About 3 weeks ago I challenged John Chow to a marketing challenge of who could get more subscribers in the month of October. I love marketing challenges and I KNOW John will be a very worthy opponent.
Here is how it works.
Today (october 1st) we will see what our feedburner counts are. That is the starting point. Then on the 31st we will see where they are. That is the end point.
The contest is to see who can gain the most RSS subscribers for October.
So whats at stake? Well the loser will have to have a link to the winners website with “Find out why shoemoney is a better marketer then me”.
Good luck CHOW!
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2412 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 108 comments… read them below or add one }
I personally think Jeremy is going to win for 2 reasons plus some.
He sends me shirts, btw the pics are coming soon, and has a super bada55 logo.
He is way cool and I’m sure one day he’ll ask me to be a guest on his show
Hope your holiday was fun!
Will you both provide details on what type of marketing was done to up your RSS subscriptions? I think that would make an interesting post.
Good request by Protestant. A review/study of your findings that worked would be helpful to your loyal readers.
This is a great idea Shoe. But you do realise the evil one will use lots of devious tactics to beat you don’t you? I’m betting that you will have something interesting up your sleeve though.
Get a couple of the other top blogs to join you. It would make it alot more interesting since John Chow will probably use Adsense to increase his chances.
I’ve compared the feeds at my blog http://www.searchenginegaze.com/rss-subscribers-contest-shoe-vs-john
Good luck.. Btw, to which of the two feeds should I subscribe?
There is an article on Daily Blog Tips about increasing RSS readers today for anybody else trying this.
Yeah Catherine is right, John is mischievous and really wicked and I’m sure he would come with multiple tricks. The good thing is the idea is yours and you certainly have the Joker
I just subscribe even though I have been reading your blog forever. I like you both so I had to subscribe to both of ya.
This will be fun and it is a fantastic idea to get publicity.
Yikes, Chow has some good prizes up for grabs … he looking to beat your pants off shoe …
Darin
Nice challenge for both of the biggest gamer in the net
Great scheme to benefit the both of them. All in all, it doesn’t matter who wins the challenge, because judging by the attention that this whole “challenge” is getting already…they have both already won.
Bottom line is that this is near perfect link bait.
Great job on a great idea Shoe!
Not sure whether to wait and see what is offered towards the end of the month by the marketing minds or if I wait will there be RSS only content for free stuff that I will miss out on… decisions.
You guys should set up some sort of budget on this project. JC already has over 1k in prizes!
linkbait mania at it’s finest.
But good luck nonetheless
What are you offering for incentive prizes? John is offering quite a few goodies.
i think you should also Challenge Amit Aggarwal at http://labnol.blogspot.com . he has more than 13000 readers of Feed….then we will see what happens……..
I’ve subscribe to you guys both long ago
can I subscribe you two again. is that possible?
well good luck shoe!
hey man! john is using a lot of COntests to win this contest………WOW!!!
I’ve just unsubscribed.. Go John!!
hmm bob would not be much of a challenge I am guessing. That blog is much older then shoe and chows and only has 13000 rss… sad.
problogger would be a better challenger his blog is as old as labnols but has 3x more subscribers
nice little contest…. Way to get some buzz going
He’s already giving all sorts of stuff away…
Already have you boht in my reader.
now who is this John Chow ?
Good luck and I wish that the best one will win! Shoe be careful, because John already started a competition, to get help from his users. You must think of a linkbait, or something like that, show your adsense earnings again
this might work if you have another 0 to the old number.
You have an evil marketing opponent – good luck!
yeh, that would be useful. although chow is already starting by giving tons of stuff away and some readers are “cheating”, i say they should not do anything and let it just occur naturally. thats a real sign of who has the most mojo.
Shoe, you should make your prize that the winner gets to hang out with you for a day and you work with them on their sites and they get personal consulting from you.
Look at where the feed buttons in his post link to!
Jeremy, your feed button in his post links to his feed!
While the cheering crowds go for the small fish you throw as prizes, you guys are the ultimate winners with the big catch namely more readers. So who gains more ? You both or us ?
Really an evil contest uh ?
Yeah, but John is offering prizes to his readers for helping him out
You guys should double team problogger
Are JC’s blog stats similar to yours? If not, you should do it percentage wise… your 4,800 new subscribers might be equal to his 800 new subscribers
Just wrote a blog post about this whole contest. Check it out at: http://www.marketmatador.com/2007/10/01/why-john-chows-evil-marketing-works/
Oh man, interesting battle. i have subscribed your rss feed.
Well shoemoney, here’s a +1 for your syndication number
I’m going to find a way to have shoemoney be the winner. Everyone here needs to help Shoe win this contest.
ten bucks via paypal and I will unsubscribe and resubscribe with a bunch of aliases, lol
If there is only one link bait that you visit today – it has to be this one
Why Shoemoney is better then Britney Spears
I guess to make it even I would also need to make
“Why John Chow is better then Paris Hilton” heh?
shoe, do a contest like 1 or 2 days before, if you unsubscribe from chows rss they are up and running for a $100 price or something other cool thing
LOL, enough said ShoeMoney will win this easily!
It doesn’t matter to me who wins, I just think this is a great contest. We had a local high school rivalry for years here in football and the principals from each high school met at mid field before the kickoff and exchanged their schools hat. The loser had to wear the other schools hat all day the following Monday at school. Fun Stuff.
Good Luck Shoe.
shoemoney ftw!!!!!
Shoemoney..!!
, Comon we are gunning for you 
How Bout Adding Me Into the Competition As Well .
Then we shall see who wins .
Nice one. I’m keeping an eye on this competition and blogging about it.
you may have to offer up some nice prizes to match John. he has offered some tasty perks or should i say bribes
for signing up.
You guys are big ballers, you should have made it interesting with say a 10k bet!
Hats off to both of you for coming up with such a challenge…Either way it is a win win situation for both of you….however winners gets that little bit extra…
It will be a tough contest, but my money is on JC, a wicked, wicked manipulator in such games…
Fuck John Chow
Good luck with that Shoemoney!
Suggestion – How about creating a widget of some sort that is a vertical text scroller with our names and urls for the success of your victory?
LOL let’s all subscribe to his blog multiple times, and then unsubscribe 2 days before so he thinks he’s doing good and then BAM =P
I was just thinking about your subscription #s and how close they are, when I visited john’s site a few days ago. and now this. cool! may the best man win
Exceptional. I am sure over the next few weeks we’re going to be seeing all sorts of tricks like this being pulled.
After the contest you should have John on a podcast to talk about what kinds of tricks and tactics you two pulled during the month of October.
Hey Shoemoney!
Nice promo in http://mappio.com/
First this win and then the RSS Title belt! Hard Work + Practice = Luck
You make your own Luck!
LOL! I love the contest idea. Great job.
This is an nice idea… Shoe best of Luck.
I think John Chow will be cheating to win..
that`s a very nice idea. i love challenges. Let´s see who is going to win.
I’ll support you Jeremy, … let see in the next 30 days who’s the winner
.Today 2nd Oct is my birthday.
Let’s wait and see….
OK – Lets be real… TV’s, iPods, or Forex reports are not what matters to the readers who are likely to subscribe.
Post an offer to an outbound link page with high PR, or a full site review, or even a n00b co-hosting spot on your radio show…
Make a contest that us visitors want the most – exposure to our own pet blog projects!! Appeal to WHY we all read your blog, we are starving for the small bits of info that will take us to the next level. Being recognized and acknowledged by one of the Guru’s of the trade… priceless!
Mark – Always a joy!
Jeremy dont you think you will get less benefit if you win …
If you win you only get the organic traffic benefit form john’s blog (no link juice as he is banned in G), but he gets both
Good luck to both parties. I can’t wait to see what Shoe has up his sleeve.
Looking forward to seeing the wash-up at the end of the month!
Heres what I posted oh John’s site
John
Here’s something you two big time bloggers should be doing to test your skills in this feild.
Pick one new blogger each. There feed count has to be under 10 and work with them to increase there subscribers along with yours. Shoemoney should do the same and see who has the best advice and knows the most about growing a blog. You two guys are already huge, and making great money……..change someone elses life and continue to grow your blog…….Theres a challange John
just emailed John about that
Shoe FTW!!!!!
This will be exciting. Anyone here willing to bet? I’m with shoe for $200
@Collin
That’s a good idea. Do you want them to expose their trade secrets? Very interesting…
excellent idea !!!
i think you will be hard up to get any takers.
Now THATS an idea !
I like it..
I’d like to see it happen, where the only thing they do is give advice. No plugging or paid activity. Completely unassisted bar questions/answers, and advice.
I suspect neither of them could pull it off (or would want to) outside their own brands.. of course I’d love to be proven wrong. Its been a long time since Shoes experiment..
I’ll take $20 of that action if you’re game 3T.
Shoe is just plain Chowfodder !
He won’t even come close
Good luck. You will win.
Can i sign up twice?
can we take bets on Event?
Kick some ass. =)
Good luck. I think you will win, I just think the posts are better here, also John’s is pretty ad packed now.
Nice, I think you will win easily though. The posts are often better here plus John’s is kind of ad packed now to.
I wish you both the best of luck but please Shoe kick his ass! I love your blog. Keep up the awesome work man!
We all are with you, we shill promote this blog and try to increase few.
Wow!!Love this…must be great game though….Shoe Money win it!!
This will be interesting – especially as you both have a huge RSS subscription list anyway – so getting new people to subscribe will be difficult. I see the incentives are flying thick and fast!
This is an awesome challenege. It will be a close race but I think you will win it Shoe. All the best.
I have no doubt Shoe’s going to win this – his posts offer a lot more value than Chow’s, plus he comes off as an affable guy in his writing. People like him, so they’ll subscribe for him… I wonder how well this contest will work as link bait. Shoe – any chance you can share ibls and traffic to this page at some point?
So just to let you know “John Cow” is wanting and trying to take my Shoemoney shirt as he has said on my blog and his. Maybe he is wanting it for some kind of leverage on his side of the contest. Don’t worry I won’t give it up
This is the battle of the top internet monguls …. i am waiting for the day when my blog will be able to battle shoemoney and johnchow …. that is 100years to come …..
Well that is what I was waiting for… I was wondering when John comes out with this idea since he likes to post about this increase.
Just joined… Good Luck!
Sorry Jeremy … this time i am gonna support John
it is now 1 week since this post. What is the proggress?
I want to know as well – post about this again Jeremy, keep us updated
I did my piece. Instead of lurking and popping in from time to time, I signed up. Good luck Shoe!
So far ShoeMoney is in the lead by ~1000 people!!!
I never subscribe to feeds.
This time I’ve made an exception. Jeremy, I can say that you are the first Feedburner owner that I subscribed to his feed.
fantastic challenge and cant wait for the final result…good luck
so what’s the stats? I even got my husband who is an RSS virgin to use it.
John Chow is offering prizes…is that cheating?
So the game is give away the most freebies and garner subscribers that came for the freebies? What a waste of time.
ISo who won? What does it really prove? Give away enough stuff and folks will trample each other to get there. Once the freebies are gone their email addy suddenly no longer works. What a racket.
@Michael Boateng: that applies to me too I guess.
having good post.thanks
i missed this challenge. I did not see who is the best in online marketing. John or ShoeMoney.