Searching for the Smartest of the U.S.

I am building a program to deliver an online contest Searching for the Smartest of the US. The ideas is driven by my website www.BestofUS.com and my desire to recognize the smart people in our country. After all we regularly recognize the Biggest Looser, the Most Eligible Bachelor, America's Got Talent, and Survivor. Why are ignoring the smart people. Can you name the last Pulitzer Prize winner?

The contest will be an annual year long event. Contestants will be invited to come to www.SmartestofUS.com,pay a $10 entry fee, take a 15 minute 40 question test to find the smartest people in the US. The winner will receive a $50,000 prize, 12 monthly winners will receive a $5,000 prize, and we'll award cash prizes down to the 1000 smartest person in the US. Over 16 million people search for online contestants and sweepstakes every month, nine million play online poker.

The questions have been written, a bank of 3000 to be drawn from, the program has been written, the designers are hard at work, and the advertising campaign is being worked on.

I want to share some of my thoughts about how to present The Smartest of the US contest in hopes that any readers will share their incite or opinions.

As I see it there are three ways that I can present my contest each with differing appeal and differing risk and reward:

1. With a fixed prize ($50,000 to winner and payout to next 1000 highest scores, an exposure of $500,000 plus). This carries a high risk; what if the revenue doesn't cover the advertising and prize cost? It carries a high appeal; able to state the prize in the ads thus pulling high traffic. How many people really think their one of the 1000 smartest so how many will enter? But then we are paying the top 1000 and the entry fee is just $10.00.

2. With a prize that is tied to the level of entire fees (sliding prize); the level of risk goes down and the exposure is just the advertising which can be stopped if the entries are not coming. The potential prize purse actually doubles if we reach our projected participation level of 2000 entries per day. The advertising copy is then limited because an inability to state a definite prize level early on, thus potentially less traffic.

3. Drop the entry fee and offer the same prize as stated in option #1, and sell the promotion up front to a Sponsor who can be tied into The Smartest of the US. (The Smart Car, Phoenix University, Apple Computer). With no entry fee a banner ad campaign could yield a daily traffic of 50,000 or more resulting in a lot of advertising impressions. If it's free most people would be interested in where they stand in a Smartest of US ranking. With a 5% conversion rate on leads it could generate 775,000 annual leads. I could show a $3.5 million value to Phoenix University, who's accustomed to paying between $25 and $60 for leads, and offer the promotion for sale at a sizable discount.

Give these options some thought and if you have any comments please share them with me.