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Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

blog.desk.pm

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Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#11

Post by jonstokes »

wodenokoto wrote: post #4

Congratulations to the author and a succesful campaign. My favourite part of his post reminded me of a quote my marketing professor once told me "The most important thing in a marketing campaign is a great product" Had desk been a poor product, I doubt the Halo-effect would have happened.

I dunno dude, I bought it, tried to use it, and quickly discovered that it's a pretty poor product. I won't go into it here, because it's off-topic and I left a two-star review in the App Store anyway. But my impression of the app is that its success is mainly due to marketing savvy and the current infatuation with "minimalist" writing apps that use Markdown. So I would say yes, DF advertising clearly worked here, and props to the author for also getting extra mileage out of it with this post + HN hit.

Not only is his promotion on DF and followup blog post a model of How It's Done, but his entire blog is really well-done from a marketing and SEO standpoint. Lots of relevant internal links, good photography, great design, and posts that are devoid of keyword spam and are just the right length and reading level.

Anyway, great design, very savvy marketing and SEO, wrapped around a buggy app that ticks a lot of the currently trendy boxes and contains some shocking deficiencies. And if I sound irritated for being taken, it's because it cost me $30, which is what a mature, quality, premium app like Pixelmator costs.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#12

Post by dilap »

jonas21 wrote: post #10
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

It's a valid concern, but honestly I think the distorting effects are probably much less than e.g., having to chase clickbait topics for CPM advertising or having Carlos Slim be your largest single investor, etc.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#13

Post by saddington »

jonstokes wrote: post #11
wodenokoto wrote: post #4

Congratulations to the author and a succesful campaign. My favourite part of his post reminded me of a quote my marketing professor once told me "The most important thing in a marketing campaign is a great product" Had desk been a poor product, I doubt the Halo-effect would have happened.

I dunno dude, I bought it, tried to use it, and quickly discovered that it's a pretty poor product. I won't go into it here, because it's off-topic and I left a two-star review in the App Store anyway. But my impression of the app is that its success is mainly due to marketing savvy and the current infatuation with "minimalist" writing apps that use Markdown. So I would say yes, DF advertising clearly worked here, an…

You can always get a refund for the app... and I'm really sorry it didn't work for you.

It's honestly really tough being an indie developer... I have to do EVERYTHING related to not just building the DAMN THING but all of the business, marketing, Q/A, financials/accounting, blogging... the list is eternally-long.

v1.0 was lucky... in a lot of ways. v1.1 addressed a shit-ton of issues... v1.2, out in a week (hopefully) will add a major user-requested feature...

it... just... takes... time... when... doing... it... alone...

thanks Jon for the comments. I'm doing my best.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#14

Post by saddington »

atourgates wrote: post #9
bglazer wrote: post #3

> I went on to grab a net-revenue (profit) of just north of $32,000 for the month of December, 2014 That's pretty darn impressive. Congratulations! Excellent copy writing on your desk.pm landing page as well.

I like the feel of the landing page, but I have a hard time figuring out what desk is. I don't know how it compares to other markup editors or distraction-free writing environments (I currently use and love Ulysses, and have tried several other similar apps), I don't know the details of its blogging platform integrations, or how it manages media. Without that info, I'd be happy to try a demo, but not risk $30 to figu…

This is great feedback and something I can do better. I had actually done a retrospective on the change of the landing page but you're right... it still needs improvement.

At some point I'll probably hire a "real" designer to help me... since i'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#15

Post by saddington »

daigoba66 wrote: post #8
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

I think another reason the DF advertising model is so successful, for both the publisher and the advertiser, is that the advertisements don't distract from the publisher's content. And in this case it plays really well with the primary means of publication for DF, RSS. Consider "traditional media": radio, television, and print. Yeah, we all love to hate commercials, etc. But compare it to the Internet, which is a com…

This is one of the reasons I've been a fan and reader of his blog... I feel like his model really "works" and I don't get offended at all.

John has the right to decline any offer to advertise... (obviously) and keeps the bar high.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#16

Post by saddington »

bglazer wrote: post #3

> I went on to grab a net-revenue (profit) of just north of $32,000 for the month of December, 2014 That's pretty darn impressive. Congratulations! Excellent copy writing on your desk.pm landing page as well.

I did a much bigger FY2014 retrospective today: http://blog.desk.pm/2014-yir/

Hopefully that paints a better picture.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#17

Post by syllogism »

jonstokes wrote: post #11
wodenokoto wrote: post #4

Congratulations to the author and a succesful campaign. My favourite part of his post reminded me of a quote my marketing professor once told me "The most important thing in a marketing campaign is a great product" Had desk been a poor product, I doubt the Halo-effect would have happened.

I dunno dude, I bought it, tried to use it, and quickly discovered that it's a pretty poor product. I won't go into it here, because it's off-topic and I left a two-star review in the App Store anyway. But my impression of the app is that its success is mainly due to marketing savvy and the current infatuation with "minimalist" writing apps that use Markdown. So I would say yes, DF advertising clearly worked here, an…

And now this post makes Gruber excellent cash, so maybe Gruber thanks Desk again. Definitely excellent strategy. (Not that the post is insincere of course.)

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#19

Post by saddington »

cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

Many have continued to try and some have really found it to work. I advertised on a number of other blogs that have the exact same model: http://blog.desk.pm/2014-yir/

I was very happy with those results too!

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#20

Post by Moto7451 »

jonas21 wrote: post #10
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

PBS and NPR have to deal with this issue every year and their solution is pretty simple. They report it as they would want to, mention that X Co sponsored them in the past/present, and don't take their advertising dollars for that piece.
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