RAW 2007 Prize Ideas
18. Mar, 2007 
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RAW 2007 is now over. Thank you to all who participated.
If you decide to participate in Reader Appreciation Week(RAW) 2007, you might be struggling to come up with ideas for stuff to give away. Below is a list of prizes the RAW team brainstormed. The prizes are split up into three categories: tech, non-tech, and non-monetary.
Non-Monetary Prize Ideas
- Free hosting
- E-book Downloads
- Website design
- Theme Design
- Logo Design
- Free advertising space
- Free consulting (blog, design, etc…)
- Reader Spotlight – Write a post about a particular reader
- Create a Readers’ Hall of Fame
- Special invites to non-public betas
- Custom Titles and/or Avatars (for forum leaders)
Non-Technical Prizes
The following prizes are ideal for readers that aren’t highly technical.
- Merchandise (T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse Pads)
- Retail store gift cards
- Money Orders
- Candles from Little-Light.net
- Transportation tickets, like BART and other tickets (as explained in the comment below)
Technical Prizes
The following prize ideas are ideal for readers comfortable with the online world and online shopping.
- iTunes gift certificate
- Amazon.com gift certificate
- Flickr Pro Account
- Mint Stats Package (for website owners). Update: Shaun Inman said that although it is possible to forward a license to another account, he doesn’t recommend giving the package away.
- LiveJournal Paid Account (as suggested by Stacee)
- DeviantART Choice Membership (as suggested by Stacee)
- Yahoo Mail Plus (as suggested by Stacee)
- Paypal Cash
- Design magazines such as HOW and ID (as suggested by inspirationbit)
- Help move someone from a hosted blog account to their own domain.
- Game subscriptions (such as WoW)
Other Ideas?
If you have any other ideas for prizes that haven’t been mentioned, please let us know about it in the comments.
Other RA Project Articles
Author Info
Also, please note that the above Prize list will be updated as time passes. So send in your suggestions.
With credit to those who suggested it.
Along the lines of the Flickr Pro account, “pro” accounts for other sites/services such as DeviantArt, LiveJournal, Yahoo Mail, etc.
Bumper stickers, regular stickers, temporary tattoos, buttons, pens (though I guess this all falls under Merchandise)
Guest star spot in a webcomic, personal illustration/drawing, etc.
Welcome Stacee! I am glad you came here.
Those are good suggestions, and I am implementing many of them into the post. Regarding others like stickers, tattoos, buttons and pens along with spotlights in comics, illustrations, etc are excellent suggestion: I need to find out more details about them on how to get them and how to give them away as a promotion. Once I find out anything more specific, I will implement them and include them.
Thanks again Stacee, I really appreciate your visit and the suggestions.
How about a subscription to some cool design magazines, like HOW, ID, etc.?
Thanks inspirationbit for the ideas. I hope I got the links to the magazines correct.
Yep, you got the links right, Ronald. Thanks for including me in the list
Inspirationbit, thanks! I will try to see if I can find more magazine suggestions, or maybe a gift coupon or something that you can subscribe to magazines with. Also, Amazon gift cards allow you to subscribe to magazines also since Amazon sells magazine and other subscriptions.
Ronald, thanks.
I will try to find some information also.
You’re welcome, Bes. I guess, it would be also okay to ask the winner for his/her magazine preference within a specified amount of money.
Ronald, thanks for correcting my typo
It’d be nice if the comments had an edit option.
Vivien [inspirationbit], thanks for that specific suggestion too. That would be a really cool thing to do, allowing people to subscribe to any magazine of their choice on their own. Do you think that can fall under Paypal cash? Maybe I can elaborate that specific prize a bit to say that the money can be used to purchase magazines, etc.
Also, thanks for the suggestion for comment editing; that sounds like a very cool thing. Let us all see what the near future hopefully brings to us.
you’re welcome
I actually meant those as one big umbrella (“Pro”/whatever higher level subscription to online service of winner’s choice), and the list as examples. There’s also a paid version for Hotmail (if I remember correctly). Maybe list the more popular sites/services, but having every possibility would be clutter. It would work better as winner’s choice too, unless your contest/giveaway/whatever is to a specific set of people and you know that they use or would be interested in service x and/or y.
Cafepress, Spreadshirt, and Zazzle (print on demand sites) have buttons, bumper stickers, notebooks, calendars, etc. in addition to t-shirts and other apparel. I don’t think any of them do temporary tattoos though.
Stacee, thanks for the explanation.
I like the idea of a “big umbrella”; maybe I could offer people the Pro/Paid/Higher level accounts for any online service, as long as they contact me before participating and I give them the green light.
I think Hotmail used to have a pro version also, though I could not find any relevant link online anymore. If you can manage to find some info, please let me know and I will offer it as a prize too.
I think having t-shirts and stationary with not only Reader Appreciation logos but even custom images and messages would be nice. I will see what can be done.
I just thought of something: maybe in the Bay Area, I could offer BART and other transit cards or passes, maybe weekly or monthly, or even a Fastrak credit of some amount or even Fastrak unit with some prepaid amount.
I thought of this while reading your virtual letter to AC Transit. 
Thanks again Stacee for the suggestions and the explanations. I really appreciate it all!
Hey guys, I copied the RAW graphic to use on my web site and linked it to RAProject.com. I probably should have asked permission first; I hope it is all right with you.
Jenn,
It is perfectly alright. During the RAW Announcement, we gave permission to all who wanted to use it. Take care.
Ronald