Blog Spams

Spam is an annoyance.

Even on emails that I know I have not given anyone permission to place on a subsciption list of any kind recieves spam emails. People have left spam replies to this blog, I even got a spam text message to my cell-phone the other day.

To those of you that are doing it: Stop it already. Almost everyone knows what a spam email is and are hopefully not buying into your spams or phishing techniques. In a three minute period, I recieved the same exact email from three different email addresses from three different people claiming to be a daughter of a rich businessperson that was killed and they need me (although they do not know my name) to help them get money out a the bank in my country (nor do they know what country I live in). Once I decided to play along in a scam involving a dying man in a hospital who needed my help, I first gave him false information and when it came to giving him some money to help get out a larger sum which I would share, I told him that I lived in the very town that the hospital was located. I said I would be happy to visit him and give him the money then. Could you believe that he did not reply to that last email?

Unfortunately, most of the "victims" are the poor, eldery or illiterate. I seem to get a lot of phishing from crooks claiming to be ebay and paypal - I immediately send them to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com -- I wonder if ebay or paypal really does anything with my forwarded emails?

I think that free-email sites should be monitoring their users a little better. If joe smith signs up for all of the screen names on Hotmail, AOL, etc., then does a bulk mailing from all of them, then changes all of the screen names every two weeks, then maybe something not right. I am not sure if they can track that type of usage by their users, but if not, they should.

Don't spam!

Ian Ripley

Watch Out When Dealing Working With Celebrity Marketing & PR Firms

Working With Marketing and PR Firms Could be Good for your Site

We all want to make money from our site and drive additional traffic to it. One such was is to get "hooked-up" with marketing or PR (public relations) deparments or solo firms that are trying to promote celebrities. Most of the ones I have done have been for artists and bands, with a few television shows and movies mixed in. Most of the time, you are offered assets (e.g., graphics and MP3s) and/or contests. Sometimes you are offered the product if peform a review for them (e.g., review a new CD). If the campaign is big enough you may be offered other merchandise or money.

Beware

I have learned a lot of things over the first year or so when dealing with these companies which I would like to share. Sometimes, when you do not play it right, you may do a lot of work and get nothing out of it - which has recently happened to me. First of all, most of the people and companies I have created these types of relationships have been fantastic. I'll try to give you a list of links to their websites in another blog entry. Then there are those few that just do not work out the way you had planned. Because some of these companies deal with "artists" within the industry, things happen very fast and an album launch may be cancelled or pushed back over night.

Giveaway Contests

If you are running a giveaway contest and the companie's client (the artist) pulls out, you may not receive the items for that contest. This is something that is expected and your contact should let you know as soon as possible. Don't get too upset, this stuff happens, just make sure you take down the contest on your site and post an apology to those that have already entered. (I had to do this once, and it was no big deal.) You could also automatically add their names into another contest you are already holding. It is when your contact does not tell you that they have lost their client is when you should be mad. Yes, this did happen to me after almost a full month of running the contest. I just happened to find out because I emailed my contact a question. I was kind of mad - and have not worked with her company since.

Another quick note about giveaways -- when possible, have the PR firm send out the gifts, it is less work and less expense that way. However, if you are the one sending it out, do not begin your contest until you have the prizes in hand. This way regardless of what happens to the client, you already have the prizes to send out.

Adding Promotional Ads for Money

Most of the dealings you have with these firms are very informal. However, make sure you read whatever you write in the email and thourouhly read the emails from the company - especially when dealing with payment for placement of a banner onto your site for money. Most of the time I have had no problem. They send me the graphic (or code) and I place it on my site for the time period requested and get paid for it. There are two situations that have happened to me that I would like to mention: (1) After a number of emails back and forth between myself and a company, we began to discuss two different things. Because of that confusion, they wanted the two ads for one price, and I was quoting them twice that figure. In the end, they only took the one ad for the lower price. Just remember, if you have built up a sight with lots of visitors, you should charge the going rate for the space on the site. You can cut a deal for a little less, but do not take less than what the page real estate is really worth. (2) From what I thought was a clear concise explaination of what I was offering for a certain sum, the PR contact sent me back a message that said it was okay. I saw the okay, I saw the dollar figure, but I did not double check the estimated impressions or the run dates of the ad. It also seems that their impression counter was only getting about 10% of the impressions I was recording on two separate tracking systems. Then they informed me that while I gave them figures over a 5-6 week period, they wanted the same number of impressions in one week. Their last email was that I could try if I wanted, but if not, the promotion was over in a few days. I immediately placed the graphic on every single page of my website so that I was able to get the desired number of impressions in five days. However, when I emailed, I got no response. I emailed again to no response. A week later, another email with no response (and no payment in the mail either). If I still do not recieve anything by Friday, I will try to contact someone else within the company. I usually make the request that payment is due within 5 business days of the ad appearing live - but for some strange reason, I did not do that. I should have also re-read their response more clearly and asked a lot more questions. I now know better for next time. It is not really a mistake, just a learning experience. If I do it again, then it is a mistake.

I hope you make some use of my experiences and put them to your own use.

Until next time,

I.R.