Market Your Blog -- On PPP's Dime
My FVCC recap post mentioned some portfolio work that kept me from a yacht wine tasting and gambling. Some called me crazy, but the tradeoff was well worth it...
PayPerPost launched a monster release that same night including in-post disclosure badges and a variety of segmentation options marketers have been asking for -- taking Consumer Generated Advertising to another level of ROI with scalable targeting. I may cover those segmentation options in another post, but I wanted to share a fairly stealth, but powerful piece of that PPP release: "Review My Post" (RMP).
PPP has already been called a virus by some, but they haven't seen anything yet. RMP is PPP's proprietary, viral affiliate program (a viriliate program, if you will ;-)) taking DFJ/HotMail's "P.S. I love you, get your free email account at Hotmail" viral marketing to a whole new, blogosphere level. Now, having grown up in the Draper system, I shutter every time I hear the term "viral" for programs that aren't truly viral, but are referential at best. I also never quite liked that most viral programs focused on "infecting" people without providing win-win value along the way. Thus, the birth of "Review My Post".
Every single minute of every single day audiences are reading posts of interest, but less than 1% ever post/trackback their thoughts/perspective. Even that small % is valuable, but greater than 99% of audience feedback/marketing is lost today because there isn't an institutionalized "call to action" to solicit conversation. I've seen the simple act of promising a linkback drive 200+ blog reviews, demonstrating that huge amounts of audience knowledge and perspective are currently untapped. If there was such an institutionalized "call to action", a blogger would see an explosion of marketing and good/bad feedback to help them hone their craft, grow traffic and bring value to their audiences.
So how does RMP unlock this goldmine in a win-win fashion?
1) A blogger/affiliate inserts the "Get Paid to Review My Post" button into their post template -- most likely at the bottom as I've done here at FVB so every post is fair game for feedback.
2) An audience member reads one of the blogger's posts, has some perspective to share, and clicks the RMP button to get compensated for providing that valuable marketing/feedback/linklove at their blog.
3) When that newly referred blogger's post is approved for affiliate payout, both the referring blogger gets $7.50 and the referred blogger gets $7.50 -- pretty simple.
4) Result: Win-Win-Win-Win. Referred blogger gets concrete compensation for sharing their feedback. The referring blogger gets concrete compensation, but even more importantly, gets valuable blog marketing/feedback -- all on PPP's dime. Audiences win because they are introduced to new blogs that interest a blogger they follow and they win by RMP bloggers improving their writing/design/topics. And, last, PPP wins as new bloggers experience the power of blog marketing.
Like all viral offerings, there will be those who try to abuse/game the system, but I'm also confident RMP will unlock value for the entire spectrum of bloggers, large or small. With this value in mind, for the first time ever, PPP has opened their affiliate programs to any blogger, not just those who get paid to blog. Every blogger can benefit from this program -- in fact, it's already happening for Posties and non-Posties alike. The sooner blog templates include RMP, the quicker the feedback loop begins...
So what are you waiting for? Click my ReviewMyPost button and get started!
PayPerPost launched a monster release that same night including in-post disclosure badges and a variety of segmentation options marketers have been asking for -- taking Consumer Generated Advertising to another level of ROI with scalable targeting. I may cover those segmentation options in another post, but I wanted to share a fairly stealth, but powerful piece of that PPP release: "Review My Post" (RMP).
PPP has already been called a virus by some, but they haven't seen anything yet. RMP is PPP's proprietary, viral affiliate program (a viriliate program, if you will ;-)) taking DFJ/HotMail's "P.S. I love you, get your free email account at Hotmail" viral marketing to a whole new, blogosphere level. Now, having grown up in the Draper system, I shutter every time I hear the term "viral" for programs that aren't truly viral, but are referential at best. I also never quite liked that most viral programs focused on "infecting" people without providing win-win value along the way. Thus, the birth of "Review My Post".
Every single minute of every single day audiences are reading posts of interest, but less than 1% ever post/trackback their thoughts/perspective. Even that small % is valuable, but greater than 99% of audience feedback/marketing is lost today because there isn't an institutionalized "call to action" to solicit conversation. I've seen the simple act of promising a linkback drive 200+ blog reviews, demonstrating that huge amounts of audience knowledge and perspective are currently untapped. If there was such an institutionalized "call to action", a blogger would see an explosion of marketing and good/bad feedback to help them hone their craft, grow traffic and bring value to their audiences.
So how does RMP unlock this goldmine in a win-win fashion?
1) A blogger/affiliate inserts the "Get Paid to Review My Post" button into their post template -- most likely at the bottom as I've done here at FVB so every post is fair game for feedback.
2) An audience member reads one of the blogger's posts, has some perspective to share, and clicks the RMP button to get compensated for providing that valuable marketing/feedback/linklove at their blog.
3) When that newly referred blogger's post is approved for affiliate payout, both the referring blogger gets $7.50 and the referred blogger gets $7.50 -- pretty simple.
4) Result: Win-Win-Win-Win. Referred blogger gets concrete compensation for sharing their feedback. The referring blogger gets concrete compensation, but even more importantly, gets valuable blog marketing/feedback -- all on PPP's dime. Audiences win because they are introduced to new blogs that interest a blogger they follow and they win by RMP bloggers improving their writing/design/topics. And, last, PPP wins as new bloggers experience the power of blog marketing.
Like all viral offerings, there will be those who try to abuse/game the system, but I'm also confident RMP will unlock value for the entire spectrum of bloggers, large or small. With this value in mind, for the first time ever, PPP has opened their affiliate programs to any blogger, not just those who get paid to blog. Every blogger can benefit from this program -- in fact, it's already happening for Posties and non-Posties alike. The sooner blog templates include RMP, the quicker the feedback loop begins...
So what are you waiting for? Click my ReviewMyPost button and get started!
(charity post: as part of my New Year's Resolutions to blog for charity, this post has generated an American Red Cross donation on my behalf)
Labels: hotmail, payperpost, review my post, rmp, viral marketing
Posted by VC Dan | 2/20/2007
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Comments (6)
What I do not understand is how the business model is sustainable. Where is the $15.00 per comment comming from? How does it generate the money to pay the commentator and the author? What is the product which supports the marketing system?
Hey Mark, Thanks for stopping by. All good questions.
Review My Post is an affiliate program offered to any blogger by PayPerPost and, as such, payouts are a marketing expense for PPP on behalf of bloggers. It is sustainable if PPP achieves a positive ROI on that marketing spend.
The beauty of the program is that it epitomizes win/win. Everyone gains in the process, probably the "Review My Post" referring blogger most of all via feedback/marketing of their blog, generating goodwill for PPP and demonstrating the power of consumer generated advertising to multiple parties doing what they already do daily.
Does that make more sense?
I agree that the main problem is that this cash being paid out isn't sustainable for long. I'd say that PPP is simply paying for buzz, links, and visibility. When the money dries up -- soon is my guess -- the program will be done. Still, it's not that different than a business paying for freebies to give away with the company logo on it.
"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is." I've commented on one person's post, and I'll withhold final judgment until after I get paid or rejected.
While it lasts, this is the exception to your "too good to be true" rule. Now that you've registered with PPP for your review, you can add the "Review My Post" button to your blog -- driving ongoing blog reviews by your audience and further affiliate payouts.
If you're right about it not lasting long, then the sooner you add RMP the better. If it does last, then you gain even more. You win either way so where's the downside?
I am one of the PPP Posties but I am hesitant about using the RMP because it seems to be unfair to the advertisers.
For example, let's say that I accepted an opportunity to write about Walnut Widgets, and I am to be paid $15 for the opp. Isn't it cutting in on their advertisement for me have a PPP RMP in the post that they paid for? Doesn't the RMP take the reader away from the post about Walnut Widgets and undermine the words in the post that they paid me to write? I would think that the visitors to my blog would be distracted by the RMP and forget all about Walnut Widgets.
I would definitely utilize the RMP in my posts if it wasn't for this concern.
@Sane: Actually, I'd expect Walnut Widgets to be excited that a reader of yours is now getting incentivized to review your post about Walnut Widgets -- it adds a viral component to their sponsored blogging ROI at no added expense. Therefore, your post and the sponsor's topic are gaining further buzz/awareness -- on PPP's dime.
I'd encourage you to add RMP to your post-footer template as I've done for all posts, whether sponsored or not...
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