Welcome to Something for Nothing

I moved to Las Vegas about two years ago. When I moved here the first thing my sister told me is that they hold the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. I told her that I didn’t give a flip about the NFR. I wanted to get Professional Bull Riders Finals tickets. The PBR is so much cooler than the NFR. I’ve since learned that they are both huge and amazingly entertaining.

It really is an amazing event. I work on the campus of UNLV and so my whole life is affected when the cowboys come to Las Vegas. The PBR and NFR use up all of the Thomas and Mack, the Cox Pavillion, the intramural fields, they close down a street, the turn a parking lot into dirt to store animals. Not to mention almost half of the Thomas and Mack parking lot is some sort of reserved VIP parking for the rodeo.

I’m not bitter though. It’s really quite exciting with all those people coming to UNLV. Plus, the Thomas and Mack is a great place to hold the event. There really isn’t a horrible seat in the entire arena. Plus, half of the parking lot is turned into a few stages, some climbing poles, a mechanical bull, a bunch of sweet trucks and much more.

I had a late night class this year that kept me at UNLV until about 10pm. After my class I was walking to my car and the PBR had just recently let out. I decided to just walk through all the entertainment that was going on. Boy was I surprised. They were these tall beautiful girls on top of what looked like bars dancing around and singing much like the movie Coyote Ugly. Then, I kept walking and saw an over 18 tent. Don’t ask me what was going on there. Then, there were 2 girls on top of a truck and some other girls dancing on this container. I really hadn’t seen anything like it. Anyone want to go with me to the PBR?

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I’ve been pretty open in my enjoyment of PayPerPost. Well, recently I’ve cooled off on the PayPerPost product. I think the biggest problem has been the lack of great opportunities and the diminishing number of advertisers that are using PayPerPost. I absolutely believe that in order for PayPerPost to make good on their $3 million in funding, they need to sign up a TON more advertisers. I sincerely believe that if PayPerPost has enough advertisers, then they will have absolutely have no problem finding more bloggers for their product.

I was recently asked about these comments from Website Magazine who is doing an article on PayPerPost. I spent so much time on these comments that I decided to offer them on my blog. I call it some free consulting for PayPerPost. You have to read it from my point of view writing to a reporter, and no I didn’t proof read this. You’ll just have to enjoy it as is.

Finding advertisers is a huge challenge for almost any company. Advertising budget is one of the first things to go and is hugely hit or miss in my opinion. I haven’t thought much about it from an advertising perspective, but I’ll tell you the first thing off the top of my head.

A few things that PayPerPost has done recently to improve their ability to get advertisers:
-removed the countrackula link so that it isn’t as trackable by Google
-required saying that it was a sponsored post (although they could improve this part)
-purchasing performancing which will allow them to better filter bloggers for advertisers and also to provide advertisers with quality feedback on the ads on people’s blogs
-signing up HP

It’s going to be really key to see how well PayPerPost can implement performancing’s metrics program. That will be a big challenge and may determine their success in the long run.

HP’s success as the first major corporate sponsor will be crucial to signing up future advertisers.

I think PayPerPost has missed the boat in not creating an affiliate program for posties who sign up advertisers. I don’t think this would take much to accomplish and could yield new advertisers.

I think that PayPerPost could be very valuable in getting feedback on a product or service and creating a buzz over that product and service. The service could be refined a little, but getting good quality feedback on a website is worth a lot of money and bloggers are a great way to get feedback. It does take some managing of the responses, but I think there’s some definite value in bloggers feedback. Plus, as a review the blog post seems much more natural.

Major enhancements to the way advertising opportunities are displayed could significantly improve PayPerPost’s product offering. They have a sort of rotating links, but there is a whole lot more that could be done to better promote a company.

So far the community at PayPerPost has really been blogger heavy. PayPerPost’s promotion to bloggers has been excellent. The same can’t be said for advertisers. I think they should focus more effort on advertier testimonials and other advertising stories and promotions.

I’m not the best salesman in the world. In fact, I’d say that’s my weakness. However, these are some thoughts off the top of my head.

I just reread your question an realized that I answered a different question than you asked, but I think there’s a few things in what I said that apply to your question. Here’s my short synopsis of the value an advertiser can receive:
-SEO link value
-PR value
-Constructive feedback/Product Insight
-Blogger buzz (one blogger blogs and the other follows and the other follows that)
-Temporary Spike in Traffic

In order to allay fears:
-It’s very similar to a link from a blogger that just found your website and liked your product
-Make your opportunity creative so that you get a variety of responses that are valuable
-Use a higher Page Rank
-PPP should just be one layer in your internet marketing package
-Use a variety of links that are randomized

Those are really some tough questions [How do you sell advertisers on the value they can receive and how do you allay their fears]. I wonder what Ted would say to those questions. Also, if you want a good question to ask Ted. In the beginning almost all of the opportunities were from people that advertised with Ted’s other marketing company called MindComet. I’d be interested to know what percentage of advertisers have been MindComet clients. Second, how many of MindComet clients still want to use PayPerPost. In fact, why not call the MindComet people and see what they say about it.

Agree? Disagree?