]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

BV3
I am sort of amazed by your question.
The way I see it ,you must have access to a gazillion email addresses through all of your online sales.If you send that magazine to every person who ever bought something from iboats you must have quite some circulation.If you require the email address of every person who asks a question on this board,you should have some more.
The problem is to get this magazine in the inbox and not the spam box.By giving you my friend's email address,not only do I disrespect his right to privacy,but he will never get to see it because any unknown email sender will end up in his spam box.
It should be possible for you to stick a pop up ad in,every time someone opens up an iboats window and run a short sound bite about your magazine.It is very hard these days not to see an iboats window when you surf the web for anything having to do with boating.You might just provide an attractive link to your online magazine with every iboats window anyone anywhere opens when he looks for anything boat related

 

[bhammer]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Very good post by kiwi phil, he stole a little of my thunder and I say it again, a little as that is all I had to give was a little. After reading this and thinking about it some and reading again, the first thing that came to my mind that hasn't bee covered is fraud. Not that any iBoaters would do this, but it is too easy for someone just to create a bunch of Gmail accounts and sign up fictitious friends. That's what I'd have to do because I don't have any friends.

At the aviation company I work, when we wanted to increase our presence and brand, we tried many things but we were still, like iBoats, a well kept secret. What finally worked, we started speaking at trade events, writing free articles for the rags as contributing authors, and any other capital free ways to get our name out in the public. You could also send out the newsletter to any and all orders made with instructions on how to sign up for it and leave the checkbox on the orders page to allow them their as well.

Having articles that "reach" your audience is the important part to get folks to read the newsletter. I'd suggest having polls or polling well rounded iBoaters for the articles they would enjoying reading.

On a personal note, I spend half my life on the road. It would be much easier for me to have the newsletter emailed, as an attachment, to me instead of downloading it. Thanks for adding the the save to disk suggestion but I am still too lazy to remember to download it. And then when I am a captive audience on an airplane, I cannot. It is amazing how many people I meet that enjoy boats that do the same so this may be a good idea as an option. Also, I made a suggestion to the Mods that it would be real nice if I could use a standard news reader, such as Outlook Express, to access the forums. I don't know if the forums program will allow this or not, but it would be one more way for people to access it at anytime. A good example of this is a guy down the street, he accesses via dial up and it takes him too long to move about so he gave up. The issue I can think of for this is advertising but maybe there is a way to stick it in. Something to think about.

 

[Kiwi Phil]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Had a great dinner, and discussed this subject for maybe 15 mins.
Here are comments from my friend and his wife:

(remember I am illiterate when discussing computer "terms", so just wrote them down, not understanding them)

use Google ad words
use Key words
be aware people in other countries will easily 'pass' opening a site that does not have their country behind the address.
eg
1.Aussies may not open a dot com as they know it to be American and won't waste their time
2. Brits may only open dot UK
(do you understand what I am getting at???

Westmarine builds profiles of their customers....creating their own data base....then send that customer info on anything related to a previous purchase or enquiry (apparantly works with "hobbies and recreational 'things' ").

For every customer you have, do same, and also send your Mag with an "opt-out-system".
Maybe ask every enquiry ...."do you want free boating info?"
Send action offers (whatever that means)

In Australia they (friends) would place you good space on front page of Boat Point .com. au and then Trader Boat , and Club Marine Mag. That covers complete Australian market, but there is no proper Australian Data Base of Marine Customers available to buy. (how can you apply that to American situation?)

Use a competition to register.

Vantage plus (havn't a clue what that means).

And of course, when you want to move in to the Australian Market, they want what i think could be termed 'your account'.

If you can take a good idea from all that......good.
If it re-inforces 'what not to do'...then good.

Cheers
Phillip

PS
I have read your mag (while back) and registered. (enjoyed it too).
In my original post, I blank everything out, so I can take a constructive 'original position'....apologise for not stating that back then.

 

[Mark42]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

I'm both interested in and a little frustrated with the fact that I have not gotten any help with this so far from any of our Forum members.

Is the idea just a bad one or is there some other reason why you think people are not responding with suggestions to the idea of a contest?

BV3

Being a family man, and boating on a budget (yes, I have two boats, but they are 14' and 16' and I do all the work myself), much of the content of the magazine is not oriented or of interest to me or my family. Reviews of new expensive boats I can't afford to buy or fuel are not of interest. Same for most of the products advertised. The balance of the content - be it personal fishing stories or humor, is not of interest or enough of a pull to get me to take the time to read it.

I joined iboats.com because the forums are oriented to people who do their own boat maintenance. People who are on a budget. People who buy used boats and fix them. The Review magazine is not oriented to that audience. Maybe because a large percentage of the forum members are used boat buyers, those formum members have not shown interest in the magazine.

Although I must add that the magazine is very well crafted, and it is a quality product.

There are other boating forums where the majority of members are large/new boat owners. The question is how to get their attention.

 

[LoweRider]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

I just signed up for the magazine at least you have one new reader from this contest before it even started. With the quality of the magazine it shouldn't be hard to get people to read it once they see it . I'll try to come up with some ideas to help.

 

[oops!]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

I'm both interested in and a little frustrated with the fact that I have not gotten any help with this so far from any of our Forum members.

Is the idea just a bad one or is there some other reason why you think people are not responding with suggestions to the idea of a contest?

BV3

its a great idea.......i been away......

But I still say all the time that iboats.com remains, unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets around to far too many millions of boaters.

BV3

totally agreed.....it took me 40 days of searching the net to find this place i call "home"

I joined iboats.com because the forums are oriented to people who do their own boat maintenance. People who are on a budget. People who buy used boats and fix them. The Review magazine is not oriented to that audience.

i agree with mark on the basic jist of this comment.........a little more "pointing to the forums" might be good for the mag....

HOWEVER....all in all, the mag is great. yes. i read it.
(loved jb's article in july....)

getting back to the point......ill think on this for a bit...i like burrying the contest in the mag idea............

as a side note.......let it be known, i have handed the i boats addy to over 50 local boaters....this site makes you a better boater.......

i would also like permission to place a "powered by iboats.com" sign on the side of my boat when done.

also on the main page of the site, a bigger flag to the forums, and a hint of the world of wonderful info that is in here, would increase the membership (and the mag circ) huge....on four occasions......it has taken me 5 minits by phone to describe how to find the forums once the person has found the i boats main page.

all in all, this mag is fantastic. its in its infancy, dont get discouraged, keep at it, you have a great product....one that i read, and one that i would advertise in if i was in the industry.

btw....if i remember correctly....LF. is in radio sales....this makes her a really good asset as far as creative ideas and marketing stratigies.

cheers
oops

 

[bhammer]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

HOWEVER....all in all, the mag is great. yes. i read it.
(loved jb's article in july....)

Me too.

i would also like permission to place a "powered by iboats.com" sign on the side of my boat when done.

Now, that's not a bad idea. My boat is far from how "powered" yours is oops, but it stays running because of this great site. I'd put a couple cool / sexy stickers on my boat like that. I think you need to put the names of every helper on your boat.

btw....if i remember correctly....LF. is in radio sales....this makes her a really good asset as far as creative ideas and marketing stratigies.

That's a great idea.

 

[bvassel3]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

I was out of town for a few days...so sorry it took so long to get back to you who posted on this thread.

Great posts with thoughtful comments. Thank you all for commenting and making suggestions. It is so helpful to hear your perspectives on what iboats is all about and who we really serve, and also all of your ideas. Going forward, there is a LOT more that we can be doing and are planning to do to make iboats even better for more of our members/visitors/readers.

I'm still working on how a contest would work, be simple and also be supportive of those who participate. No breakthroughs yet. I'll keep you informed for sure on this. In the meantime, I agree that we need to look at ways to make the Forums easier to spot/find throughout our site.

Go for it "oops!", we would be honored for you to name your boat after iboats.com!

BV

 

[oops!]

Re: Help iboats design a contest

Go for it "oops!", we would be honored for you to name your boat after iboats.com!

BV

thank you ! ill take that as written permission.....the name of the boat has to do with the theme. so the name wont be iboats......but i wanted to put at least 3 inch letters on the back gunnels before the transom ...."powered by iboats .com forums...using the i boats font and logo.

(the proj would never be anywhere what it is with out the help of the mods and members of this forum)

i was thinking......about the contest.....im kinda drawing a blank about promoting it within the forum..(outside of what your doing)...cause its kinda like drawing from the same well........but i would guess.....all the regulars are subscribed......its the new 15 or 50 posters that you want.

(after 15 posts...they will feel at home...and more likely to have made a decision to stick around or use this as a one or two time stepping stone to the answers they seek, or to stay and join the family)

outside of having members write an artical and the compitition would be to see who gets published....the winning artical would recive a prize....and all the members would read it....i personally would love to read an article by qc or gary h nc.

the only thing i can think of is promos for the non members, or new people that have never seen the site......thats easy getting them.

just post a sign at the boat launches that says "become a better boater"
free...no solitations" with an i boats hand out about the forums.

actually i was thinking about it today, and im gonna (with your permission)
have a main laminated one made up...then a single paper brochure about the mag and the forums.

if that gets you 50 new members....its a sucess !

ill keep thinking on your question and post thoughts.

cheers
oops