Project: I, Blogger — Experiment Ends in Failure
By Desty on Aug 1, 2007 in I Blogger, Online Marketing
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Check out all of the Project: I, Blogger posts and comments. This series is meant to be commented on and added to via comments or email. Add your voice to the conversation!
The time for secrets is over! The sheets are coming back! The blinders are coming off!
My Deep Dark Secret, Well, Kinda
In looking at the results of the first three Project: I, Blogger installments, I noticed that the initial push had fantastic results in the amount of participation. There was a great amount of conversation, which was my goal. The second episode had half the response of the first article, but still a better than average amount of comments. The third article, by far the largest article of the three and asked direct questions of the readership, had two responses.
The failure of the third article could be in several factors:
- I promoted the first article directly to every blog that I subscribed to at the time via RSS. The second article I did zero promotion. The third article I promoted via blogs that visited me through MyBlogLog and various new blogs I found through links from my RSS subscriptions.
- The first two articles were actually reflections of the community discussions. I made a departure in the third article in that I bought up a subject I thought related to the topic, and asked questions. It was an artificially created article in that it wasn’t a topic the community was discussing.
- I found, joined, and posted an affiliate link in the third article. I did it to give an example of what affiliates are out there; I wanted to use a bad example. There were more explicit affiliates I could have chosen, but I would like to stay family friendly and, in my opinion, that video was nothing worse than what you can see on network television.
- I detailed the benefits for the affiliate I used as an example. To some people, it could appear that I was pushing the program for my own profit.
Of all the reasons that the third article didn’t play well, I went with #1, that I didn’t promote it well enough. So, here’s where we get into the questionable tactics on my part…
Everyone who has ever commented on a blog, you know that as part of entering your information to comment, your email address is requested. So, using the FeedFlares at the end of the Project: I, Blogger — I Have Questions post, I took all the commentators’ email addresses from all the Project: I, Blogger commentators and direct emailed the third article to them. I personally hate spam and unsolicited emails, so I fought over this for a week or two. In the end, I thought it would be a great addition to the discussion of bloggers’ ethics. You’ll notice that when you’re entering your email address for the comment, while it does say that the address will not be publicly posted, it says nothing about the blogger not using it.
Was It Worth It? The Results…
Well, this experiment / promotion failed as well. The emails themselves were sent out late 7/28. I sent roughly twelve emails out, there was a spike of seven page views for that article the same day. You could say that was a conversion rate of 58%; I see it as a failure in that the article didn’t do it’s job: to spark a discussion about the article. So in that sense, the promotion worked, but then we go back to failure in points two, three, or four.
The question I have now is, what do you think of the use of my non-solicited email promotion? When you submit comments, you don’t expect your email address used for promotions from that blogger. You could say mine was innocent in that it was just a blog article connected to another article they already showed interest in. How about when you extend that to an affiliate marketing program related to a blog article you commented on? Where do you draw the line?
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Interesting. Not at all what I was expecting. Leaving a comment isn’t the same as signing up for an email list. While it’s unlikely anyone would want to pursue it, you could get into legal trouble if you violate spam laws.
Not sure if you mailed me Shawn, as nothing arrived, but then I only pinged the first one, and was away for the next 2.
I stand by my comments you quoted in the first post, regarding using the emails: If I feel it’s been personalized to me or a small group for a valid reason then it’s ok.
I get lots of mails which look almost exactly like this:
“Hi everyone!
Please digg this post on gummi bears!!!! Thx!!!!!”
They get marked as spam….
Michaels comment has just appeared for me, and that’s a good point actually: Andy Beard is the man with lots of advice on this issue.
Hey now, gummi bears rock! Forward those emails to me and I’ll ping them all day long; my oldest son would live on them if he could. Seriously, I thought most of the emails would be caught by the spam filters, but 7 out of 12 isn’t bad. I sent Andy an email to see if he would add his insight to this.
I am not a lawyer
I would differentiate it a little like this
If someone signs up to your blog, they expect to receive your blog contents by RSS or Email
If someone leaves a comment it really depends on what you have defined in your comments policy.
I am very specific about content ownership, and I don’t even claim the use of comments out of contenxt such as for testimonial purposes (I have had some great testimonial worthy comments, but I would ask for specific permission to use them)
I specifically reserve the right to email people regarding their comments, and I am one of pew people who think about CAN SPAM as it relates to email subscriptions to blog feeds (if your content has commercial content) and comment subscriptions (people drop affiliate links and spam in comments, that then get sent from your domain)
If you want the ability to email people who take part in conversations, use subscribe to comments, and then when you make a new post on a subject, drop a comment in the previous post with a link to the new post - the people receiving the comment have specifically requested updates to the topic.
Other than that, develop an email list so that you can broadcast to them with permission.
This is exactly what I was wanting to encourage. I seriously appreciate the comment Andy!
I would not mind being contacted if the email was asking for permission to contact me in the future and came from a blogger who was not merely trying to get me to buy something or blatantly promote a blog. I have already shown interest in the blog by leaving a comment in the first place. I reserve the right not to reply to an email, although it is most likely that I would out of politeness.
How acceptable it is to me is based on whether the contact is aimed at developing two way communication rather than being for the benefit of the sendee only. As Andy says there are other ways of achieving that aim without taking away your commenters’ freedom of choice.
How far does it go with email? There are anit-spam laws on the books now. Also, going to the offline world for a sec, there are no call lists. I don’t know all the details about the anti-spam laws, but I do know that if you have had contact or an association with a company, then their contact with you via phone does not go against the no call list. As we go further and further online, I think eventually we’ll turn away from having phone numbers, and all communication will be done online. Email addresses may become the next phone number.
Hello
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Thanks for the comment, good to see you around!