And the winner is…

by Chris on January 12, 2009

celebration

Thanks to all those who entered my competition to win the Muji-Chrononotebook.

The entry closing date was Saturday 10th January 2009 at 12pm GMT.

Here’s how the winner was selected.

1. I had 11 entries in the end (which was strange because when I announced the competition a lot more people were interested)

I entered the numbers 1 to 11 in to the Random.org website. When put in random order whichever number appeared first would be the winning comment:

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2. Hit Randomize!

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3. So No. 7 came out first. Over to the entries to see which comment is No. 7.

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4. And the winner is…..MIKE, from Providence, RI – well done Mike, check your inbox!

Thanks for all of the entries and kind comments guys. Look out for more competitions in the future!

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A few notes on running competitions on your blog (if you have one)

I decided to run a ‘Subscriber only’ competition for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the chance to give a little back to my subscribers as a thanks (to add extra value to being a subscriber of my blog) and secondly to see if running a subscriber competition would increase numbers. It did increase numbers so I am pleased. I am also aware that people may have only subscribed to enter the competition but I am OK with this as it is inevitable, and it still gets me on their radar.
I thought it would be really easy to add a password to the end of a blog post that could only be visible by RSS or Email subscribers. How wrong I was! Unless I completely missed something in my googling, there is no easy way. I tried a footer plugin that didn’t work (hence two posts to annouce the competition, sorry about that). In the end I had to get something up there quickly. I used feedburners ‘feed flares’ feature, which is where you can add links to the end of your feed such as “add to delicious” or “digg this”. I tried to make a custom one but I’ve not messed around with XML before so it didn’t work. I had to therefore opt for an already available text only feed flare hence the rather odd password “Hello, World”.
What have I learned about running a competition on my blog? 1. Test your entry mechanism first! (I should have done this anyway and not procrastinated – not taking my own advice on that one!) 2. It is a great way to increase subscribers, I got a jump of probably over 30 subscribers. I also got a link off Zen Habits at that time though…

LOOK OUT FOR ANOTHER COMPETITION HERE SOON!

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In other news: Ross over at the excellent Will it Change You? blog has just released his eBook “Jump-Start Change”. Do head over an check it out.

And the winner is…

Image by Kazeeee on Flickr via Creative Commons

Image by Kazee ee on Flickr via Creative Commons