Lack of textual content from merchants

[uklejon]

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Here's a little gripe of mine.....

One thing that i have noticed is the lack of textual content from merchants. We all know that content is king so why don;t merchants help with more content?

Over the past few weeks i've tried to get onto PR mailing lists with some merchants and have had no replies or the comment, we don;t have a PR list!!

AWIN has a specific section for promotional text and its amazing how many merchants don;t use it.

On one of the merchants i'd like to feature Virgin.net, but i can;t belive that a company of this size doesn;t spend a little time putting together textual content.

I certainly don;t want to copy promotional text from merchants word for word but it would be nice to have something to work with and edit instead of having to surf through lots of merchant pages and build up an article from scratch. When you are trying to set up 4 new sites on your own its a heck of a lot of work and really slows down the launch process.

I understand that most companies cannot give textual content as they supply 1000's of products but merchants that sell just one or a few lines could easily set up text content for us to edit and change. Broadband,hosting,ISP's etc......

I would imagine that this would really help most of us here......

That's my moaning done

Back to surfing through loads of merchant pages and writing more articles!!!

Carol

[Luke]

I totally agree Carol, there should be an updatable section with at least a list of USPs...

[whysleep.co.uk]

Hi

Can you outline what sort of things you are after and we can for one take a look at it to see what we can do.

G.

[drivetowin]

Quite agree - only network I know of which provides good text content from it's merchants is OMG

[matbennett]

Why not post a coupld of good examples for us to take a look at?

[uklejon]

Here's a couple of examples I've found......

BT Yahoo Broadband are pretty big, yeah.......I mean BT and Yahoo...bloody huge the only useful text I found on TD for them is as follows

"BT Yahoo! Broadband brings together the experience of BT and the imagination of Yahoo! and has recently been voted Best Broadband Provider by Personal Computer magazine. Its up to 10X faster than narrowband and offers more online protection through virus prevention, parental controls and pop-up blockers.

BT Yahoo! Broadband costs just £29.99 per month with FREE INSTALLATION plus FREE MODEM"

Thats's it!!!!!

I mean, come on with the stuff BTY offers online they could do better than this....you know, tell us about the virus checking, email storage capacity etc etc.......



On the other hand BT Broadband (not with Yahoo) on DGM have this as content

"BT Broadband is BT's flexible new broadband Internet service.

BT Broadband gives you high-speed, 'always on' access to web pages, music and video - and the ability to talk and surf simultaneously. As well as a richer online experience, BT Broadband offers you:

BT Broadband Basic

Enjoy a faster online experience with our simple, low-cost broadband package. You’ll enjoy the Internet up to 10 times the speed of a normal dial-up connection, so you can email and download files much quicker, and simply do more online. With a download and upload allowance of 1Gb a month you can access the equivalent of up to 200 music tracks or 650 30-second video clips. BT Broadband Basic is an excellent value, no-frills service designed for people with only one PC who are happy to find free help online. A phone helpline is also available at a premium rate. You can set up BT Broadband Basic with a one-off payment of £30 for connection and £50 for the BT Voyager 105 modem. The monthly cost for the service is just £19.99 when paying by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan, otherwise £20.99 a month.


BT Broadband

Enjoy a faster online experience with BT Broadband, which comes with free online help and free 24-hour phone support. At up to 10 times the speed of a dial-up connection, you can email and explore the Internet much quicker, and simply do more. You can download the latest music or film clips, stream live concerts, listen to radio stations from anywhere in online the world or send and receive large attachments - such as photo albums - in seconds rather than minutes. If you’re into online gaming, you can play against people all around the world. You can share your broadband connection with other computers or equipment in your house too, to really get the most out of this service. You get a free modem and free connection when you order BT Broadband online, with a monthly cost of just £27 when paying by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan, otherwise £28 a month.

BT Broadband 1Mb

Go twice as fast with BT Broadband 1Mb. It’s up to 20 times faster than normal dial-up speeds, delivering the ultimate online experience. It’s ideal if you download and upload lots of video, music tracks or graphic files. You’ll enjoy the Internet at exceptionally quicker speeds, and simply be able to do more online. Set up a webcam for face-to-face chat. Download films and music videos. Share your broadband connection with one or more computers or game consoles to play online against players around the world. What’s more, you get maximum support, so there's always plenty of help on hand with unlimited online guidance plus free 24-hour phone helpline. You get a free modem and free connection when you order BT Broadband 1Mb online, with a monthly cost of just £38 when paying by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan, otherwise £39 a month."


Lots more........still not quite enough to really work with a build an article but its getting there.

I think merchants should give us a lot more text to work with and maybe Networks could have a section devoted to the merchants press releases as i'm sure a lot of them release some every day and we never get to see them.

For merchants that have 1000's of products it would be impossible to release text content for every section but when you promote certain items heavily you could give us some text, even if its in the form of a PR.

I think most of us agree that the affiliate market is getting bigger and bigger and most of us here are successful because we offer a service or information on our sites......not just a page of affily links. the more textual content that merchants can offer the better.

From what i've seen whilst trying to gather content in the last couple of weeks, AWIN are the best network with sections for promotional text.

Merchants only seem to give us any info if it has a direct sell message.........

How many techie sites are out there, loads and loads....say if BT Yahoo installed a new hypersonic blaster doobrey and they send a PR out about it, all the techie sites cam have this in a news section and sell around it.........

I wrote something last year about the sports bra people (can;t remember there name at the moment) making up the money for the women wimboldon champ to get the same as the mens winner......I sold their product around this article, it got lots of discussion in the forums and i sold their stuff of the back of it.

This is how PR works.............again, the only stuff we get is direct selling materials.....still need this but also need more....


God this post is too long.......sorry

Carol

[whysleep.co.uk]

would you be happy with content that other sites could use, or do you just want it for the base of an article?

G.

[Luke]

I think as many bullet pointed unique selling points would be useful, then we can go away and write our own copy based around those points.

Like... how many people know that you can specify the time fo delivery with Comet - it makes a huge difference to conversion rates.

[uklejon]

Dead right, Luke.......

Going back to the broadband thing as its what i've been working on today, all the info you get in text form is price, speed, virus checking etc etc....

Do a couple of paragraphs on speed, benifits of broadband, virus checking.....more detail really.....


crappy example.....OTTOMH

"Every day millions of viruses are travelling around the interent and some of them could end up in your mail box and damage your computer. Our virus checking system uses the lastest anti-virus technology to keep your PC safe for you and your kids to use."

that sort of thing.....but same with all the USP's.......

I'm off now after my wafffle, the Inspector Morse DVD's turned up in the post today

Carol

[webvideo4u]

I agree with Luke. Standard copy soon becomes stale when loads of affiliates use the same text.

A list of USP's however enable each affiliate to develop their own sales copy based upon the same benefits used by the merchant themselves but with perhaps a personal spin on it.

We provide USP's next to each product listing so (hopefully) making it relatively easy for affiliates to write some cool sales copy.

[madstock]

I must agree with regards to the bullet pointed checklist - use of a standard text is not only dull, but also not always appropriate for every site...

Having said that I find writing copy to be one of the most rewarding parts of the "job" in terms of satisfaction - my only quibble being with some CJ merchants, particularly from the US...

Picture the scene: I run* to a spare PC, full of hope and excitement at the latest quality merchant to join the CJ ("If you ignore spyware it will go away") fold .... fingers trembling with anticipation (and possibly DT's), I am confronted by MerchantX , listed under CategoryY - "Perfect!" I exclaim, and attempt to find out more about the marvellous goods and services that are purveyed by MerchantX...

Imagine my disconsolate heartbreak when confronted with the following....

"Direct your visitors to MerchantX, and we will pay you cash!! Join now and start earning. Rest Assured MerchantX is a premier site you can recommend with confidence. We offer a variety of quality products that are sure to please even your most discriminating visitors. We could soon be your top advertiser!"

What exactly does the above tell me other than "Merchant X doesn't really give a frying fluck??". Of course, before any merchant gets on any of our sites I will go and have a look at it, to "get a feel" but it would be really nice to know whether it is a site selling yaks milk** or exhaust pipes, before I visit it...

Sorry, had to get it off my chest, and this seemed like the most appropriate thread.

Duncan
*Okay, "run" is probably not too accurate, but is more concise than "sort of waddle in a bleary-eyed, hung-over kind of fashion, possibly tripping over childrens' toys and/or children, cursing several times and usually leaving a dripping trail of coffee over the floor."

** Yaks' milk is naturally pink. So is Strawberry Crusha/Nesquik, although it tastes much nicer.

[uklejon]

Madstock, LOL......never tried Yak's milk

You're right about copy becoming stale and over used, lazy affiliates I've done it though......

Its just a bit more detail needed on each USP, to sae having to spend ages surfing though the site looking for the info.

Back on the virus thingy again, if a BB supplier checks your emails for viruses, is it norton or MaAfee based, is it updated on a daily basis.........all that sort of info so we can all put together our own copy.

Carol

[Azam.net]

Good point.

Would be fantastic if, instead of focusing on banners, merchants fed text to our sites. That way the text would feature the latest offers - and it would like part of our sites, not just an ad. as banners do.

CJ have a text rotation feature but I wish TD would as well. Just like banner pools, but with text in them.

[webvideo4u]

Something I've pondered before regarding textual content and links is the comparison with print media.

In newspapers and magazines if you have some sales copy with a call to action it is generally stated that its an advert somewhere in the copy.

Do people ever see this happening on the web?