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Poker Affiliate World Exclusive Interview with Alex Tew from MillionDollarHomePage.com It was my distinct pleasure to interview a fellow internet entreprenuer on his newest viral marketing campaign. Hats off to you Alex on creating one of the biggest viral marketing campaigns this year with your Million Dollar Homepage! Below is the interview that I had with Alex Tew today. After examining his viral marketing campaign at MillionDollarHomePage.com I quickly realized that Alex had dreamt up something very special. I have been following this story since it's inception and every day I am just amazed at how much it continues to grow.
Now there are aprox. 10 - 15 copycat sites out there, however none will ever be able to compete with the original. As internet marketers we can take a few things away from why Alex's campaign has been so successful. Number one it is an intriguing idea to say the least. Who would have ever thought about selling pixels on a homepage.
It is also truly "Viral Marketing" at it's best. Imagine if there were only one ad sold and no one really talking about it, or if you just stumbled upon it and there was no buzz yet. Quite honestly nobody would care and possibly even knock Alex's idea. However as soon as the virus starts it cannot be stopped! Newswires pick it up, bloggers start talking about it, people want to interview you. All this buzz drives tons of traffic to your site. From an advertising standpoint, the advertisers are the real winners. Where else can you buy advertising for life on the homepage of a website that is receiving 200,000 uniques a week for less that $1 a pixel?
In closing we at PokerAffiliateWorld.com commend Alex for his entreprenurial spirit and great "thinking outside the box idea". Before the article I leave my readers with one thought, and it is a thought that I have branded as my own since the inception of PartyRiches.
"There's a million ways to make a million dollars in this world, you only have to find one!"
Jeremy Enke
September 20th, 2005
by Jeremy Enke
1. Tell the Poker Affiliate World community a little about yourself.
I'm 21 years old, and I've lived most of my life in a small town in
Wiltshire, in southern England. I'm going to University to read
Business Management, starting next week (the course is for 3 years).
I think I'm naturally quite creative; my natural inclination is to ask
"how could that be done better" or "what could we create from this". I
also have entrepreneurial drive - my first venture was as an
8-year-old selling home-made comics at school. I even gave away a free
chocolate bar with the first 10 copies to create some interest!
In a way it was created out of necessity. About a month ago I checked
my bank balance and it was not a pretty site - I was heavily overdrawn
even before university, and the thought of taking on student loans and
graduating with a huge debt was worrying to say the least! I decided
some creative thinking was required. So I was up late at night with my
notepad (as I often am) and the idea just popped into my head, sort
of.
Well, I say it just popped in, but actually what I did was a
brainstorm, and I wrote down the attributes of an idea I wish I had. I
wrote down keywords like 'word-of-mouth', 'pr mileage' and of course
'million dollars'! I think I even wrote down the question 'How can I
create a million dollars before university?'. So I essentially probed
my mind and the idea became apparent. So I worked backwards: I decided
what attributes I wanted an idea to have, then the idea was born from
those attributes. It's not a creative technique I learnt, it's just
what seemed natural for me.
3. Did you expect it to take off so fast?
Not really, although of course I believed in the idea and I thought I
would make some cash, but not necessarily $60,000 in 3 weeks! It's
been amazing to watch how something original/unique can spread so
fast.
4. What one thing do you attribute to the Million Dollar HomePage becoming so huge so fast?
Word of mouth! I did send out a press release soon after launching the
site as I knew it had some PR mileage, and the initial press I
received filtered out quickly. But once the blogging community caught
on, it just spread like wildfire. I guess you could say the press
release was the catalyst, and word-of-mouth was the main driver.
5. What are your future plans for the site, likewise do you have any ideas
for additional viral marketing campaigns?
I have lots of features planned for the site, to help make advertisers
get more value from their investment. One idea is to have a magnifying
glass so people can glide over the ads and explore them more. Another
is to have a way of advertisers being able to make their ads stand out
on the homepage when using a special URL - so they can send it to
their friends / colleauges and show off their ad.
As for other viral ideas, yes. Infact I have one idea that could be
truely huge - much bigger than the Million Dollar Homepage. I'm
getting excited thinking about it! It's gonna be awesome, but I can't
say anymore for now. You'll have to wait til next year before I can
reveal it, assuming I can get everything in place... its quite
ambitious!
6. And of course everyone wants to know if you plan to finish school and
what you are going to do with the thousands of dollars of extra revenue that you are making off the site.
Yes my plan right now is to finish my degree. Ideally I want to
balance my studies with various business ventures, but I think the key
is to have flexibility. Some ideas are once-in-a-lifetime
opportunities, so it is necessary to keep different avenues open, but
of course I value the importance of getting my degree so I'm going to
focus on it as much as possible.
7. What has your feedback been from the majority of your advertisers and in general are they starting to see any return on investment.
The feedback was been overwhelmingly positive, with pretty much
everyone reporting huge increases in traffic to their sites. There
have been some impressive reports from companies like Sponge who are
now pitching for £18,000 GBP worth of new business as a direct result
of their ad, and EngineSeeker.com who doubled their online sales
thanks to their [large] pixel purchase. And remember, this is after
only a few weeks. Imagine what the ROI will be like over 5 years (if
not longer)!
8. To date what are your web traffic numbers and stats. Are they still
growing, and do you see the site's enormous traffic being sustainable.
The site's currently receiving over 200,000 uniques and 500,000 page
impressions per week, and the stats are constantly growing as the
word keeps building. I don't think these huge numbers are sustainable
over a long period of time, because interest will tail off eventually,
however, I think there will always be a steady stream of visitors over
the coming years, as the story will still be interesting, I will do my
best to keep the site updated with news over the years.
9. What type of server and hosting plan are you on?
I've just done a deal with a large US-based company to host the site
on a powerful dedicated server (dual Xeon). Currently I'm on a fairly
powerful VPS plan which has held up surprisingly well but there is
definitely a need for more power and scalability. Speaking of which,
this new deal will mean the hosting can be scaled up as and when their
are surges in traffic.
10. Lastly do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other internet marketers thinking about starting a viral marketing campaign?
I think it's important to focus on your core idea: the story / idea
that capture's people's imagination. The mechanics of getting the
viral idea out there can be worked out later, but the real success of
a viral campaign will be down to how interesting and unique the core
idea is. I've heard about some virals that have got out simply by
e-mailing one other person. Also focus on what your goal is - start
with the end in mind and work backwards. I decided I wanted a million
dollars and worked backwards - and I'm doing alright so far!
Jeremy Enke is a fellow entreprenuer and the CEO of PokerAffiliateWorld.com, the largest community of poker affiliates in the world. This article and interview may be reprinted with permission from Jeremy Enke only!
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Jun 17, 2008
