A "Get the word out about DG" contest?

What do ya'll think about having a "Get the word out about DG" contest, in which members go out to other gardening-related websites, newswpapers, magazines, radio programs and television shows, and try to get them to give a mention of Dave's Garden and Gardens.com?

My thought is that there are hundreds of sites out there that are -STILL- linking to GardenWeb, etc, when they would be better served to link to DG and Gardens.com.

See this Google search, for example:

http://tinyurl.com/2aeu88

My idea is that we would host a contest where we all scout the net looking for good places to let them know about DG (along with all its features, like PlantFiles and Garden Watchdog) as well as Gardens.com, and try to get them to link to us. Also getting mentioned in radio, newspaper and TV spots would be wonderful.

I can offer prizes for those who get the most links. My plan is to offer a prize pack to the winners. The "Dave Pack" would include:

A DG t-shirt (your choice of size)
A Gardens.com t-shirt (your choice of size)
AND a coveted DG coffee mug!

I'm not saying we can do this soon; maybe in a month or so. In the meantime, is this a good idea and worth looking further into?

dave

Dave, It's a great idea. Sooner the better for set up now that you have mentioned it!

If enough people like the idea then I'll definitely get it setup in a hurry!

dave

As long as we have some ground rules that define what is considered a "good" place to ask for a link to us (quality vs. quantity should definitely count for something), and an easy, fair way to credit each member for the links they help create, I think it would be fun.

I've tried doing this type of PR work single-handedly a few times, and it can be fun and interesting to "meet" more contacts within the gardening community (garden website owners, directories, garden writers, etc.)

I think all universities/extension services that have a page of links definitely quality as "good links". Ditto any established gardening company.

After that it gets a little grey.

Dave

Well, with only one person responding here (other than Terry and myself) I don't think it's worth doing. I'll have to figure out another way to give away my DG coffee mugs...

Dave

Most of the garden centers in my local area don't link to other sites at all, they are pretty much about themselves. Exceptions to this are mailorder companies that rank highly in Garden Watchdog, which seem to all be proud to say so. I don't frequent extension sites.

If your goal is to get further up on the search sites, and links going TO the new site or DG is the way to do so, does it matter what site does the link? One approach is to have anyone who has a public web site or blog site to add a DG link to their site. Not sure how you would grade quantity except for self-reporting.

It occurs to me that Plant Files almost always comes up when I search for information on a particular cultivar. Adding a way to link to the new site, or both, inside your own from the red Plant Files menu bar might attract click throughs from your own DG site to the other...and that traffic might help move the new site up the list if the "bots" that surf for such information understand them to be separate sites.

Also, would subscribed forums or threads from one site to the other show as "links" or click throughs?

Laura

This message was edited Feb 14, 2007 10:34 PM

Hehehehe....well, my excuse for not posting sooner is cus I just now saw this thread. :>)

Sounds like it could be fun though! As for me, I tend to do word of mouth, handouts (at Farmers' Mkt), talking to folks at garden centers, DD's school, local garden clubs, etc.

Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to plug DG when approaching newspaper folks, radio/tv stations, magazines/catalog people? If so, we would launch an assault, er, wait, maybe I should say "onslaught", er, no wait (too harsh), maybe an "offensive determination" or a...a...well, you get the picutre

Shoe

Good call, Dave.

I was reticent to respond earlier, as I did not think that folks similar to Dixondale's would appreciate having 25+ DG members spamming their inboxes with a DG promotion.

We don't do that 'cause ~we~ don't like that. :)

On the upside... do we have printable DG cards available here in the Extras? I haven't checked yet, but that would be a fabulous way to gently spread the word without getting into anyone's face.

Warm Regards,
Donna

I would be interested in this as long as it wasn't computer related..I like the printable DG business card idea.
As for the mugs, why don't you hold maybe a raffle...we can buy tickets and the proceeds can go to the Garden Angels Fund..or something like that.

edited to say...I'd be willing to buy outright a DG mug...heck...I was only gonna pay bills anyways, would rather have a mug if they were offered.

This message was edited Feb 14, 2007 10:50 PM

Why don't you set up a flyer (or copy the one Shoe is using) for us to put on our tables at markets, garden clubs, plant sales, master gardener meetings etc? Have you posted this enough places(parking lot?) and for enough time for people to see and understand what you are trying to accomplish? Many people have no idea how things "link".

Dave, maybe an alternative would be to ask for volunteers to "man the phone lines" (or in this case, send out emails ;o)

If there are a dozen or so folks who could spend a little time on this, we can set them up with a forum so they can share notes on who they've contacted (and avoid the "mass stampede" effect.)

The 'mass stampede' was one of the reasons I hesitated....high profile places might get swamped and end up with a bad taste in their mouths.

Seems like we did something similar about 6 years ago, and while most of the places happily included links, I got a couple of unhappy emails from places that had been contacted multiple times.

Maybe something more one-on-one with locals contacting local media and garden centers. Retail centers should be a place to start....we're offering information, not selling plants, so shouldn't be a competition.

I've got a great relationship with a couple of local papers, and DG gets mentioned a couple times a year through articles when they interview me about veggies and such. They're always looking for fresh information for their readers.

Designated marketers would be better, like Mel says. Really, though, wouldn't NameMedia pay some people for these services?

NameMedia would be happy to pay someone for these services, but I want to avoid that. Let's not view NameMedia is our rich uncle who will do things for us.

Dave

I read this yesterday, but didn't comment until I could think about it some more.

One of the reservations I had was turning people off with so many requests, but if there were only so many people doing the contacting, and someone was keeping tract of who had been contacted, by whom, and the response received, that concern would be taken care of.

My other concern was in making this a contest. How would you ever know who made the contacts and what the response was if 20 people all contactacted the same site? For purposes of a contest, there should only be one member claiming they got the site, and how would anyone know for sure if it's legitimate? I don't mean to sound cynical, but for the sake of fairness in a contest, there would have to be some sort of accountability.

Agreed, we need to continue to think of this as our site or it really won't be anymore. If we continue to act a if we steer the site, there is a good chance we will steer the site. "We" are a big block of people. Dave makes the decisions, but we choose to participate within the frame work of ideas and ethics he has established. "THEY" are only gonna step in to fill empty space. Let's just not leave any! I also think the "local" idea is good. Not sure designating is gonna work. I can do some local stuff as I'm sure many people can BUT I have done the online linking routine. I takes time and patience. I know several plant vendors at markets. This week, I'm going to make sure they know about Dave's. I see some other market gardeners I know on here but none of them?

I'm not viewing NameMedia as a rich uncle, just raising what I thought was a valid question. I'm all for promoting DG - you know that more than anyone, Dave.

Okay, here's my contribution.

Why isn't this thread mentioned on the European, Australian, and Canadian threads? (Do I get three points for that?)

I don't mean to be grrrrr-ish, Dave, but if you want to try and get more coverage - how about thinking outside of the US box. I appreciate that there are more US readers, but there is less competition in other geographical areas. Think international, rather than innernational. That being said - if you want contacts in England, I think you need to get Mike Freck on-board. That man has more contacts in the gardening world.......my goodness.

Grammys- you've hit the nail on the head, I think.

Joan- we've discussed those same issues here at our house. This post isn't necessarily a "this is what we're going to do", but more of a "how about this? and how could we go about it?"

There were many members last year who had contacted their local papers and had plugs for DG or gardenwatchdog put in. It's always been very exciting to the community when we've seen mentions in various media. We were just thinking that it would be nice to have a tangible reward for those efforts.

I think a few places around here knows about DG than I suspected, I went to the nursery last summer and was checking a wire vine out and I ask them about their hardiness and they brought me a print out of DG's, I was shocked lol I ask them if they belonged and they said no so I proceeded to tell them about DG's.

Dave,

I don't think the contest is a good idea. It really isn't any different than having a seed company give out a free pack of seeds for a positive review on Garden Watchdog. There may have been folks who really liked that seed company who decided it was time to give a rating just for the seeds. I don't want to see potential links seeing Dave's Garden members all of a sudden contact them in mass numbers. They can't help but wonder what is up and is this legitimate. Marketing isn't a bad thing. Companies spend money all the time to have their companies name put out to the public. Don't look at NameMedia as a rich uncle but as a useful tool to help market Dave's Garden in a professional way.

Don't mean to offend but this is just the way I see it. I just don't want to see Dave's cheapened by a bunch of members sending out tons of emails for a free t shirt and mug.

Nancy

Can I make a suggestion, I know when I check the plantfiles out a lot of times the plant will come up and no information on it at all, someone has gone in and put the name in and no information if we're going to go out and try to get everyone to use these I think the plantfiles could use some updating, just a thought, maybe you could dmail the people that put them in, if that's possiable, and ask them to finish the file now that they have grown the plant?

A contest might be fun, but as others have pointed out, it would be difficult to administer and could quickly create problems. If a large number of us were participating, there would inevitably be overlap and the recipients would soon regard us as spammers. Terry's suggestion of volunteers and a forum to control how many times an entity is contacted is less likely to carry the risk of resentment. And I agree with Laurie on the international aspect - especially Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Your idea has merit, Dave - some refinement is needed, though. Yuska

Gardenwife: I hope I didn't offend you with what I wrote. GrammysGardenAZ really summed up beautifully my concern with using NameMedia's resources for this. I'd like to continue to do things as we always have and maintain strong autonomy.

I like the idea of having a special forum setup just for this topic. As I think of this, maybe it could become something a bit different than a contest, per se, but rather a "Promote DG" forum where the interested parties can all participate. Then I can honor/reward those who are participating.

We can create the forum and interested parties can go into the forum and we can carry this discussion further there. Agreed?

Dave

I don't usually get into these discussions, but there are a couple of things I might suggest that you-all consider. Since dave led off with a reference to Gardenweb. Lets look at that one. Anyone can link to most of the Gardenweb forums. I am not a registered member but I can read all of the material linked to. Daves is for the most part a subscriber system. Only subscribers can read the forums. Not much point in referring to them if you can't read them. On the on the other hand most searches for specific plants will link to Plantfiles. Occasionally they will also link to a Gardenweb forum if there is a discussion of that plant. Plantfiles is most likely the best entrance to Daves garden at present. If Garden.com follows the Gardenweb format (open to the public) it may also serve that purpose.

Laurie you had a question I wasn't clear about:

double printed not sure why. sorry!

This message was edited Feb 15, 2007 11:13 AM

I agree, I was a little confused about that too. International members can and do read this forum too and if the idea gets implemented, it didn't sound at all like it was going to be limited to the US, there are gardening related websites, etc in other countries too. This is the forum where new ideas are discussed before they get implemented, I'm sure if the contest became a reality that info about it would get posted elsewhere and international members would be just as welcome to participate as anyone else. It's not like this was posted in the US regional forums but not in the international ones, if that was the case then I could understand why the international members might feel left out.

Our friends who are not in the US are just as important as those here. (Just like our friends not in Texas are also just as important. :-)

Go Gardening was our first fully international feature and the rest of the DG will catch up, too. Designing a non-US centric website is a challenge but I'm improving my skills all the time.

Dave

This message was edited Feb 16, 2007 8:58 AM

John,

Nope, there's no pressure on me or anyone else. It's business as usual. We've done a "Link to Daves" contest in the distant past and I'm looking to do it again.

I guess each and every action I take from here out will be closely scrutinized by you. Unless you have positive words to add to discussions, I'd ask you to keep it in private dmail or even better yet to yourself.

Dave

I can't speak for Laurie, but my thoughts on this is that international members are probably most likely to go first to their countries' forums and may not often read the generalized forums. Dave was commenting early on in this thread that he'd had only one reply...lots of us don't get to all the forums we like every day. I stumbled on the thread when I scrolled through the "Recent Posts" on my home page. Certainly our international members are important...in fact, they're kinda special, because they can offer us viewpoints and ideas we might not otherwise encounter. I correspond wth English gardeners and have visited New Zealand and Australia....many of the gardens there are breathtakingly beautiful. And a visit to the Emerald Isle would be wonderful! I would like to know more about their sources of supply. We're not likely to be able to order much, and certainly seed exchanges are all but impossible. However, we can encourage suppliers here to offer similar services. The long-handled HoMi tool is an example.

A long-winded way of saying knowing more about gardening around the world is useful and interesting, and I hope we can increase our contacts. Yuska

This message was edited Feb 16, 2007 9:01 AM

This message was edited Feb 15, 2007 2:14 PM

I asked for opinions pertaining to the subject of promoting DG to the gardening community at large. Your post was off-topic, disruptive, non-helpful. And having someone call your ethics into question is slightly offensive. I can get over that, though, but I'm not going to let naysayers ruin the fun for everyone else, and I'll defend this website to the end.

I understand you have opinions, and I do value those, but I only value them in their proper context. Using a thread that I created in asking for feedback from the members is not a useful place to complain about something off topic.

Dave

This message was edited Feb 15, 2007 2:36 PM

This message was edited Feb 17, 2007 8:46 AM

Thanks John. I welcome your thoughts, though. Please do d-mail me with any concerns or questions you may have.

Dave

I am not good at writing; if someone could write up something about DG, I can submit it to my Master Gardener group (they are always looking for articles) as well as to Iowa State University for their website. Also it could be submitted to Garden Gate Magazine in Des Moines; there are quite a few home, family magazines published in Des Moines by the Meredith Corporation.

I will help if I can; don't need a prize but I do admit DGers love contests!

Dave, I will be in a home remodeling and garden show march 9,10,11, In Toledo,Ohio I have a booth for my electrical business and would be more than happy to wear a Dave's T shirt (if I had one) and talk about Dave's Garden forum. There will be many Nurseries and landscaper there, with around 10,000 people walking around. How's that for spreading the word! Let me know on a T shirt.
Dan