What is the biggest mistake customers make?

I just got to 200 users, 13 power users and 2 paid customers. How do I grow faster?

• My Company is http://www.BloggersCompete.com. it's a crowd sourcing platform geared at connecting advertisers with bloggers through contests. What should I do to get more users (bloggers and advertisers)? I just launched in mid July. The below things are what I'm doing right now to grow my user base faster. What can I do to optimize my current marketing campaigns located below? Note: We’re still iterating on our features. We took the lean approach so we did the bare minimum right now to solve our users’ problems (getting paid and promoted as a blogger and getting more buzz as an advertiser). MAIL CHIMP: I've identified 13 power users on the site and have created a dialogue with them, and am in the process of getting their help to spread the site faster. I segmented other users based on actions they’ve taken on the site and I’m sending them targeted emails based on what actions I want them to take next on the site. GUEST BLOGGING: I found it easy to get my guest blog posts on smaller sites, but the bigger ones have long waiting lines for when my blog post goes live. PRESS I've been reaching out to bloggers and journalists myself and it’s helped us get some press: http://weblogbetter.com/2011/08/01/promote-blog-contest. More at http://www.bloggerscompete.com/press.php. I hired a part time PR Intern and he's been engaging with journalists via twitter, on their blog posts and now he's going to use a linkedin premium membership to reach out to them. He’s also been managing the twitter account to keep that active. My team and I pitched at the NJ Tech Meet Up and that helped get our name out there. I’m going to Affiliate Summit this Sunday to make connections with press and pitch some larger Companies. I'm going to the Google Engage seminar Sept 27 to make connections with press, potential customers and etc. BANNER ADS I bought $280 for one month of advertising and narrowed it down to $55/month based on looking at the CTR in the buysellads dash board and bounce rate on Google Analytics. FACEBOOK ADS I made a mistake and sent whoever clicked on the facebook ad to my site instead of my FACEBOOK PAGE. Fortunately it was only a 100 dollar mistake. FACEBOOK CONTEST (to be implemented) We’re going to implement a Facebook contest to get lots of likes on our page. I'm trying to decide whether or not I should target this only to bloggers, because having a lot of likes is good for credibility. DIRECT ENGAGEMENT I’ve been sending bloggers messages on linked in directly to try to get them on the site. I’m in the process of gamifying the site even more with a leader board, an automatic pulling of blog posts from participating bloggers based on the blogger’s status on the leader board SEO We implemented some on site SEO and we’re ranked on page one of Google for blog post contests. We’re going to do some on site changes and off site link building (just using our own service) to get higher up on Google. SEM (to be implemented) I’ll be spending around 1.5 grand on Ad Words, but I’m going through the certification course’s study materials first so I can I’ll be making a specific landing page for each campaign and will be using kiss metrics to measure how many click throughs convert into users. PR WEB (to be implemented) I’m thinking of doing a premium package http://service.prweb.com/pricing/package/premium/- but not sure. I want to hear from someone who actually used it. Did it yield results? What kind?

• Answer:

  Your SEO still needs work, look at the blog URLs and Nav which aren't optimized.  This is a waste of effort: http://bloggerscompete.com/contest.php?contestid=506 and this is a detrimental mistake: /index.php At this stage you want to test and learn; you should be in SEM before anything else (certainly display advertising).  What are people searching for?  Great that you are first on "blog post contests" but so what if no one searches that.  I run a dozen or more blogs and have for as many years, I can't remember any time I've ever looked for that. What is your cost per acquisition? IF you are determined to run Facebook and Display, what determines that it works?  No, don't use PR Web.  At this stage, your PR should be industry specific and VERY hands on.  Exactly what you are doing with blogger outreach and working up the funnel to connect with more established media professionals. Lose the Facebook and Twitter "Don't Forget" from your signup form.  Are you trying to get people to sign up or follow you? What's the point of the Qualifications link on the homepage??   There really isn't anything on the list that matters; you can weed out those that don't qualify.  The link on the homepage is a distraction from signup. Work on your messaging.  This is complex: Participate in blogging contests. You'll create awesome content for your blog, get free stuffand get promoted for just participating. If your blog post is the best post, then you'll get paid! So if I participate through my blog, promoting other products or services, I get free "stuff" (Like what??) and get promoted (how?) for the chance to win (how much?)