Product Reviews and Giveaways: Yay or Nay?
March 28, 2008 by Liberty Kontranowski
Filed under Blogosphere, Dealbolt!, Event, Marketing, Media, Misc., Recommended, Sponsored Review
First off, Happy Friday and thanks for reading!
Okay, now that we got those formalities out of the way, I have a question I’d like to throw at you. As you have likely come to know, we here at The Bolt don’t often spout off about products, services and the like. We’ve pretty much been an information-only kind of gig.
But in the last several weeks, we have been inundated with opportunities to sample products and share our opinions on them with you. We’ve also been offered all kinds of giveaways. Now, I’ll come clean and say that in addition to the enzyme book contest we’re wrapping up this weekend, we have already committed to 3 other product reviews, two of which will result in sweet giveaways for some of you. But I can also see how this kind of thing could spiral quickly out of control, and we’d never want to jeopardize the integrity of HealthBolt. So my question to you is: Would you like to see product reviews and giveaways sprinkled into our regularly scheduled programming, or is this blog a “safe haven” for marketing and swag avoidance? Do you like when we do the legwork by researching/trying all those new amped-up waters, or do you come here just for the posts about farts, toilets, and weird bodily accomplishments?
Drop us a super quick comment and let us know your thoughts. Because it’s our goal to be the best Bolt we can be…for you.
I love swag, so it’s all good with me.
yay. definitely.
Our blog started getting into the giveaway thing, but we dumped it quick after we found out how much work it was. We determined we were better off devoting our limited time to other aspects of the blog.
If you look at it as a separate profit center, assign one blogger to handle the giveaways and nothing else, including writing all associated posts, winner selection, receiving products, dealing with companies, mailing and dealing with returned packages and the like, and the cost of that blogger seems to justify the estimated additional traffic and links, then it might be worth it.
Mobi, giveaways really are a lot of work, aren’t they? A LOT. But I know a lot of readers dig swag (I know I sure do). Hmmm…
Thanks for weighing in everyone. I’ll definitely press on with the ones we have scheduled and go from there.