The time has finally come. As I’ve promised, today the winners for the MelvinBlog’s Marketing Tip Contest will be announced. And as I’ve said, I will not be late this time in announcing the winners I will try not to be late but still I did (lols, its Aug.7 in Philippines).
As I’ve mentioned thousand of times, the entries were really great and I’m sure the judges had a hard time rating each article. I myself had a hard time too! Anyways for the last time I’d like to thank the sponsors for gracing this event as if not for them all these things will not happen. I’d like to thank my media partner Fergal of Business Advice Forum who has done an exceptional job in spreading the news. Now for the last time let’s give these people a round of a plause for being sponsors:
Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
- QuickSprout – Quicksprout is a blog about entrepreneurship and personal branding. It’s owned by a very successful entrepreneur Neil Patel who owns various software companies and also does consulting for big companies like TechCrunch and etc.
- LogoNerds – LogoNerds is custom logo design company that offers high quality custom designs, impeccable service and unbeatable prices, LogoNerds.com has quickly become the number one choice of small businesses everywhere.
- Shoutmeloud – ShoutmeLoud is a blog tackling blogging and technology and is owned by Harsh Agrawal. It is one of the most popular blogs here in Asia and is amazingly getting good rankings on search engines. He also offers a Blogger to WordPress migration service
- Themewars – Themewars is a premium themes club owned by the ever popular Unique Blog Designs who have made the designs for a lot of popular bloggers in the industry.
- Carl Ocab – more famously known as KidBlogger, Carl is a turning 16-year old kid who probably has made more money than you. At that young age, he was able to fund several product oriented sites like the Ultimate Blogging Theme and YoungestBloggers.
- MyBlogGuest – MyBlogGuest is a serviceable forum aimed finding guest bloggers and blogs to guest blog. It is managed by SEO specialist Ann Smarty.
Silver Sponsors
- SmartBloggerz – SmartBloggerz provides useful tips for bloggers about making money online, blogging, SEO and etc.
- DailyBlogTips – DBT is a very popular blog when it comes to blogging and it is considered as one of the market leaders in the blogging niche.
- OIO Publisher – OIOpublisher is an ad manager that focuses on maximising your revenue, saving you time, and keeping you in complete control of your ad space.
- Blogussion – Blogussion is a blog handing out blogging tips and timely discussions all about improving blogs. They are a blog about blogging that provides outstanding tips for excelling your blog in a variety of topics.
- GabFire Themes – Gabfire Themes was founded in 2008 by Mehmet Özekinci a 29-year old independent web designer and web project consultant based in Estonia.
- Dean Hunt – The ever popular Dean Hunt is the pioneer of Buzz and Personality Marketing. He runs a very popular blog at DeanHunt.com w/c gives out the best buzz marketing strategies on the internet.
Bronze Sponsors
- WebTrafficROI – WebTrafficROI is a web marketing blog aimed at people passionate about their Web Business and Blogging.
- Jimvesting – JimVesting is a blog owned by Jim Regan. The blog gives out stock market tips, business advices, and making money online in general.
- Blogtactic – is a blog owned by Richard about making money online targeted more to Malaysia.
- FamousBloggers – Famous Bloggers is a multi-authors blog and Social Network platform for Making Money Online Tips built on the contributions of its authors.
- Elegant Themes – Elegant Themes is an all access WordPress themes membership site that provides the best themes on the market. It also offers exceptional support through forums.
- BetterBloggingForBloggers – BBB is ran by Liane who is one of the few talented young bloggers in the industry. The blog provides blogging tips aimed both for newbie and experts.
Now the Winners
So all in all we had 16 entries and as I’ve said the winners will be judged by two factors; quality and popularity. Quality is 70% and is largely based on the ratings given by the five judges. The second one is popularity which accounts for 30%. This is basically the amount of comments and retweets the posts have received. For the sake of getting you more excited here’s the screenshot of the scoreboard (Click for a larger view)
As agreed upon, I’m not going to disclose the name of the judges for now. If you saw the image above and still you were not able to figure it out. Read below to see the complete list of the winners.
1st Prize – Lee Ka Hoong
Lee’s entry was entitled 3 Effective Blog Marketing Strategies That I Use and it got the highest score overall. He scored a total of 8.1 points and got the nod of most judges. Aside from that it also got a lot of traffic that his blog was one of the main traffic drivers for my blog on that month. Congratulations Lee! You win the following:
- 6 months free for the standard package of CrazyEgg valued at $19 a month – $114 value
- 1 character design courtesy of LogoNerds – $97 value
- 1 multi-use package of Themewars premium theme – $70 value
- WordPress SEO service courtesy of ShoutMeLoud.com – $250 value
- 1 First Class Package of Ultimate Blogging Theme 3.0 – $147 value
- 1 license of OIO Publisher – $47 value
- $20 cash from FamousBloggers.com – $20
- 6 months free Web hosting courtesy of MelvinBlog.com – $45 value
- 1 copy of Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco – $17 value
- Premium Interview featured here in MelvinBlog.com – $70 value
2nd Prize – Murray Lunn
Murray which is more known by the name Murlu wrote a post entitled Write 10 Articles A Day, Market Yourself And Avoid Burn Out. In that article Murray made a really interesting point and approach in terms of not burning out yourself so you still have time to do a lot of things. Personally this my favorite post as I find this really really unique and innovative. Congrats Murlu! You win the following:
- $50 cash and one year PRO membership for MyBlogGuest – $170 value
- 1 copy of Blogussion Thesis theme package – $46 value
- 1 character design courtesy of LogoNerds – $97 value
- 1 license of OIO Publisher – $47 value
- 1 copy of Crowbar Content courtesy of Buzz Marketing guru Dean Hunt – $97
- 1 copy of Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco – $17 value
- $15 cash from BlogTactic
- 1 copy of 70 Posting Ideas courtesy of Liane – $15
3rd Prize – Devesh (no surname)
Dev wrote a well-received posts entitled 10 Best Marketing Tips that Will Blow Your Mind | Make Money Online. I can say that’s a good post to start with and its nice that his readers really benefitted from that article. Actually he’s tied for second place with Murlu but for the tie-breaker I asked all the judges on who deserves the 2nd and 3rd place more. Congrats Dev, you win the following:
- 1 copy of Gab Fire Theme – $59 value
- 1 year membership for ElegantThemes -$19
- $15 cash, one advertising space and one copy of Facebook ad coupon eBook valued at $15 courtesy of Smartbloggerz.com – $54 total value
- 1 copy of Easy Blog Traffic worth $59, Insider SEO Revealed at $39 and Twitter Marketing Power worth $57 courtesy of WebTrafficROI.com
- 1 copy of Thirtyday blog eBook by Jimvesting – $15 value
- 1 copy of 70 Posting Ideas courtesy of Liane – $15
And to everyone else.
To all others who have joined the contest namely, Agent Deepak (man! you’re the favorite one on this contest), D3s0, Felix Albutura, Elie Palima, Cynthia Boris, Febap Liew, Sourav, I’d like to thank you for participating in the contest. You know what? I feel really really bad that I only got this number of sponsor prizes to give away. I mean I should’ve begged for more.
All entries are just exceptional and as you can see in the scoreboard, the difference between the winner points and a non-winner points do not even have a disparity of 1 point! It only means that this contest is really well fought so everyone should really deserve more than just a mention.
Again I hope I could’ve grabbed 10 – 20 more prizes so maybe I can include 2 or more winners but I didn’t really expect it to be this tight.
I wish I could give away $50 to each one too but that would be too much for me. Still for those who didn’t win, again just because I appreciate your entries, it’s closely fought, almost had same scores with the winners, I am going to contact you (using your blog’s contact form) for a surprise prize. Yes that’s how I appreciate you and your entry. Just wait and I’m sure you’re gonna be happy about it. 🙂
Twitter Retweet Contest
I nearly forgot this! I was about to publish this post yesterday midnight until I realized this contest. If you would remember, there was a side-in contest which was more to twitter users. As mentioned I’m giving away 10 prizes for that as well. Here are the awesome winners drawn randomly via random.org and in chronological order:
The 10 highlighted names are the winners and they are arranged chronologically. Its kind of funny because John Chow who retweeted my article won too although Im sure he wouldn’t mind giving that thing away to others anyway. Here’s your winnings btw:
- Deanna_J – GabFire Theme
- AgentDeepak – Blogussion Thesis Theme
- whatswithjeff – Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco
- easy4com – Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco
- John Chow – Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco
- AhsanHussein – Thirtyday Blog eBook by Jimvesting
- MyBlog2day – Thirtyday Blog eBook by Jimvesting
- d3so – Thirtyday Blog eBook by Jimvesting
- Elie Palima- 1 copy of Social Media Marketing Book
- Funbu – Youtube Made Simple Video Series Book
To all winners both in retweet contest and the main contest, don’t contact me. I will be contacting you to give you directions on how you can claim your prizes. It goes the same to non-winners on the main contest as I would be surprising you by giving you something. 😉
Again, don’t contact me. I will be the one who will contact you.
Successful Contest, What’s Next?
Well this contest ran for almost 2 months and I prepared this for almost 4 months. With that, I wanted to weep that it ended up being successful and I was really happy with the turnout. Congratulations again to all contestants, you’re all winners as I learned a lot from you. Also to sponsors, which are mostly my peers and friends, I appreciate you helping me out. This isn’t anywhere possible if not for you guys!
Obviously I’m don’t have the time I used to for this blog as I’ve started working a normal job but rest assure that this blog will still be as alive as ever. And if you’re looking to maximize and take advantage of my traffic, then why not submit a guest post entry so that your article would be featured for a long time since I don’t really have that much time to write a post? clever idea eh? 🙂