Advertising

Look, We’re Not Idiots Here

by Melvin · Sep 12, 2009

Note: This is a spontaneous rugged post with no proof-reading whatsoever..

Internet marketing is all about sales pitches and good copywriting skills. Those who make a good amount of income as a marketer usually do things right, good sales talk, then proper marketing. But 90% of people just don’t. I’m really very pissed off on how a lot of marketers do hardselling the ugly way. Of course hard selling is theoretically ugly but exaggerating it makes it then 1000% more ugly.

I have read a lot of pitches, either in a sales page, squeeze page, peel away, or just pop up javascript. They don’t lack the selling point, what they lack is realism. Most of them are thrashy and are fool in expecting prospective customers to buy their stuffs.

You probably have seen a package wherein you would pay the main product for $37 and then get bonus packages worth $5999 right? Well isn’t it hyperbolic? You’re not giving away that value of items, would you? Who’s fool would do a hardwork, get paid $37 per item, and give away $5999 value per item? None! That’s because it’s totally untrue.

Another is the bullcrap use of strikethrough where the price starts at $1000 and for some reason, goes down up to $10 w/some bullshit reason. Ok, the use of strikethrough is nice, in fact I have used it a lot in this blog and some sales page. But must be used in a realistic manner…

The problem with marketers today especially in the MMO niche is that most of them play things wrong. Look, you’re marketing your product, ebook, whatever to a fellow marketer. Whatever tactic you have, the other end knows it completely well! Well don’t market to me, I’m a marketer. What say you?

Free Ad Spot, Free Text Links, Are They Really Worth It?

by Melvin · Dec 13, 2008

Even when I first started this blog, I was seeing a lot of sites and blogs offering and giving away free advertisements in form of text links, 125X125 ad or whatever. Some people are even reluctant to give them away in contests or as an incentives like this blog for example (the incentivized q and a sessions). But the most common trend nowadays, is contests which claims to have $XXXX in advertising galores. Of course, its easy to say “I’m going to sponsor this spot worth $XX”. And saying that it worths that way doesn’t really mean it’s really the value of that.

Well don’t get me wrong, I am not against those stuffs and contests, sponsors that give away these things. In fact I do even sponsor something here as well in form of an adspot. But my point here is that, these free adspaces can really give you a nice estimate of how much you are really getting w/advertising. I mean, an adspot oftentimes is priced higher than the value it gives but one thing to keep in note when you advertise is not just the clickthroughs you are getting, remember that more than the clicks is what is called as “brand awareness”. Most of the time, people come to my site and tell me “I am seeing your site’s “my blog sucks” slogan on most forums and blogs so I just thought I would give you a visit” And actually thats it. Brand recognition is like you want to get all people reading that blog to know that you have a website. This way people will be more aware of your brand/product and believe me it helps in the long run.

So what about the free adspaces you keep on receiving day in and day out? My advice is always take a chance to use it. You don’t need to expect something “good” that quick with it, but then there will come a time wherein all the readers and commenters of that blog will also start commenting on yours and start following your blog. And of course, its always nice to get something for free, even if it seems to be of trivial value. 🙂

Ad Spots/Types I Don’t Think Look Good For Readers

by Melvin · Aug 14, 2008

Well as you can see I am almost pretty sold out on private ads. Maybe that’s because of the super duper affordable but quality advertising I am giving them. 😉 There are some who have booked it for long term. If you are interested in advertising (I know you’re not!), look at the advertising page.

So, selling ad spots depends on the owner. You can oversell every space on your blog to make money. Just look the evil Chow and the number of ads on his site. But of course sometimes this may hurt your readership (in some cases they dont). Well, these are the spots and/or type of ads that I hate:

Stripe Ads – I will never consider this one. On older browsers, sites that have stripes do not look well. But well even though if everyone is using Firefox, I wouldn’t still consider it. For me it’s annoying and would hurt your readers (literally)
Leaderboard – Although I have used it in my basketball blog, it isn’t really much of a great choice I think. After all it’s very HUGE and the focus of your reader will instead shift to the leader one.
300X250 – Again Chow and some guys like Tyler Cruz and Carl Ocab are selling this spot. Why I don’t think its good? Well because oftentimes people will wonder what’s the relation of that pic/ad to the certain post! Your readers will wonder what is it for and it’s not so good for branding. Will never try it!
Peel away Ads – For some other people they have had some success with it but for me it’s like giving almost 1/4 of your blog to advertising. Although it’s not as intrusive as others, I have received feedbacks that it slows down your blog/site. Anything that makes a site slow is BAD!

That’s it for now. Maybe someday I can appreciate those spots and start thinking of selling them (no way!) But well it depends on people and needs. Maybe if I need it badly to buy me a house and lot then I would consider it. 🙂