David Temple had a great idea while some of us were out at dinner in Chicago that the entrants for Andy Beal’s SEM Scholarship Contest should write about what they learned, etc. David shared his insights, so here are mine. I hope it helps – there were definitely lessons to be learned!
First, I have to say that if any one of my past teachers, English teachers or not, found out that I won an article writing contest, they would probably be shocked. Astounded. Terrified, even. So, from the beginning of the writing process, it was a learning experience for me.
I actually spent about six hours writing the article. Actually, that’s a lie. I spent six hours over two days writing the first draft. Something about it wasn’t settling with me and I couldn’t figure out what it was until about four hours before the entry was due. At two o’ clock on that Saturday, I scrapped what I had done and started over.
I realized that I was trying to force the original article too much. It was very conversational in style and presented some good ideas, but it didn’t capture the essence of what I was trying to communicate and that was that there’s all of this “stuff” going on with SMO, but no one was creating a framework for conversation to be constructed.
What ended up happening is that I let myself communicate the message that I wanted to get across in the way that I naturally think of things, and that way is to create a structure and language for communicating ideas. It might sound crazy, but that’s just how I think and I let myself go with it. Two hours later, the entire framework, language, structure and article was written. I had one person proof it, they had a very minor change and the article was done.
Lesson #1: Roll with it how you roll with it.
So, next came to the marketing side of the contest. It was obvious from the start that organic search optimization would be ineffective so I focused on getting traffic as quickly as possible.
Now, I’ve learned a hard lesson in marketing before. You see, I had a business in a past life that pretty much failed because I didn’t market a significant event fast enough, wide enough or large enough. I didn’t want to let that happen twice.
So, I hit up friends and family via email, more friends via blogs and MySpace bulletins and asked for other help wherever I could get it. Garrett French helped me to get onto John Battelle’s SearchMob and Al Scillitani helped me with some Pay-Per-Click strategies. Between all of that I was able to get the traffic I needed to win for the week that I entered.
Lesson #2: Get the word out fast, far and wide. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
After the week was completed, it was a pretty nerve-racking week during the panel judging. I had no idea if being the only non-search article would help or hurt, but in the end, it sounds like it may have helped. I don’t know if that’s a direct benefit to the outcome, but I would definitely say that standing out from the crowd, in general, helps.
After everything was over, some pretty big things happened. It coincided with me leaving my job to consult independently and Andy has been amazing at helping spread the word about winning the contest. I’ve greatly accelerated my anticipation of gaining new clients and “getting my name out there.”
I’ve even since been approached by a very large and well-respected publishing company to write a book on Social Media Marketing. That is directly a result of winning the contest. As an avid reader it was one of the most flattering things that has happened in my career.
I can say without hesitation and with absolute certainty that if it weren’t for the contest, and especially Andy’s continued and persistent support, that I would have written this post a lot sooner, I would have contributed more to his blog, I would have a lot less work to do and would be drinking more Folgers and less Starbucks. 
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