24 hour web team auction for charity

Today at 9:15am the 24 hour web team eBay auction was won by Youth 2 Youth. There was some serious adrenaline pumping Jessica Kiely, Director of Youth 2 Youth says at the end when they sneaked their bid in on the last 15 seconds. I interviewed Jessica and the conversation follows:

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Why did you want to bid for the auction?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
We wanted to bid because – we love Freestyle and we have some stuff on our agenda that we could use their services for. The idea of having it done in 24 hours is VERY exciting for us – as we will get it a whole lot quicker than normal. Of course because we know that the money is going to a good cause – is so awesome, and warm and fuzzy and all of us know someone who has or is affected by cancer.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
You said each of you know someone who was affected. Describe this warm and fuzzy feeling you have now?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
Warm and fuzzys – mmmmm……knowing that your $$'s (dollars) are helping research is awesome. As a social enterprise here at Youth 2 Youth we are all about making a difference, so in everything we do we try and live this……so this is another great way to do that. We see it as a win win here – the Cancer Council gets money for research, we increase the profile of cervical cancer, Youth 2 Youth gets a new project worked on by a world class online marketing agency and as Youth 2 Youth is a social enterprise this new project will then go on to help others……everyone say argh!!!!!

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
So what are you thinking of building and promoting with the auction win?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
A brand new website! Its a little tricky to talk about the website because – we are in the process of 'teasing' our clients, customers and colleagues….about stuff that is going on here – so I don’t want to give too much away.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Sure.

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
But it will be authentic, innovative and fun. And the Freestyle Media team are one of the best teams to work on it.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
What do you think you will do with the 500,000 emails?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
mmm – not to sure about that one……something to all of the schools in Australia possibly…..we may need some advice on how best to use that for our project. But it is very exciting – because we could get some great coverage for our services.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Have you ever used paid search for your promotion? What’s your thoughts on the websearch.com.au 12 month listing?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
We haven’t used it before, so will be an exciting area to go into! It will help us increase our own web knowledge at the same time. Again…..we aren’t very web-savvy in using the web technology for our biz, so far….so we are really looking forward to utilising those new things to develop our business further. Part of the 'project' will be also seeing how we can incorporate increased awareness for the Cancer Council and cervical cancer as well.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Great! Any final comments?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
Well done to Freestyle Media, websearch.com.au and Returnity for making all of this possible. It has been very exciting and so great to be a part of such an innovative solution – perhaps this is the new way for NFPs to do fundraising…..because its great!!! Look forward to presenting our money to the Cancer Council and working with the Freestyle Media team for that crazy 24 hours!

Just wanted to give a bit of an update on the auction. Firstly thank you to all your kinds bids. The auction rocketed off to a great start on the first day although has hit some invisible wall and is just sitting on $3,200? Doesnt anyone want to own a 15 person web team for 24 hours and get them to build whatever they want?

Marketing Magazine have got onto this aswell. I must say everyones kind help is really appreciated.

Here are some more kind media outlets that are helping us to raise this money:

Elevenmagazine.com – Can you help us stop cancer in 24 hours

Ecommwire – Online marketing guru sells his company on eBay

We have launched the auction and we have just got our first bid. Add your bid!

Bid now

We are launching the auction on Monday. I will post a link as to the location of the auction. If you have any questions about the auction just comment, email (f.schebesta@freestylemedia.com.au) or call me on 02 9818 7300 and I (Fred Schebesta) will get back to you about them.

Remember all funds go directly to the Cancer Council NSW! 

Freestyle Media founder and director Fred Schebesta is putting his company under the hammer for cancer in the first Ebay auction of online marketing consulting services from Australia.

‘My girlfriend recently got diagnosed with cervical cancer, which really knocked me for six. . I’m trying to be as supportive as possible, and be there for, but I felt helpless. and really felt the need to do more, so I sat down and thought about what I could do’.

I tried to think about what I know how to do – and in the end came up with the conclusion that all I had to offer was the sweat of my brow, and thought that it would be nice to . I then had a chat with the guys I work with, and they all unanimously agreed to help out and volunteer their time as it’s such a great cause.

What do you hope to achieve?

Ideally, I would like to raise some money, but more importantly, raise the profile of cervical cancer, and contribute in some small way to awareness of this terrible disease.’

How do you see the event working?

Basically, our entire team (we have 15 full-time staff) will work with whoever wins the auction for a full 24-hour period, to produce anything to do with online.

We plan to go from midday on day 1, with a client briefing session, to midday on day 2 with a finished product.

What are we offering?

• An entire Web site from beginning to end
• A banner campaign
• Emarketing plan
• Acquisition campaign suggestions and brainstorm
• Complete review of a company's online presence, with a Web audit that starts at midday and finishes at midday the next day with a 10 page report
• New ideas for produce online
• Build eCommerce engine for a site
• Newsletter Template

“This auction is an opportunity to offer Freestyle’s cutting edge interactive marketing services in the most innovative way to raise much needed funds for a very worthy cause,” he says.

‘We also hope to have a lot of fun on the way, and whoever wins the auction can come and work alongside us, or talk to us over Messenger and via our Blog’.

The highest bidder will have the Freestyle team at their beck and call to work on anything in the online space over a 24 hour period, from developing a web site or banner campaign to creating eNewsletters and devising an eMarketing plan.

Webcams will be set up to track the team’s progress during the assignment with updates via Messenger and blogs.

Founded in 2001, Freestyle Media and has grown to become a profitable online marketing agency with 15 full time employees and clients including Sanitarium, Laser Sight Centres, Rabobank, McDonalds and Acer Computers. To find out more log onto www.freestylemedia.com.au.

Schebesta’s auction commences on Ebay on 3rd April and will run for 10 days.