Sponsored contests. How not to do it.

Holding contests are a great way to attract more traffic to your sites. I too went ahead with a Dodge Nitro T-shirt contest on my auto blog after being contacted by a company who wanted to sponsor the prizes. Didn't mind promoting the Dodge Nitro as I hoped that in return I would get some publicity. The fact that I wouldn't have to worry about the postage also pushed me to go for the contest.

I'll send the t-shirt to the winner or winners. That way, you don't have to pay for postage...

The contest was not that successful. I guess T-shirts as prizes are not that attractive anymore or maybe it was the brand. There might have been more takers if it had been a Ferrari T-shirt.

Anyway, the sponsors left me high and dry after the contest. They didn't respond to any of my e-mails.

I learnt my lesson the hard way. If I ever get an offer for a sponsored contest, my condition would be to send me the prizes. I will ship them to the winners myself.

Read the whole series of events here.

UPDATE: 5 June 2007
I am really happy to announce that everything turned out great in the end. The whole fiasco was due to e-mail problems.