Sometimes creating an Opportunity (“Opp”) in the PayPerPost Marketplace can be a daunting task. And yes, this is a basic function but one that will certainly determine the outcome of your campaign. So we’ve decided to put together a few tips and tricks to creating a successful Opp. Hopefully it will either be 1) beneficial new information for you, or 2) a great refresher for those Advertisers who have been with us for a while.
1. What exactly are you looking for? Ask yourself this question each time you’re creating an Opp in the Marketplace. “Do I want buzz about my new site?” “Do I want bloggers to review a product?” “Do I want to consider product sampling via PostiePacks?” Having a predetermined, specific goal will allow you to clearly relay that information to the bloggers so you, in turn, will get the types of posts you are looking for.
In Section 1 of the Opp Creation page you will go through and give the main details of the Opp. Most of the requirements are self-explanatory but there are a few areas that consistently hang-up Advertisers:
– Post type: There are 3 options: buzz, opinion and review. They are pretty intuitive — if you want bloggers to review a product then choose review; if you want buzz about a new aspect of your site choose buzz; and if you want an honest opinion about a new clothing line then choose opinion.
– Tone: This is used in conjunction with post type. You can choose positive, negative or neutral. One very important thing to note: if you choose to have the blogger give their Opinions you MUST choose neutral. For true Opinions, Neutral is the appropriate tone. If the Positive tone is more important, you may choose Buzz or Review type posts.
2. The Opp Description. This is where you will describe what you want the bloggers to write about. There are a few key things to remember:
– Don’t give the bloggers too much information. If you do they’ll likely not visit your website and familiarize themselves with it. This is extremely important, particularly when you’re looking for them to give their opinion.
– Be clear as to what you want, but do not tell the bloggers exactly what they should write. You want to give guidelines but not stifle their creativity. After all, it’s their unique voice that you’re looking for….
– Bullet points are always helpful. It gets your message across quickly, clearly and easy.
3. The next very important area in creating an Opp is Section 3, ‘Targeting and Pricing.’ Keep in mind the pricing for an Opp often correlates with the quality of the posts you get. For example, a $5.00 for a post with 5 links, an image and 300 words is not necessarily the most attractive opportunity. The more time-consuming and creative an Opp, the higher the payout should be.
4. CATEGORIES! Categories can often be an issue for advertisers and bloggers alike. (The first “Tip of the Week” feature was on the importance of bloggers selecting the appropriate categories for their blogs.) Remember, the categories are what the bloggers choose for their blogs because it is what they write about. For example, from a blogger’s perspective, if I have a blog about cooking I would choose the category ‘Cooking/Cuisine.’ When creating an Opp we normally select at least 3-5 categories to get the niche that is most relevant to what I write about. If you don’t care as much about what categories the blogs will be on you can keep all categories selected and get a little bit of all the blogs from our Marketplace.
5. Linking. Before making your Opportunity live make sure and verify your URL is correct and your anchor text is spelled correctly. This ensures the Advertisers are giving the bloggers exactly what they want and the bloggers are, in turn, putting what the Advertiser wants in their posts. After all, as an Advertiser you don’t want an Opp with a dead link out in the Marketplace, or a post that has anchor text saying ‘dogs’ and linking to www.cats.com!
Interested in a Press Release Opportunity?
1. Please note when creating (or taking) a Press Release Opp, the Press Release that is included in the Opp MUST BE copied and pasted directly from the Opp into the blog post! So Advertisers, please realize, the Press Release should be an acceptable length. If the Press Release is 3 pages long it will likely not be approved because we cannot require the blogger to copy and paste that much material into their individual posts.
2. The Press Release must be an ACTUAL Press Release. Information about the Opp or what requirements the bloggers have should go in the Description, not the Press Release area.
3. This one is for the bloggers — the minimum word requirement DOES NOT include the Press Release. For example, if the word requirement is 300 words and the Press Release is 200 that DOES NOT mean you only have to write 100 additional words of original content. You must still write 300 words of original content IN ADDITION to the Press Release.
If you have any questions about creating an Opp, feel free to use our new live chat feature. You can also visit the FAQs page for additional information. The “Advertiser Den” section of the IZEA message boards is also an extremely valuable resource for Advertisers. In fact, the first discussion thread in this section is titled “Writing an Appealing Opportunity for Bloggers.”
** Special thanks to Junior Account Manager Crystal for concepting this post. **
