I recently launched lambosweepstakes.com, a site where users fill out a few surveys and in return are entered into a raffle for a Lamborghini as well as a number of iPods. You can check out the original post with all the info here. The site went up two days ago and so far I haven’t had time to do any real marketing other than posting a Facebook event and showing a few friends, and it’s pulled in a total of $55. There are two main issues I’m trying to figure out how to fix, so I wanted to run them by you all to see if you had any ideas.

• Too many entry requirements. To enter the raffle, people have to fill out five surveys that range from 1-4 pages and will take a total 5-10 minutes. When people visit the site, they are presented with a list of the five surveys and there are so many that it seems overwhelming, and thus people don’t want to enter. I’m trying to figure out a way to change it up so the entry requirements are either a lot shorter, or the same length but appear a lot shorter. One idea I had was making it so only one survey is required, and then people can do additional surveys to increase their chances.
• People think it’s fake. A few people have said it sounds so crazy that it doesn’t seem like it could be real. They don’t understand how it could possibly make money and they in turn believe it to be a scam. I was thinking about making the URL into a decal and putting it on the windshield and recording some videos of me driving it around - that would at least prove that we actually have the car, but it doesn’t really do anything for the people who think it’s a scam because “there’s no way anyone would ever give away a Lambo.” Someone also suggested that I update the “is this real” page to be less colloquial and create a separate “sweepstakes rules” page, rather than bunching it all together in the “terms of use.”

I’m interested to know what you all think and if you have any ideas, let me know. I’ll keep ya’ll updated as far as how much it’s making, as well as describing some of the marketing tactics that I’m using to draw traffic, so look forward to future posts about this.

If you’ve ever tried one of those sites that pays you to take surveys, you know they’re always insanely long and they only pay you a few cents for each one, so it’s essentially a huge waste of time. I recently decided to start my own paid surveys site, with a twist. You visit the site, you fill out five surveys, you receive a confirmation email for each one and you click the link in the email, and you’re done. In return, you are entered into a raffle for a Lamborghini LP640 Roadster (the badass version of the Murcielago) as well as a side raffle for a number of iPod Touches that will be given away every single week until the raffle for the Lambo ends. Each survey takes about a minute, and five minutes of your time in return for a $350,000 car and a brand new iPod doesn’t sound like such a bad deal, does it? Click here to check out the site.

How do you know this is real and not a scam? I’ve already been asked this a few times so I even decided to put a little section on the actual site about it. It’s not a “scam” because you never have to enter a credit card number or a Paypal account, and you never have to spend ANY money. The most you have to lose is five minutes of your time. Everyone has an equal chance of winning all of the prizes and you might even win more than one, your odds never go down. Plus, look at how professional that landing page looks . Here are some more questions I’ve been asked, incase you were wondering the same things:

• How are you making money with this? The site is sponsored by a few companies who have provided the surveys for you to fill out. To enter the raffle, you must fill out all five surveys, and I get paid based on how many total surveys have been filled out. I’m gambling on the assumption that I’ll be able to market the site on a large enough scale that the number of people who sign up will generate enough revenue to outweigh the cost of the prizes. And hey, $350,000 ain’t nothin’ to a baller like me (actually it is, I just wanted to say that )
• Can I fill out each survey a hundred times so I have a hundred chances of winning? You’re not allowed to, but honestly there’s no way I would know if you did. I’m not sure if the sponsors will check IP addresses though, so you might want to think about it. You will also receive a confirmation email for each survey and you will need to click the link in this email, so obviously you will have to use real email addresses.
• What are my chances of winning? About 1 in 40,000 for the Lambo and 1 in 1500 for an iPod. Compare that to the odds of winning the lottery which is about 1 in 191,000,000. Plus, this contest is free to enter. How much better could it possibly get?

I’m also thinking about having a contest where you can win one of the iPods as well as a few hundred raffle tickets. It would work like a regular blog contest and it would require you to link to the site with the supplied anchor text. What do you all think, would you be interested in something like that?

LAMBOSWEEPSTAKES.COM

I use 1&1 to host a lot of my smaller (MFA, landing pages, and random bullshit) sites. The best thing about it is it lets you have unlimited domains from the same hosting account, and you can register your domains through 1&1 which actually works surprisingly well and makes it really easy to manage your sites. This is why I use it for all my low traffic sites, and right now I have 8 domains using the same server. All this, plus they give you a $50 Adwords voucher, $50 Yahoo voucher, and $100 MSN voucher upon signup (for the “Business” plan, if you get the “Home” plan those vouchers are cut in half), which is already more than what you’re paying for an entire year of hosting.

Before I started Stak Loaded, I had been hearing a lot about HostGator and how great it was, so I decided to try it out and see how it compared. Their plans give you more space and more bandwidth than 1&1 AND at a lower cost, so at first it appears to be a much better deal. However, that’s where the fun stops. HostGator only allows you to associate a single domain with any hosting account and charges you a fee if you want to switch domains after the initial signup. Their customer service is usually pretty good, but compare that to the fact that I have no idea how good 1&1’s customer service is because I’ve never had to use them.

If you tried to access this site earlier today, you probably noticed that it was down and there was a HostGator error message in its place. This is because HostGator decided that a lot of their customers had weak passwords and they wanted to reset everyone’s passwords so we would change them to be harder to crack. This is probably the stupidest thing any web host has ever done. The reason my site went down is because Wordpress needs to be able to access the SQL database on the host account, which requires the password Continue Reading »

You’ve probably noticed a few blogs using the Peel Away Ad, a small “peel” in the top right corner of the page that opens up when you mouse over it. John Chow says the ad is a “no brainer” and that he received five conversions within one hour of putting it up. With those stats, it seems like it really is a “no brainer.”

Now, you can buy the Peel Away Ad for $37, or you can download it for free right after the break! You don’t even need to thank me (although you should definitely subscribe if you want more freebies like this). Continue Reading »