All Posts Tagged With: "ebook"

There’s a question I’ve wondered about for some time now, whether or not all those people that pony up hundreds of dollars to experience the John Chow Effect really get something worthwhile out of it. Let’s face it, you can save yourself a bundle of cash by landing yourself on the frontpage of Digg or having something that people love to Stumble but more often than not all of that is worthless outside of driving up your traffic stats. However, just like beauty, worth is in the eye of the beholder, so the question is, is it worth spending $400 to have your site or product reviewed by John Chow?

If your Alvin Phang the answer is a resounding NO. Alvin has put together a free 16 page report on his experience with the “John Chow Effect“. While the report itself does tend to cast John in a dim light because overall it states Alvin got $0.00 return on his $400 investment it’s not necessarily intended to convey that message (but it makes for a great headline).

I’m not an ebook kind of person, especially ones that are grammatically challenging to read, but I’m really interested in seeing some results from someone who’s bought one of the many reviews John has done. While Alvin’s approach is from an advertisers point of view and the ebook is full of screen shots there are still a number of lessons we can take from it. For example, Alvin requested a review of his Atomic Blogging product, in his ebook he states “The review was written very well but as an advertiser’s point of view the review did not deliver what as I was expecting from John”.

That’s a great point because whether you buy a $10 review or a $400 review there is some expectation on the part of the person buying the review. However, the first question that comes to mind is, what (if any) conditions/requirements were given when the review was submitted? It would be important to convey your expectations to the reviewer, even if your sending them a product to review, don’t assume they know what your looking for.

Something else Alvin points out that I think is important, especially if you pushing a product, is that the product and even a site needs to be of interest to the reviewer. Alvin argued that John didn’t really recommend his product throughout the review, but he also admitted that he felt it wasn’t something that really grabbed John’s attention. This is so important, the whole purpose of spending this money is to get loyal readers or sale conversions. If the reviewer doesn’t find the lvel of interest your require then your probably not going to get what your looking for, whereas, knowing your expectations up front could influence their review just enough spawn you some sales. If you just want a million hits in your stats meter to say you got lots of traffic then send me $200 and I’ll hook you up, just don’t complain when they don’t provide you any benefit.

Bottom line. Whether it’s John Chow or anyone else, if your looking to get a review done you need to seriously consider what your asking of the reviewer. If you simply toss them some cash and ask that they “just review my whatever” then don’t have very high expectations that your investment will gain you readers or sales. However, if you have a goal in mind, then explain that to the reviewer, tell them what your intent is: whether it’s to generate sales of an ebook or critique it’s content. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time and will most likely make your investment much more beneficial.

Thanks to Andy Beard for turning me on to Alvin’s ebook. I’d really like to see more of this kind of stuff reported from people that have bought reviews, not necessarily from John. I’ve said before I’m actually surprised John doesn’t solicit this feedback to bolster his already bulging ReviewMe wallet.

If you’ve bought a review and have results to show how it did, drop a link in the comments to let us know.