The Million Dollar Homepage, how did the guy manage to sell this idea to companies?

I must admit that if someone had come to sell me the idea, the million dollar homepage, I would have smack him over the head and tell him to get back to school...

How did it all started? I remember that once the media got hold of the story, the balls was already rolling, and they just made it easy for him to reach the million. But what interest me is how did he first manage to sell the idea to these companies who had no idea if that site would ever make it?
It is notoriously hard to get hold of the guy in charge of marketing in big corporations so the fact that he managed to get these guys to open their check book for a dollar amazes me even more!!

How did he do it?

Thank you for your input...

 

He contacted paper and tv about story how he was going to pay for college or something. They picked it up and companies bought links to say they are involved for free advertising

 

Yeah, first time around it was a clever, original idea, with a good reason (the guy wanting to pay for college) and it got media attention. And as for opening their check book for a dollar, most people bought more than one pixel.

 

He didnt sell the idea, he just had a unique concept, built interest, and this sparked off a Viral word of mouth marketing campaign, and then helped make him a million. The more people talked about his site the more money he made.

Nothing to do with companies buying his idea.

 

He means how did he get companies to buy the advertising, as in "sell the idea" - convince them the idea was worthwhile for them to advertise on.

 

Companies wanted to benefit from the "traffic" hence he was successful.

 

From what I can remember of the story, he sold his first pixels to a close relative with a small shop/store.
Most of the initial buyers were small business owners. After the word got out, larger companies want to be apart of the exclusive club. It was an absolutely brilliant idea.

Tam

 

He hired a publicist/marketer to do the selling for him. That's how he got hooked up with TV, newspaper, radio, etc. Once the site was getting that much publicity, many small businesses owners recognized the potential for massive traffic and bought pixels.

Depending on which version of the story you listen to, that publicist got up to 50% of the site's proceeds.

 

well I guess I will never know the exact story on this!!

How many of you bought cloned script of the million dollar homepage?? Did you or somebody made any money on it?

I know it is an old story but the marketing techniques used are good to remember...

 

In my opinion the idea was very unique at that time and that paved the way for its success...also the media helped a lot

 

Great marketers can create hype for even the shittiest of products...

 

a quick look around shows that it is still happening,
there are many others out there to try their luck, selling weird products to the masses:

http://www.the-homepage-movie.com
http://www.milliondollarwiki.com
etc.

funny, though. participation seems to get more important: the movie project seems to try to get "affiliates"

 

people are trying it over and over. probably make 100 dollars and then stop. most dont get anywhere. IMHO you should put up some fake ones and then people think WOW! ALOT OF PEOPLE ALREADY ADVERTISED HERE! then they will do the same.

 

Yes, things can only be done for a certain amount of time and not forever.
The market was already over-saturated.

 

Yeah,

At least you should do something different!! I have seen one website a while ago doing the same things but with big colorful cubes...he was making money too.

I will try to find the link and post it here.

It shows that if you can spin the idea off well enough there is a possibility to make a few bucks

 

Thank you my thoughts exactly. Besides the concept of the pixel adverts was unique at the time - turnkey.

In addition to pay for a $1 to $100 pixel spot for the life of the site - I would invest. Especially since the site is registeree till 8/23/2015

 

so where is he now? did he open a new site?

 

He was the first one with that kind of idea, thats why it was a success.

 

he contacted imal wagner and she marketed the site for him.

 

did he offer him/her a cut?