As this blog gets more popular I get more and more emails from snow companies wanting me to promote their snowboard products on this blog. That’s normal, and I’m sure every snowboard blog gets these sorts of emails.
Heck, I know the guys at Agnarchy.com do:
And our blogs are small compared to guys like Angrysnowboarder.com, Shayboarder.com or YoBeat.com, so I can only imagine how often those guys get asked to promote products.
These products are usually things like t-shirts, outerwear, snow equipment and even the occasional email asking for help promoting their snowboard related Kickstarter project.
What you’ll notice on Snomie.com:
Outside of recommending the trick tip videos from the guys over at SnowboardAddiction.com, I have never promoted anyone else’s products.
Look I get it. They might be a new snowboard company and they need to get some awareness out there, so you google snowboard blogs and you find blogs like this one and send an email (or the promotions company you hired sends me an email).
That’s why I’m not surprised when I open my inbox each morning and see requests for promotion and/or reviews of products.
However, there are reasons you don’t see tons of snowboard product promotions on Snomie.com:
1) Your products suck
My readers follow this blog because I help them with their snowboarding and because they trust my snowboard advice.
If a product is some sketchy subpar product that no snowboarder needs or wants, I’m not going to promote it. Period.
There’s a reason why I’m happy to promote the Snowboard Addiction products. Their products kick butt and they work.
Not only do the products work, but I personally know Nev, the owner and founder of Snowboard Addiction. We’ve shared the same roof over our heads in New Zealand, so I know he’s a good guy who will stand behind his product if any of my readers ever has problems or issues with his videos.
I can’t say the same about a random product that doesn’t even look like it’s high quality, let alone if it’s a totally useless, pointless product.
2) We don’t do paid product placements
Some companies want to pay a small fee in exchange for us promoting their products on Snomie. Sorry, but we do not do paid reviews or paid promotions of any sort.
I can’t help but think it makes a review biased if you accept payment from the company beforehand, even if you don’t intend to be biased.
If I were a snowboarder looking for reviews online, I’d like to know that the review I’m reading is 100% independent and not paid for by the company whose snowboard product is being reviewed.
3) Your product is no different than 500 other products
Kickstarters are meant for products that people really want. These are products and services which are usually unique. As the guys at Agnarchy.com already said, things like t-shirts and outerwear are not unique.
As much as I admire that people are trying to start their own business, I can’t help fund or promote every single t-shirt, outerwear or snowboard equipment company when their product is exactly the same as every other product out there.
If you can’t afford to start your own business, you need to go at it a different way. Begging for money and promotions from snowboard blogs is not the way to launch a snowboard product which isn’t any better than every other product already out there.
Also, don’t start Kickstarters for products no one needs or wants (ie - stupid LED lights on your snowboard).
4) Your email sucked
I actually do read every email that comes in to Snomie. There are a few rules you should follow if you’re going to send in an email asking someone to promote your product:
Rule 1: Don’t send out mass market emails that have obviously been sent to 5000 other snowboard blogs.
I try to respond to every single email I get, but I will not even reply if your email is some obvious spam email with some generic message about your product.
At least take the time to customize each email if you want a shot at getting a reply. I’m far more likely to reply if you actually took the time to write something besides your generic marketing spam.
Rule 2: Don’t insult my blogs, my readers or my intelligence when you try to make your snowboard product sound awesome.
I once got an email from a lady asking why her comment didn’t post and whether we could work together to promote a wristguard she sells.
I checked her comment (which was inside the spam folder) and found that it was a giant marketing pitch and had all sorts of biased statistics and quotes trying to convince people why they should buy her wrist guards.
Obviously that isn’t okay, so I replied telling her we do not accept marketing spam in the comments.
Her next approach was interesting… she said 3 things:
- Her wrist guards were designed by a doctor (wow really?)
- My blogs were just an opinion unlike her amazingly valuable research into wrist guards which my readers need to know
- She has a snowboard blog from 2003 which has tons of amazing useful tips (so she clearly knows what she’s talking about right?)
So at this point she’s started insulting my blog, my readers and my intelligence with her nonsense.
I did look at her so called research and none of it pointed to her wrist guard. So basically her special doctor designed wrist guards were about as effective as every other snowboard wrist guard on the planet.
I also checked out her snowboard blog. Her tips were about as useful as her spam comment and most of it seemed to be designed to convince people they needed to buy her products.
I don’t think it’s a huge shock that I never promoted her products.
The bottom line:
At the end of the day I understand that people need to get promotion for their product. However, there’s a good and bad way to do it.
I’ve had some great pitches from nice guys who even offered to send the product samples for me to test. I did end up turning them down, but mostly because I’m not interested in promoting other products on Snomie.com (SnowboardAddiction is a rare exception).
Unfortunately, 9 out of 10 people who want snowboard blog promotion are doing it the wrong way.
- Jed
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Awesome and much appreciated!!
Agreed!