For a good buzz marketer? Someone that will get you links, post for you, write blog comments, and get your name out in the public's eye in general.
Well I would want to see some of the posts that the person and made. And then I would give it a chance.
You're essentially talking about being an online publicist. What I'd pay (if I were looking) would depend on your credentials, what provable results you have (in the sense of how much buzz was built and whether it's within the right target markets, etc.). It would also depend on whether you're just providing quick buzz or longer-term sustained buzz. You really need to ouline your service thoroughly to be able to get decent price estimates. Personally, all of my publicity work (aside from per project writing) is done on an hourly basis. You can make great money doing that kind of consulting, but it also depends on what clients you want to work with, and where you choose to market yourself. You probably won't make as much with most DP clients as you would by marketing yourself to a different crowd (although you can certainly find bigger budget clients here as well from time to time).
Thanks JH, always like to read your posts, full of good info. I haven't decided whether I actually want to jump into the market yet. I've done pretty well for myself for a number of websites in the past, so I know how to go about promoting websites. I don't have any clients that I have done this for in the past though. We will see if I choose to go down this road. Thanks again!
Someone in another thread was looking for someone to do exactly this, so I pointed them here. But here's their thread if you feel like contacting them to give it a shot. - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=303767
Well, I think it is a risky business. I would absolutely upset if I paid someone $50.00 but I only saw 4 $4.99 sales that had no part of myself. On the other hand, I would pay very close to the amount of profit the individual was generating. The reason is is because I think this would hopefully be the start of a word-of-mouth spread regarding my company. I would not pay upfront though for someone without a garauntee.
I may be interested in your service fireflyproject, let me know if you decide to do it, I might hire you!
You'll very rarely find guarantees regarding publicity, unless you're working with an amateur who really doesn't understand how it works. It's not like direct sales where you charge by commissions. It's not something that can be guaranteed, b/c it's not measurable in the same way other things are. It would also cost enormously more than $50 to get someone experienced enough to bring significant results. The best thing you can do is simply ask to see records of real results from past campaigns, and base hiring decisions off of the professional's track record. Or, you can risk the proven results side of things by going with someone who's never done it before, but you'll save a lot of money in the process, and they may prove to have a great natural knack for it.
That is a $2000 to $5000 budget job. To get you to the level you suggested, you need a consistent 6 month campaign - cross validating results etc.
In my opinion a successful marketing campaign can only be measured by its results. I understand that $50.00 wouldn't pay for this type of service. That was just easy math. But lets say the price was $5,000.00 per month and sales were only increasing by $200.00 per month. Seems like a pretty bad marketing campaign to me.
That's why the client needs to put together a solid marketing plan with a budget, projections, tactics, etc. before bringing in someone to just randomly and comprehensively try everything at once. Or you find a marketer who will do the plan and projections for you as well, in which case they may be much more lenient if their own projections were really far off. A lot of clients don't bother to do this... they just throw money at the problem instead of thinking and planning first, and then get upset when the results aren't what they want. That's just not how it works. If the bad projections are the fault of the marketer, then you should be able to hold them accountable. But if the bad projections are the client's, they can't hold it against a marketer if they can't make the impossible happen.
Well, I think I may give this a shot guys. I want to start out small of course and do some cheap jobs to get my feet wet. For now I only want to take on one job, payment will be discussed from the person who wants the services.
I think you are essentially looking for awebmaster because some or even many do all those things by themselves initially when starting out before taking on services of paid writers and marketers.