Jill Cranford of Livermore, Colo. writes:
“My company, Stone2Furniture, which makes indoor and outdoor furniture from stone, is having an Ugly Patio Furniture Contest and we’ll be giving away a set of our stone furniture valued at $4,100. The contest runs through August. “So here I am with the rules drawn up, and it’s live on our website and in the Media Room. I sent out 130 snail-mail flyers and emails to editors. “My next step is getting it to the local news channels. But I am wondering if I am missing a step? I haven’t heard from any editors. I know this will be fun but I’m just not sure how to launch it.”
I am a huge fan of design, especially “green” design (and I think this might qualify!) and I have a Google reader FULL of design blogs. I would recommend that Jill put together a little blurb about the contest along with some photos of her products, and submit them to different design blogs. I have a bunch of them in a list if she’d like to email me, but she can go to google and type in “design blog” and she will find a ton of them.
There are tons of sweepstakes sites all over the web where you can post your contest. Some of the best are http://www.online-sweepstakes.com and one on About.com
(search for category)to submit. You might not attract the customers you seek, but you never know. They tend to self-select out by requiring a photo.
Also:
– team up with a national sponsor or home store or
local or national landscape chain? Or even your
stone source.
– assume you have sent to trade pubs in landscape, furniture, retailers, and furnishing industries?
– HGTV and like-minded shows for an episode or even
a series?
Good luck.
Contests are all over the place within Twitter. Zappos has done it successfully, as well as solopreneurs.
Nothing allows you to interact with your target market more directly than Twitter. With the power of retweets, your contest can go viral.
Not to mention that it makes a good case study for many bloggers to write about, increasing your publicity even more.
Thank you to everyone and great ideas! I will put them all to the test and let you know how it turns out! Thanks again!
grow some type of herb inside of the containers, a little greenhouse
Hi Jill,
I know this is a little late for me to address but with regards to your publicity problems, I suggest you have posters or conduct some forums with organizations which could both provide the manpower and the round up participants for your events. Those environmental groups would love the concept on which your event is based upon. This will be useful if you’re planning on doing the contest annually. And by the way, please post the details if you’re indeed pushing through with a similar event. I have some designs myself which I based on the patio furniture of http://www.cozydays.com/. Of course, I improvised and had alternatives for the pieces in my set just like you did.
I hope it helps and more power to your company for organizing such events!