Suggestions for contest prizes?

I'm going to initiate a "Go Gardening Contest" in the coming couple weeks, and I want to offer some great prizes for the winners.

What do ya'll think would be good prizes? If you were to win 1st, 2nd or 3rd place, what do you think would be the best prize ever?

Some ideas: gift certificates to top GWD companies, or local Lowes/Home Depot type places? DG coffee mug? I'm a little dry on ideas but I'd love to be able to offer great prizes for the upcoming contest, so please give me some ideas!

Dave

Gift Certificates to online mail order places in GWD are a great idea! How about a year's subscription on DG? I'm a little dry this a.m. too.

I like the gift certificate to Watchdog companies--getting free plants is a great prize!

DG Coffee mug!!! I have been longing for one of those ever since I fist saw them.

I think all the above prizes would be wonderful to have. Maybe a Daves garden tool bag. Prizes are usually something that can't be bought only earned. Design a great Daves garden bag.

This message was edited Feb 2, 2008 1:46 PM

Airplane tickets (international???) to ANY DG roundup in the USA????

I know ....... I just think toooo big sometimes.

Good gardening books, tools, trellises, a Gardening magazine subscription and .... airplane tickets to any USA DG RU - LOL

I like at DG stuff and the watchdog companies. Many of us don't live near a Home Depot or Lowes (drat on the Lowes-would love to check it out)

DG Coffee mug? Can these coffee mugs be purchased and if so, how?
Gift certificates to any top GWD is a great idea. Certificates to any top GWD is also a method in rewarding those vendors who provide both quality products and customer service.

Any of the above. I would like a year's subscription to DG, that is the bestest gift anybody could give an avid gardener.

The free years subscription to DG and gift certificates to HD or Lowes would be great for me. I live just down the street from both and intend to be here often too!

Cool! I think one of those super-certificate things that can be redeemed for a choice of many company's gift cards would be neat.

Its great Dave, Ursula your idea is nice ........LOL, but it is a great prize for me to live in DG for ever.
Kaleem

I like the Watchdog companies certificate!

Good feedback - thanks!

Are there any other ideas out there for some prizes that haven't been mentioned yet?

If the contest is something that is "done, as in how many gardening centers that can be input, etc...task oriented" rather than luck of a draw, then a lasting prize might be a 'mention' under their subscriber name?

Not as prestigous of course as UBER Gardener, but something like that? It would last forever and be quite a badge of honor. Just a thought :)

I like the mail order certificates, easily done from any town and saves on gasoline, too!

Excellent idea, Dea.

Keep them coming please!

All of them would be great but I like the years sub to DG the best. Just my 2 cents. BEV

That does sound cool Dea.

This might be greedy, but you did say pick what we'd really like for a prize, so I am thinking a lifetime sub to DG with t-shirt and mug.

dave's t shirt any gardening magazine subscription would be fun

i think it would be really nice if somehow we could offer some of the neat things people on dave's site make---i love seeing the creativity of our members and it would be a good way to support one another

I'll bet that's a pretty expensive prize, but indeed a very cool one - a moniker under the Subscriber name: DG Lifer :)

The gift certificate to online would be the "safest" gift, guaranteed to "fit" and be the right style of gardening theme! Maybe offer an alternate gift if the awarded gift is NOT suitable for some reason? Like the membership to DG if the *whatever" was not desirable to the winning person?

ANY of the Dave garden products would be suitable. I LOVE the calender but I've been too cheap to buy it. :-(

Depending how you set it up, you could pre-contact vendors, and establish a list of ones that would work with you on a "Daves Garden" or even better, a "Plant Scout" Gift Certificate good at "Any of these vendors".

This would let you issue one gift certificate that they can redeem from a select number of vendors. A novice gardener in Alaska, would have a hard time using products from Tropical vendors, and hot spots in the country would have a hard time picking things from a Hosta supplier. One gift certificate honored by a number of vendors, really gives them a nice selection.

Chris

I really like Lafco idea of a lifetime membership with acknowledgement under the name for the top prize and DG mug/shirt/bag with gift cetificate for second, and Mug/Shirt for third. Of course this all depends on what kind of contest it is and if it deserves an expensive prize. Cindy

Dea's idea first, not mine... But where we all covet our DG stuff, a lifetime title would sure be an enviable prize.

My bad sorry Dea great idea

There are "VISA" gift cards available that are good ANYWHERE Visa is accepted. They could choose their own gift from just about anywhere then. It also makes it easy for Dave to select the appropriate dollar amount for each level of winning.

I can sure tell you a NUMBER of awesome things that DGers make that I would LOVE to have but am too broke to buy! Reminds me, a CHECK is also good, it doesn't have to be a gift certificate!

The Visa gift certificate does sound like a good idea, and (Chris) BuriedTreasures had an excellent idea, too. I'll think on that a bit.

The lifetime subscription might be problematic: we've never offered a lifetime subscription to DG and I'm reticent to do so. Even people like admins here still have an expiration date and I just move it up manually whenever I get close to the date.

I want good prizes because I want the contest to be successful. We want to fill out Go Gardening with every garden center in the country (and the world!) along with reviews, pictures (Coming soon) and so forth. I'm planning to develop the contest in the coming weeks and launch it in late February.

I envision 5 winners total:

First, Second and Third place are selected automatically based on quantity of new entries and reviews.

Then two additional winners would be selected by a committee who would review the quality of the reviews and select two additional winners that way.

Prizes so far:

1) Gift certificate of some sort. Between $100 and $250.

2) One or more years added to winner's subscription.

3) DG merchandise: T-shirt, calendar, coveted coffee mug, mousepad, etc.

4) A special badge permanently added to your "Member Page"

i still like my idea using items our members make--the folks on garden art are so creative--it would be great to win their handmade items--that would be my first choice

Dave,
What are the details of criteria for the contest?


debnes

This sounds great dave! Can't wait to hear the details :)

I think a valuable, objective review can only be possible with multiple visits. I hope this does not result in people running to stores once and writing a review, just to 'notch another one'. I see this too often with GW, when people review a source based on one experience.

I frequently write Watchdog reviews after one experience. If things change on subsequent purchases from the same place that's why you have the ability to change your rating and update your review. I would assume you can do the same thing here. I guess I don't see the problem--maybe a good nursery gets an occasional bad review from someone who visited once on a bad day, or a bad nursery gets an occasional good review from a one-time visitor, but if you look at the bigger picture of all the reviews that are there, you can get a pretty good sense of whether it's a good place or not.

The problem is that the idea with this contest is to get many more first-time entries, and there is an incentive to get as many as possible. As far as GW is concerned, we had a similar discussion when we talked about the rating system. A common complaint was that one negative, first-time review carried too much weight and dragged down the rating unfairly. It was also pointed out that many people do not follow up. People are free to write a review based on one experience. I personally don't believe you learn enough in one experience to be in a position to write an objective review.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one--to me your experience with a company is just as valid if it's the first time you did business with them as if it's the 10th. If there are enough reviews for any given company, it's going to average out over time--if there's a company that gives good service 50% of the time and bad 50% of the time and a bunch of people shop there one time, chances are 50% of them are going to have a good experience and 50% are going to have a bad experience. Then if all those people shop there a bunch of times, they're all going to come to the conclusion that the company is good 50% of the time and bad 50% of the time. But for someone going through and reading the reviews, they will get the idea of 50/50 whether they read the one-time reviews or the reviews from people who've been there a number of times. When this doesn't work of course is if you only have one or two reviews for a company, then it's hard to tell if those reviews are representative or not, but the idea here is that you'd eventually hope to have lots of reviews for each company.

I do agree with you on the scoring, that's why Dave changed the way things were being displayed in Watchdog and if there are similar issues with the way the ratings are calculated in Go Gardening I'm sure he'd be open to discussing changes.

It's fine to disagree! A few last points. It is very conceivable that there will be significantly fewer reviews for local garden centers than for online nurseries. This nullifies the 'averaging out over time' argument. The two local ones that I have reviewed have not received any other reviews. The other one is that I believe a contest that rewards quantity will encourage people to rush through a visit and the result will be a less than diligent review. I doubt a committee rewarding fourth and fifth place winners will do much to redress that.

This issue isn't going to concern me too much as I won't be running around garden centres, but there is more to growing plants than what the customer perceives to be the responsibility of the seller.

An example is where someone I know only because of being a near neighbour has no idea on how to look after plants, it dies then they turn around and blame the garden centre they bought it from. Three occasions I know about, and I have not talked to this person many more times than that.

One plant, a perennial, planted far too deep with soil covering the crown, it struggles. Another, a dwarf conifer, planted halfway out the ground, not watered, expects it to live. Third one, a Rhododendron, plonked in the ground with no care or watering, it died. They went back to the garden centre demanding loudly for a refund, garden centre offered to replace said plant but no, customer was adamant it was their fault. They refunded, but what would their feedback have been, as they were convinced they had been sold a dud plant and were quite angry about it.

How many times is this going to happen with inexperienced gardeners? Not fair on the seller, I know they buy most of their stock in and if anything doesn't look good they sell it off cheap or bin it.

Guess we'll all find out when Dave posts the rules...

Sorry - one last post - promise! (Hee hee) I think if prizes are going to be rewarded for this, then something should be done (at last multi-year extensions to subscriptions, if not more) for those people who have contributed so much over the years to PlantFiles, Garden Watchdog, etc. They did this for no reward other than for our shared benefit. PF is what attracted me to DG and I really appreciate what people have done.

Victor, I know I sure appreciate all those members before me did to build DG! I'm a real "dud" in that I do not post pictures but rarely. I don't feel like I have the skill or knowledge. It is all the other forums that really sealed the deal for me on joining. Best $20 I ever spent~ It would be cool if there is a reward for most contributed plant pictures of "one of a kind" varieties etc. BTW, what is an UBER ~? Pat