How To Make An “Off-Topic” Paid Posting “On-Topic” And Keep Your Readers Happy

March 7th, 2007 · 10 Comments

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I am a big fan of bloggers doing paid reviews. When done right, everyone wins–the blogger who gets paid, the advertiser who gets exposure and constructive criticism, and the readers who get a recommendation.

I’ve been reading the comments to the paid reviews John Chow has been doing on his site. John’s reviews come with a healthy dose of constructive criticism while at the same time highlighting the best parts of his advertisers’ products/services/sites. He does a thorough review and it shows that he’s clearly evaluated his advertisers’ product/services/sites. I think this is part of the reason why he gets so many ReviewMe review requests and, of course, I’m a huge fan of John Chow!

When the review is for a product/service/site that is on-topic with the entrepreneurial nature of his blog (i.e., problogging and making money online), the reviews are very well received (as evidenced by my blog’s overwhelmingly positive response which I will post about shortly). On the other hand, when the review is for something not on-topic, many of John’s subscribers feel free to let their irritation show in their comments and votes. One even alluded to the paid reviews being a “sellout” tactic on John’s part.

While I certainly don’t think John has done anything to sell out his readers (on the contrary, I think he goes out of his way to take care of them), not offending my readers would be one of the reasons why I wouldn’t take on certain reviews (i.e., I wouldn’t want my readers to feel like I’m selling out their loyalty for a chance to earn more money). I’m sure that’s one reason why many bloggers haven’t jumped on to the paid-for-posting bandwagon popular of late. But, I don’t think it needs to be that way and all it takes is a little tweaking of the focus of the paid reviews to make even “off-topic” reviews be “on-topic”.

I think many people feel paid “off-topic” reviews are off-putting because these reviews have a “push-product” particularity to them in that they sound like promotions or advertisements much like commercials you see on TV or hear on the radio (i.e., they don’t really relate to the TV show you are watching or the music you are listening to).

Suppose I had a blog about making money on the Internet. Instead of rejecting “off-topic” reviews for fear of offending my readers, these reviews can easily be tweaked to focus on how the advertisers’ products/services/sites make money or how they can implement improvements to earn more money, convert better, get more subscribers, etc., because, after all, my blog is all about making more money online. As I’m doing that, I can intertwine the advertisers’ features into the review so that that aspect is also promoted. Now, I’ve answered my critics–I’m not selling out my readers because I’m offering reviews that are centered around money-making online. Get it? Great!

Let’s take if further, suppose now you have a site about your favorite football team. You get an advertiser who wants to pay you to review his hot tub business. The dilemma is how to accept the review, make money and not irritate your readers with off-topic posts. Here’s how I’d do it:

Accept the review.
Learn as much about his hot tub business as possible.
Do research on how to link the hot tub business to the football team.
Write a review and tweak it so that it is “on-topic”. An idea would be to connect football injuries to the therapeutic effects of hot tubs (hopefully the advertiser has information on the therapeutic effects of hot tubs on healing sports injuries directly on his site). Include constructive criticism (e.g., maybe there are better ways to treat sports injuries than sitting in a hot tub).
Collect the money.
Keep everyone happy!

In this case, everyone is happy–the advertiser is happy because he got a great review and exposure, the blogger is happy because he made money, and the readers are happy because they learned about how their favorite footballers can treat their sports injuries by using hot tubs from the advertiser.

This might not work on all sites but I definitely think it’ll open the doors up to making “off-topic” reviews more “on-topic.”

What are your thoughts?

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