I Never Stop Wearing The Marketing Whore Hat

So Friday a potential client comes to me and asks if I'd take a freelance gig to help her with her site. She wants relatively short blog posts on a daily basis, and is looking for a pool of regular writers to do this: How many spots a week do I want? It's a paid gig, so I look around.

First problem: Her blog is full of nothing but posts which are obviously sales bits. I don't mind a good sales pitch but when the entire blog is only about how great her products are, I, like any other human, have to think, "Why read this?" If I wanted to read short sales pitches I'd grab the classified section. There's nothing to charm me into accepting the occasional direct pitch, nothing to slyly reference her products, no amusing anecdotes to make me smile, nothing to romance the lifestyle or desires associated with the product. It's all just blah blah buy. These aren't blog posts but glorified product descriptions.

Second problem: Exasperating the first problem of Boring with a capital B, she sells a grand total of 12 products. With a daily blog entry, that's 30 posts. Do the math: each product must be pushed at least twice a month. How many things can you say about one lotion? More importantly, how many times can a reader read about the same lotion? Not only is reader tolerance likely to be even lower than a creative writer's, but isn't the point of the blog to appeal to readers? If the target market isn't interested, what's the point?

Third problem: How does one write product reviews without the products? Writer pay is less than what each product costs, so it's not economically prudent for the writers to buy the product and review it. Even if you get to (must) write multiple pieces on the same product, how many times can you really review one product? Instead of looking for a handful of writers she'd be better off sending free product to 30 different people each month and getting their reviews. Even if they weren't all great reviews they'd be better than several people trying to find something new to say, forcing out "new" reviews, and just plain faking reviews. The wholesale cost of each product is cheaper than the per piece writing rate she offered (if using retail pricing, this is true for 10 of the 12 products, with the last 2 only $1 more) making this option more financially viable for herself as well. This, of course, still doesn't address the issue of reader interest, but at least it saves her some money and allows for more honest blog entries.

Overall, her business model is flawed. Her inventory may be grand, but her product line is too small to be effective with the marketing plan she's selected. And even with a larger product line, she'd still be missing out on the goods to move her goods because she's focusing on what the products are rather than what the buyer is looking for. It's much more difficult to fill a consumer need or desire when you don't even address it. All this yet with a product line that's not exclusive to her. Any sales she has must be due to pure dumb luck.

Based on this I politely decline the offer. Not just because I dislike the repetitive fake-review gig, but because I don't think she'll be around very long. And that will only leave me to find a replacement writing gig.

...Maybe she should stop the writer's gigs, save those funds, and hire me as a consultant? Heh Heh Heh.

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