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This year’s Wonderful WAHumor Internet Marketing Giveaway for Autism Research is over, and we did well. We didn’t break the goal, but I know why. What’s more, I know how we’ll blow past it like it’s standing still next year.

Here’s some of the lessons this year’s event has taught me:

Lesson 1: Keep it short.

Trying to maintain enthusiasm and, in the advice of Willie Crawford, “grab and hold attention” for an event like this for one full week is just plain crazy, unless you happen to be a computer who needs no sleep or food, has nothing else to do and never gets sick or tired. Between my own observations and experience and the advice of those who know, three days in this case would have been much better than seven. Also, expecting people to help spread the word for a few days is nicer than hounding and pleading over an entire week.

I’ve decided that next year’s fundraiser will be live from 12 noon Eastern On Monday, October 5 until 12 noon Eastern on Thursday, October 8.

Which brings us to the next lesson…

Lesson 2: Focus.

I made a huge and unforgivable mistake this year. I scheduled the event on the same week as the big Harvest/Halloween party that my wife and her friend both anticipate eagerly and hold on a weekend in October each year. Conducting a fundraiser or really a promotional campaign of any kind when you’re being conscripted for hanging decorations, running for this and that, lifting that, moving this and everything else possible is hard. That’s putting it mildly! From Thursday through Saturday, my time was not my own very often and I was typically anywhere but at my computer.

And the time that was? I spent it sick.

Lesson 3: Stay healthy.

Some little germ knocked my 6′, 225 lb. self flatter than a pancake by late Thursday afternoon, and I hadn’t puffed back up to much more than a scone by Saturday. Still, slaves can’t complain, so I helped my wife and did what I could manage otherwise.

The Wonder WAHumor Internet Marketing Giveaway for Autism Research would have been seriously up the creek, except for one thing:

Lesson 4: Social networking ROCKS!

I’m ashamed to admit that I joined Twitter in 2007, and didn’t even post once until this past month. I started spending a lot of time there a couple of weeks before the kickoff deliberately to test its potential, and I was blown away!

I met and recruited several product contributors who offered some fantastic stuff and even old friends and acquiantences I hadn’t been in touch with for a while. Many started a rally on Thursday after I mentioned that the $1000 mark was just a few hundred away, and NINE donations were made in 30 minutes. Yeah, WOW!

If you’re not active in social networking sites, start. If you are, don’t stop. It’s worth the (scheduled) time and effort. Had I started when I first joined Twitter, who knows how well we would have done this time? I know we’ll do well next year, because:

Lesson 5: Plan your campaign in advance.

In the first year of the WWIMGAR, I was struck with inspiration only a month or so beforehand and scrambled “old school” style by email and forums to find contributors and then donors. The results of that first effort showed my lack of advance planning. I did, hwoever, promise that each succeeding year would be better. It has, and it will continue to do so.

I began planning for the next event during the past one. Mostly, It consisted of saying, “I don’t like how that works” or “Well, I sure don’t want to do this so much again!” or some such thing. I thought about a lot of things, some I wrote down, some I didn’t and some my mind simply couldn’t or wouldn’t hoald on to long enough to write down.

Knowing that this is something that happens once a year at the same time, I can plan at my leisure, ask questions, make inquiries, pick brains, the works.

My goal was and remains making the Wonderful WAHumor Internet Marketing Giveaway for Autism Research better every year. Just wait ’til next year!

Dan >

P.S. I’ll be posting my planning process here as I go throughout the year until the next fundraiser. Your questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome!