Re: AGA CONTEST - Digest V1 #115

[Robert H <robertph@best.com>]

I know James has set a discussion agenda here, but I may be too busy next week, 
so
I thought I would send in my ideas on promotion while its still fresh in my 
mind,
and you all can get to it whenever you want.

1) I think I can convince three high traffic aquaria sites, maybe four, to put 
up
announcements: Aquaria central, Aqualink, Toms Place, and JAWs, and dozens of 
small
sites potentially. Could FINS be persuaded to have an announcement of the 
contest?
I presume there will be announcements on both TAG and the KRIB WEB sites?

2) I know someone who heads an aquascaping WEB ring, although I dont think they 
get
a great deal of traffic, but they may be willing to help.

3) AOL. Compuserve, Prodigy....their message boards dont allow announcements, 
but
their moderators may help

4) ASK me.com aquaria moderator, I have been in touch with her in the past, and 
she
might help

5)exposure from prize donations: if you elect to have prizes, a donator who has 
a
high traffic WEB site and would be willing to promote the contest would help. 
Pet
Warehouse, (not PETS warehouse), and Pet Solutions are the two largest mail 
order
aquaria companies in north america, mailing out a million catalogs each per
quarter. They in my mind would be good candidates.

6) press exposure...I used to be email buddies with Ed Bauman while he was 
editor
of AFM, but I dont know the new editor. I would guess that Karen Randall has the
most pull with fancy publications of anybody in this group. Could they be 
convinced
to publish announcements of the contest in AFM and Aquarium Frontiers? Or 
perhaps
in a colum? :)

7) europian WEB sites, I am only familiar with a few, but there are several high
traffic sites in Germany, Holland, Great Britan, France, and Itlay. An effort
should be made to get people to contact these sites to put up announcements of 
the
competition.

8) local clubs, newsletters, and stores, I think everyone should encourage their
local aquaria clubs to promote the contest to their members, perhaps do a 
contest
of their own, and then submit the winner of theirs to our contest, if they can
manage to do this within the time we allow. A formal announcement could be put 
on
the internet that anybody could print out, make copies of, and bring to their 
local
store to ask them to either hand out, or post in their window.

So far I dont think I have suggested anything that costs money, but of course 
the
other alternative is to pay for media announcements.

Robert "H" Hudson
San Jose, CA