Last month, we posted an experimental giveaway on our site in which we tried to buy someone a subscription to Entreprenur magazine.

The two goals of the expiriment were:

1. Test the headline “Who Else Wants Me to Buy Them a 12-Month Subscription to Entrepreneur.”
2. See how many people would actually post a comment to a Web site they didn’t know in an attempt to get something for free.

The post generated 55 unique visitors during the 2-week period of the competition, and had exactly 1 entry.

The results:

1. Headline testing: Positive - we posted to approximately 20 Social Networking sites with about 30 minutes worth of work. 55 visitors meant that each minute worth of work got us about 2 visitors to the site.
2. Conversion rate: Great - 1:55 isn’t bad. Nearly a 2% conversion rate for very little work.
3. Unexpected result: We wrote the guy that actually entered the competition on May 8 and told him we wanted to buy him a subscription to Entrepreneur. It’s been a week now, and we still haven’t heard back from him. If we never hear back, we won’t be out a dime for the experiment.

We’ll email the winner again and give him another 30-days to claim the subscription.

Topic for discussion: Why do you think the winner hasn’t responded? Would you respond to the following email text:

Darrell,

I’d like to buy you a 12-month subscription to Entrepreneur magazine.
Please let me know where you’d like to have it sent and if you’d like the
subscription to be in your name or someone elses.