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Wise Marketing

mrsmig

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Mods, this might not be the correct forum for this thread, but I couldn't figure out where it should go. Please feel free to move it if you think there's a more appropriate subforum.

I received this email today from a company called Wise Marketing:

We would be interested in contributing a relevant and original article to your site, donnamigliaccio.com.

The piece will include a few contextual references to our client. We'll also pay $100 per article for your time and effort.

Please email me back if this is something that you might consider. We'll then start working on the draft and send it over for your final review and approval.

Thanks and here's hoping I hear back from you soon!

Yours,
Elise Norman
Senior Outreach Executive

Anyone know anything about this outfit? My website is a free WordPress site and I use it mostly to flog my acting work, although it references my writing and also contains my blog, where I write about a variety of topics. It gets a fair amount of traffic but has never burned down the house as far as views go.

I've never hosted any kind of outside content beyond what WordPress sticks on there, but I have to admit the $100 is somewhat appealing. If anyone more versed in this kind of hosting can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it.
 

Polenth

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I don't know about this company in particular, but it's not an uncommon strategy. They want to put an advert on your site for their client. But rather than an advert in the sidebar or something, it'll be disguised as a blog post. I don't have a busy blog, and I get a stream of this sort of request (usually for things completely unrelated to my blog topics). Some offer payment, some don't. All of them are basically adverts that don't want to look like adverts.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. Think how you'd react if a blog you followed starting posting adverts in the main content. It doesn't tend to go down well with readers.
 

mrsmig

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Thanks, Polenth. That was my inclination as well. I don't need $100 bad enough to clutter my website with random stuff.
 

VeryBigBeard

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I used to get these all the time when I ran a student paper. This one is actually several steps more professionally presented than the average.

Still, bad idea. It's one step up from a scam, and it'll look bad on your site. I got nothing against advertisers, but you should know what it a product is before endorsing or advertising anything.
 

mrsmig

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I've had the same offer from different companies. I always politely turn them down.

I used to get these all the time when I ran a student paper. This one is actually several steps more professionally presented than the average.

Still, bad idea. It's one step up from a scam, and it'll look bad on your site. I got nothing against advertisers, but you should know what it a product is before endorsing or advertising anything.

Thanks, Filigree and VeryBigBeard. I wrote them back this morning, thanked them for their interest in my website and politely declined.
 

VeryBigBeard

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Being nice like that earns you karma points.

It's probably more time than they took. A lot of these places just blast anyone with a domain. I almost never bothered responding to them, and I doubt anyone who does that sort of thing expects the response. It's lowest-possible-connection advertising, volume over any kind of quality message pitch.