And Another Reason This Business Is Dying.

[ecchi]

Occasionally I will look at the spam board on this site and on other chat sites. Years ago these boards were full of people with new products ("double your sell through with my new 'love to click' script only $99" type ad) and adverts from sponsors trying to get you to sign up as an affiliate.

The sponsors used a variety of ways to get you to use them. Most told you how much better at converting they were, or that they offered a higher percentage, or some other reason why they were better that the competition. On top of this most had some kind of gimmick,such as; "150% payouts on all new signups for the first month", "collect points with sales, get prizes", "higher payouts if you make over X sales in a pay period" etc.

Basically they all fought to get you to advertise them.

Today I look at the spam boards on WM sites and all I see is threads along the lines of "New FHG from ......". Why would that sell me into using you? True, it is helpful to existing affiliates who want new galleries, but it won't get you new affiliates (and to be honest, if someone is already your affiliate they won't need this because if you are any good you will be sending them this info in an email newsletter). What you should be doing is using your spam shots to genuinely convince WMs to use you.

Up until a few hours ago I simply thought that people who use the spam board to post galleries were simply wasting their time, and it was their time to waste if they wanted to, no interest or concern of mine. True, if that is all they are doing to promote their program they will go bust and many are (hence the subject line on this thread) but there are still so many sponsors that 90% could go broke without if effecting the rest of us. However the work I am doing today made me realise that it is worse than that.

Today I am going through my TGPs, blogs, free sites, etc. replacing dead sponsor ads with live ones. So many sponsors have gone to the wall that in some cases I am signing up with new sponsors to replace them. Now I don't have to tell you that this is a boring job and one I don't want to have to do too often. So I am looking for new sponsors who won't go bust next month.

One of the criteria I am using for this is the spam board. If a sponsor is posting regular "new FHG" threads as their only way to promote their program then I'm assuming they are idiots. They may be hardworking, honest webmasters with good converting sites and who never shave, but they are crap businessmen. And despite the fact that their sites will convert well for now, they will soon go bust, causing me to have to change my links again. Worse, they will probably go bust owing me money, so by promoting them I will loose $$$$$.

So I am using the spam board's "new FHG" threads as an "avoid list". And I am not a genius, I always find that when I have a "brilliant and original" idea, other people had the same idea ages ago. So there must be lots of other webmasters already doing this.

In other words, if you are a sponsor - maybe it would be a good idea to get off your fat lazy ass and instead of just doing "same-o same-o" postings of new FHGs, try actually working, and do something a bit original!

That way maybe you will still be in business at the end of next year!