New marketing ploy/stunt/idea

jwatkins

Just a question. I know this is not a typical business idea but if I were to start a blog and attempt to post one million posts in a year, what kind of exposure do you think a stunt like this would bring. Remember the million dollar homepage? The idea would be to blog for 14 hours per day, 365 days in a row. In order to reach one million posts, I would have to create a post every 17 or 18 seconds. The idea would be to offer to post about your business for a fee. Maybe $1 for the first 100,000 posts on up to $1000 for the last 10,000. The last post would be auctioned off. I know it`s a stunt and I would not have a life for a year, but the payoff would be great. What are your thoughts on something so crazy?

LauraJean

I think it`s crazy, yet clever. Do you think you could really do it? I couldn`t commit to something that demanding of my time. What if you don`t? I know anyone could if determined enough, that`s for sure. I like it. I say go for it, it just might work.

jwatkins

It would be one of the toughest things ever done. However, the payoff would be huge. I wonder if i would go crazy? Just trying to think of something to say would be hard enough. The time it takes to post a blog post on wordpress means I would have to do it for 17-18 hours per day. Is it worth it?
Some numbers to consider, If i were to sell sponsorships of posts.Charging $1.00 per post for the first 100,000 is $100,000. If I were to increase $1 per per post for each 100,000 up to 900,000 posts, I would earn 5.5 million dollars. The next 100,000 would sell for increasing amounts. The last post would be auctioned off. My estimates are in the range of 8.5 million for the year. Wow!
Would my marriage survive? Would I survive?
If I sold the links cheap and asked for a linkback from a website, the pr rating would be through the roof in 2 months, I would need huge server space, and massive bandwidth. I would need upfront sponsors to cover all the costs.
This kind of idea is just crazy enough to work. I would love to have an RSS feed of someone doing this, the 12th or 13th hour posts would have to be crazy. I could blog "Happy Birthday" to people, talk about social issues, etc.Media Frenzy!
But just think, I`m doing it, I`m 8 months and hundreds of thousands of posts in, there are millions of visitors to the site, millions of feeds, what`s it worth to a company to just be mentioned?

jwatkins

Crash1 eagle, I`ll need sponsors, you`ll be the official energy drink of the millionpostblog.com! Small banner ad in exchange for all the energy drink I can stomach. You`ll be huge!
I`ll also need, a faster computer, extremely comfortable chair, laptop with wireless (for bathroom breaks), ergonomic mouse and keyboard etc. I`ll be selling ad space (6 spots) banner ads on the front page for around $5000 per before I start, I`ll need money to live on while I do this. For all who buy post sponsorship, the money will be held in escrow until I reach one million, at that point I cash in, If I don`t make it, I don`t collect, except for the banner ads and energy drink.
 

jwatkins

A link from a site with a high PR rating is huge, definitely worth $1.But remember, this is a novelty thing. Did you go to the million dollar website? It wasn`t designed to provide visual appeal that pulls you in, nor was it designed for content, it was a gimmick. It was a gimmick that recieved millions of viewers and anyone associated with it gained from it. I doubt anyone actually bought from a company because they were listed on the site and a popup appeared when they rolled over the ad. However, let`s say you own a website, you buy a sponsorhip post for $1000, I`ve posted 900,000 posts, i have close to 1 million links, several hundred thousand visitors a day, and untold rss feeds to different people. Isn`t that $1000 well spent? Even if the post is only listed on the front page for a minute? Not to mention Google indexing the site and picking up your site in the process. Also, the plan would be to have someone create a list of sponsors on the front page, i can make the homepage as long as I need to, you may have to scroll for hours to reach the bottom but it doesn`t matter, it`s not meant to be read. After 6 months of this I`ll be out of my mind with rants and raves and there is no telling what I might say...that`s the beauty of it...
As far as the publicity of the million dollar homepage...it`s over, except for the idiots trying to do it all over again.
This is a gimmick, a nearly impossible task undertaken by one man for one reason, I want to retire before I`m 40. jwatkins2007-7-26 14:37:23

jwatkins

Sleep will be an issue. However, It`s not too exciting if people help me. People want to see a man go insane right before their eyes
I think i will solicit Rum companies to provide different rums so that I can do shots while blogging, just to see which one has the best effect. i will need someone to pour the rum however...



jwatkins2007-7-26 20:11:45

jwatkins

Actually only about 17 hours per day with 2 posts per minute.

jwatkins

Wow that guy is good! He has an actual product to sell, I have a gimmick.Actually I would have "handlers" who would be around to handle things such as receiving the thousands of emails and requests from sponsors. I would have to be fed those. If I had to stop and read emails or requests I wouldn`t make it. My wife is a stay at home mom so she would be here anyway. Also, I think the idea of one man`s constant thoughts being blogged for one solid year is a better selling point than a really fast typist. Don`t you?

jwatkins

Drivel and Blather sells. Don`t you watch TV?

kutatishh

If you`re really serious about it, I think you`d do great.  But hey, you need to make sure you register the domain name millionpostblog.com before someone else takes it.  Its still available as we speak.

jwatkins

You`re right. I should do that.

ObsidianLaunch

I love the idea. It is very "purple cow" (great marketing book by Seth Godin).  You should do it alone - the craziness is the amaziness (lame attempt at a catchy rhyme).  1M posts by 50 people or the like is already being done - that`s called an active blog.
It is the story behind the blog, that makes it unique.  I suggest the preparation you do is PR. Have your press releases ready, have the numbers of local news and local papers ready, etc.  The second you get rolling, start the PR campaign. If you get good PR, your value will increase. The final spot may be worth $50,000 or more - if you have GREAT PR.
 ObsidianLaunch2007-8-2 19:27:10

jwatkins

Thanks for the post ObsidianLaunch,PR would the key to a fast start. One problem I have is my wife doesn`t work and we don`t have a years salary lying around so I would need sponsors to get started. however, with the proper PR that shouldn`t be too big of a deal.The sale of the blog posts would be worth a lot. The plan is to sell the first 100,00 for $1. After that the price increases incrementally as the posts grow and the readers grow. Then 101,000 through 199,000 for $2 all the way to 899,000. That alone is worth 4.5 million. The last 90,000 would sell more, maybe $20 per post, or 1.8 million. That`s 6.3 million. From there we would sell the next 9000 for maybe $50 (this is when most people would really start reading with only a few days left, it`s also when the tv news crews show up on the doorstep.). So where was I? Oh, 1000 posts left, less than a day to go, The next 900 go for $1000 (still a great deal) or $900,000. That`s a total of 7.2 million. The last 99 posts maybe $5000 (millions of people seeing the link to your site, gotta be curious about your business) that`s another $495000 or 7.7 million. The last post with millions of eyes, media coverage, and even the Prez watching would be auctioned off on ebay with all of the proceeds being donated to our local Children`s hospital. That post alone could be worth a lot of money, especially if it`s going to charity. So I guess i need to start looking for sponsors, get a PR firm, and double up on NetFlix...

WebDrops

wow!! 1 post every 17 or 18 seconds... sounds difficult... but Just TRYING makes everything possible... go ahead... i feel this thing would fetch u great revenues Good Luck!!

jwatkins

Hello CampSteve,
The posts will have to be short. For instance:
Campsteve.com logos and poster design
Is that worth $1 or $1000? It depends. If that link is attached to a blog with a pr6 ranking, with thousands of loyal readers and possibly millions of casual viewers, it could be worth a whole lot more. The Google crawls alone will be of tremendous value to a site owner.
As far as the quality of the message, that would be up to the individual business owners as they would tell me what to write (I`d still have some discretion). There wouldn`t be any full page posts because I wouldn`t have the time to do that. The posts would have to be short. A website link and a tag line. Maybe I would charge by the letter. You could buy more than one though. As these email requests come in, I`d have people read them and then print them out and then they would feed them to me and I would blog it. Sort of a production line assembly.Keep in mind also, the posts don`t have to be about business. They could be about anything, Happy Birthday, Will You marry me?, Save the Whales!, etc.
This is not a new concept. People have been paid to post since the start of blogs, some sites get big money to do that. This carries a certain novelty to it though.
As for my seriousness...
I think I could do it. Would there be any sponsorship money to support me until it got rolling? That`s the question. Much like your friend selling the doodles, I would need some presales to get going. I would also need a pr team to go on the web and talk it up, do some press releases, etc. before I got started.
I just wish 100,000 posts in one month sounded as sexy as 1 million posts in one year.
 
 

jwatkins

Just to recap...
I would start a website called something like "MillionPostBlog.com" using wordpress blogging software. The goal would be to post one million blog post in one year. That would entail posting a post every 17 seconds for 17 or 18 hours straight every day for 365 days. There would be some eating time, excercise time, and sleep time during the day.
The blog post would come from people, businesses and organizations who would pay me to post their message. I may charge per post or per letter. i would have a shopping cart system set up that gives you differing options such as post during the first 100,000 or post during 400,000-500,000. The price would go up as the number of posts increases because there would be growing readership and publicity. So for instance, you could buy 10 100,000 posts for $1 and your message would be "Save the Martians!" or something like that. I would recieve the request via email and one of my assistants would print it out and put it in front of me so that I could post it.
I would have assistants that would keep track of the email requests and the money while I did this. I will not have any time to think about anything else.
That`s the idea in a nutshell. Are there any drawbacks? Sure. The biggest will be my six year old. She loves her daddy and a full year of not really talking to her will take it`s toll on both of us. I think we can make it fun though. maybe i`ll blog our conversations. A must read!
So all of you PR types out there give me some ideas on how to make this thing take off. Maybe I could compensate you at 2 or 3 cents per post.