Promoting and Monetizing a Blog Just in Time for Prom

Strange title, I know. But I'm consulting on monetization and user-generated content optimization for a prom dresses site that's being redeveloped and which is going to include a daily updated blog. Part of the concern was how best to monetize the blog as the rest of the site has its own monetization plan based on its structure.

So, I was searching for other prom related blogs to see if anyone in that space was already hitting a homerun. Part of that search turned up a prom scholarship contest, which coincidentally is for a school with a San Diego location, and I remembered what great potential there is for promoting and monetizing through contests and scholarships.

Blog Promotion
As far as promotion goes, contests and scholarships can help your blog gain tremendous exposure and a healthy does of free links. The trick is making sure that you do a good job of promoting the contest or scholarship, unless you have a large readership.

Blog Monetization
Twice we've enlisted the help of a third party to get them to pony up the contest prize or scholarship cost (generally it's a prize or a scholarship directly from their business) as well as pay our bloggers (clients) to run the promotion. How great is that, the monetization simply requires you to do a little digging and find a business or organization that is relevant to your readers... and who wants to jump on the "blog bandwagon"? Trust me, there is no shortage. Be creative!

Blog Contest / Blog Scholarship Setup
First, you need to hunt down some prospects who you know could offer prizes or scholarships that would catch your readers' attention. Make a list and come up with some suggested prizes or scholarships for each one.

Now, you're going to need to whip together a template pitching the idea, in which you'll need to personalize the specifics, including the value proposition, for the organizations you propose the idea to.

In order to help perpetuate the contest I suggest working with the sponsor to create a scale where the prize increases depending on the number of applicants. That's a great way to entice people to pass it on and not just quietly enter.

Conclusion
Obviously this takes a bit of work, but if all goes well it should result in links (contests = linkbait!) and a taker who pays for the whole gig.

My client has found a taker for a writing contest about what would be the entrant's favorite prom theme. They'll be giving away 3 prom dresses (2007 gowns specifically) and publishing the entries. The deal they constructed was that each entrant should visit their affiliate's site (who sells gowns, dresses, shoes and more) and pick their two favorite prom dress styles and colors and submit their selection along with their sizes and of course their prom theme description.

So, in this case, the blog gets free content (prom theme descriptions), exposure, likely some links, they struck a nice deal for payment to setup the contest, and a modest commission on dresses sold. The merchant ends up getting a lot of people browsing their catalog to find their favorite dresses, but as with all contests the majority won't win and may end up just buying the dress outright.

I'll update later as to the level of success for the merchant but my prediction is 40 dresses sold, at an average of $175.00 each for an increase in revenue of $7,000.00.