Last Week's Stats

Last Week's SHJ Stats:
Page Loads: 2,311 (previous record: 593)
Unique Visitors: 836 (previous record: 292)
First-Time Visitors: 791 (previous record: 285)
T-Shirts Sold: 7 (record: 9)
Month-To-Date T-Shirts Sold: 18

I am really pleased with the traffic numbers, especially the number of page loads per visitor (2.8). While some people hit my landing page and moved on, a good percentage of visitors stayed and had a good look around. That's encouraging.

At the same time, it would have been nice if the sales numbers were as strong as the traffic numbers, but no dice. Thus, one of the lessons from last week is that traffic doesn't equal sales. If it did, my sales numbers should have been roughly 4X greater than the previous week, which they weren't. Sales week-over-week were flat.

I am not too torn up about the poor sales, however, because my goal for last week was more about exposure for the contest than it was about sales. To my way of thinking, interest in the conest will lead (hopefully) to people submitting ugly shirts, which will (hopefully) lead to more interest in the site overall by a broader range of people. That's my hypothesis anyway. We'll see what happens in practice.

I also think sales have to percolate for a little while. So, maybe some of the visitors from last week will be customers this week, or the week after. Of course, this could be wishful thinking on my part.

On a somewhat unrelated note, my new banner ad is up at Radioactive Panda. Go give Eric some love.

Obsess Much?

I realized a personal truth yesterday. I am very much into instant gratification. I know, who isn't, right? But, until yesterday, I had never realized how strong that urge is within me.

After I announced the contest yesterday, sent out the email and blogged about it here, I couldn't help myself as I sat literally for hours refreshing my statcounter page. I had to see where people were coming from, which pages they were looking at, how many pages the loaded per visit, how much time they spent on the site and if they looked at just the contest page (by which I was trying to judge if they had some interest) or if they looked at the contest page, the news page and the rules page (which I took to mean they had a lot of interest.) It was exciting watching the hit totals rack up faster than they ever had before. Each time I refreshed and saw the numbers jump up, it was a little burst of energy and excitement. I was hooked.

By midday, I had to leave my computer screen and get out of the house. My rationale was that I wasn't getting any work done anyway and I was beginning to scare myself. So, I went to the comic shop, which I haven't been to in a while, and tried to distract myself, even if for only a few hours.

It worked for the most part. I was able to get my mind off of it and realize how obsessed I had become. When I got back, I tried to focus my mind on doing other things for the rest of the day, and I only periodically checked how things were going. Though, I will admit, I was up late last night going through all of the stats one last time before bed.

Today, I have sworn to myself that I will not look at the numbers for the rest of the day. I am sure they will go up and will be good, based on yesterday (which I will share with you eventually once the numbers for the week are in.) So, to some extent I can relax.

As I was telling Al, I need to remind myself that this contest will be what it will be. Further, I need to remember that the contest is more than a month long, and I should neither get my hopes up based on a few good days, nor expend all my energy at once. This is just the beginning. Hopefully.

So, now that I have learned this about myself, how will it affect me? I am not sure. I should probably recognize that it's going to happen on days like yesterday, where I am launching something new, and plan for it accordingly. Maybe I can schedule a meeting out of the office or give myself so much work that I don't have time to obsess. Or, I could just accept it about myself and realize that I will have to tear myself away from my computer from time to time. Either way, I don't think this is the worse thing for me. It's just more of a realization than anything else.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

-- Tao Te Ching

Contest: Let The Ugliness Begin!

Well, I've launched the contest. In fact, if you go look at springheel jack, you'll see that I've added a dedicated contest page. The contest rules are here. And, I made my contest introduction into a "news" piece for the news section.

And for all you out there wondering, the t-shirt with Kurt Russell picture doesn't really exist. I Photoshopped it into existence. If you look closely, you can see the dvd symbol in the lower right corner of the image.

What am I doing to publicize the contest? Well, this morning I sent out emails to all of my customers announcing the contest. In fact, some of you have probably received it already. (I messed up on this, by the way. I sent it from "Tom Rose" and not "Springheel Jack". Not too smooth with the whole professionalism thing.)

I'm also going to try to contact the list of publishers we came up with. I'll probably wait until I have a few shirts to publicize, say a week or two.

I took out a classified on dailykos.com that will run for a week. I'm also going to take out a classified on Craigslist.org. If you have any other ideas on how to spread the word, please let me know.

Lastly, here is the part where I ask a big favor of all of you. For those of you who have blogs, would you please post about my contest? It doesn't have to be more than a few words. Just something as simple as "Hey, check this out." with a link to the contest page. (http://www.springheeljack.net/shop/custom.asp?recid=12) Your combined readership, even excluding overlap, dwarfs mine by comparison. I could really use the help getting the word out there. Thanks!

Monthly Contest?

Question for you all: Should the contest be a monthly contest right out of the chute? In other words, should I announce it as a monthly contest from the beginning? Or, should I announce it as a one-time contest and then, assuming there is enough interest, switch to a monthly contest when the time comes? Thoughts?

Contest: What Is It?

Kyle's comment made me realize that I also need to explain what the contest is. I probably won't lead with this because once the contest is up and running, people will likely get it. But, I should have some text explaining what it is to the uninitiated. Here's what I came up with:

Ahh...the t-shirt! The workhorse of wardrobes everywhere! Clearly the most universal article of clothing in people's closets, nothing feels more comfortable, nothing says "easy-going" with such ease, nothing goes better with a new pair of jeans than the perfect t-shirt. Admit it, we all love t-shirts. That's why we own so many of them.

And yet, despite our love of the t-shirt, it is one of the most maligned and often neglected articles of clothing. Sadly, we've all seen (and possibly owned) t-shirts that never really made the cut. Whether it was an teal-colored tanktop with day-glow lettering bought on vacation in Key West, or a concert tee of a now defunct 80's hair band (sorry, Winger), there still exist t-shirts that should have been put out of their misery long ago.

Well, we at Springheel Jack feels it is our obligation, nay duty, to do something about this sad state of affairs. It is hereby announced that Springheel Jack will be conducting the first ever "Ugly T-Shirt Contest". Contestants are encouraged to scrounge through their closest to find the ugliest t-shirt they own and send it to us at:

Springheel Jack
c/o Ugly T-Shirt Contest
208 Villa Circle
Boynton Beach, FL 33435

All contestants who enter will be given a gift certificate of $5 to use at Springheel Jack. The lucky winner of the contest will receive $50 in cold, hard cash and a free Springheel Jack t-shirt of their choice. The contest will run from July 1st, 2005 to July 31st, 2005. For a complete list of rules, click [link].