A reader sent me this screencap of a post on Facebook. Considering we’ve been discussing reviews and dealing with bloggers/industry, the points made by James Yeager are certainly both poignant and germane. I don’t agree that print is dead, but he is right that it sure as hell is expensive to advertise in. I’d also like to point out that he doesn’t ask for money to take a look at stuff which is an ethical standard I can appreciate. And, I agree that videos can be very powerful marketing tools. But, I think that my point about reach might be at play. What do you guys think about his points?
Maybe no one wants to send Yeager gear is because he is who he is…
I think that James Yeager has grown on me, but there was definitely a time when I didn’t care for him. Not everyone is going to take the time to get to know him and realize that he, attitude aside, makes some great points. That being said I could see where someone with product may not look past that attitude and might not be marketing toward who they perceive Yeager’s fan base to be based on his Youtube comments. One things for sure: if you want a conversation to get heated quickly, dash some Yeager in it!
Joe nailed it with his first post. James Yeager has the history of being a hot headed. He is not worth the risk.
As for the larger questions, it often is matter of control and comfort for the manufacturers. It is easier to control the message through advertising than reviews on youtube or blogs. Nearly all industries are struggling to figure out how to effectively present their products in the newer mediums.
I think his reputation in the industry is probably what shut a lot of doors for him.
It may also be the fact that no one really values his opinions on gear. I doubt anyone has ever asked James Yeager about his pants.
However, I would love to hear his thoughts on running shoes.
Oh Snap!
I guess you are being some kind of ironic, hahaha. He is not using running shoes.
Win!
LoL. Did anyone else notice that the second person commenting and supporting him is Red Jacket Rebecca? From Red Jacket Firearms. Talk about an expensive media in which to advertise, a television show bitching about print? If he is hooked up with them, I wouldn’t want my products within a mile of him.
As I have stated before, I work in both print and video production marketing. Coupled with Internet blogs, they are all powerful tools. Only an idiot, yes I am calling his statement idiotic, would declare any of the three dead. I haven’t noticed a lot of blogs or videos on the shelf at WalMart and Barnes & Noble. Millions of magazines sell every month. Dead? Hardly.
As to him bitching about not getting products, he made his bed. Manufacturers want to deal with professionals and he hasn’t developed that reputation.
Not to agree with him, which I do not, many companies simply do not have a propensity to send their gear out to be reviewed. Do not know why, do not know why they do not want to send their products out for hard use and review. Is it because they feel that they are not needed, that they will be negative, or that they have enough market exposure? I do not know. I have spoken with several companies seeing if they will send me their product to T&E, then review, then return to them and got the typical thanks but go pound sand response. Yet there are still blogs and people out there that get their products and all that occurs is that there are some pretty pictures posted (which no one minds) but no one really does a good bit of review, hard use reviews, on products.
Whatever works I guess.
I think they’re all just afraid he’ll just throw the gear away and run into a ditch…
HAHAHAHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wER_qXj9XJU
Companies don’t like people asking for free stuff. No matter who they are. Maybe he’s going about it the wrong way. Offer to buy the item at a discounted price or BORROW an item and return it, don’t ask for freebies. Try to help spread the word and help companies succeed. At some point they will appreciate what you do for them and send you items because they like you and want to help you continue doing what you’re doing. You can’t just say “We have 125,000 subscribers and 1,500,000 viewers per month”. That doesn’t mean those people sitting behind the computer on YouTube will buy those awesome freebies. Just my $.02.
This is 100% true. Also companies get Hundreds if not thousands of requests like this a month, and that gets old fast.
Maybe because James and Rangetime arent the type of people gear companies want to send their stuff to?
Lot of great points in the comments and in Yeager’s statement.
My policy is, if we are scared to send it out to be tested or have opinions written on it, we should not make it.
As far as how we choose how or who does the review, I let my bull crap monitor regulate who we get to do it. I also lean on my friends in the industry to keep me from giving out kit to those pretenders that would cheapen our gear by association.
Use your gut feelings, many of us are still alive by trusting them, this situation is no different. If it feels wrong, well, chances are……
I agree on your statement that it would cheapen your gear by association with someone who is not favorable to your target market. Also getting bad reviews would probably be just as bad, if not worse. It is definitely a fine line to tread, however, I would rather see many real-world reviews by people who actually use the product(s) rather than glorified reviews by a “chosen few.”
A bad review is an opportunity to make changes and make a better product. this is where you have to have mutual trust between the reviewer and the manufacture. I can think of a few products right off hand.
This has happened very few times to us, but mostly the critiques that have occurred have resulted in immediate changes that improved the product, and those changes were included in the review.
Great point, using a chosen few limits the feedback and has a “emperors new clothes” scenario. We don’t want that either.
Honest feedback and reviews are valuable, but the fine line is a place most of us live on.
GW,
Lack of Punctuation makes you seem stupid.
GW
I hope you can agree that most reviews of products are either manufactured or “generated” by a company sending their items to high-traffic/big name people/sites/blogs (like this one). The end result really doesn’t do much as they get bombarded constantly with the same type of request from different companies and the two paragraph post often times is very lacking. Then when guys like myself, who actually T&E gear and put it through its paces (and I don’t mean just one two hour session at the range) who request to purchase gear at discounts get the polite “f-off” email.
Just speaking from experience.
No wonder you have never sent me stuff for review lol Oh well I like your style and have no problem sending you my money to support you
Ask and Ye shall receive.
When Yeager says he doesn’t understand something, I tend to believe him.
The problem here is James Yeager, not the companies making the gear. He is an absolute clown. I wouldn’t want my products associated with him, either.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/01/11/dhs-reportedly-investigating-tennessee-weapons-instructor/
He’s pretty controversial, but the fact that those cocksuckers at SPLC don’t like him makes him go a notch up on my scale.
Everything below comes from the perspective of the guy in our company, which is a small one, who deals with the majority of these requests. I really appreciated SSD’s prior article and was pretty pleased to see that I/we were already doing most of the right things. I also have to agree with most of the comments.
I think this is an excellent follow-on and brings up a good counter point to the “should I send it” article, which is the responsibility of the reviewer. Be aware that you have just as much responsibility in the matter as the company does. Pretty much everything in that article and the comments can also be applied to you as the requester. Read SSD’s previous article and answer all of those questions right off in your first email, or be prepared to do so in the follow up emails, which it is on you to respond to. If you can’t answer every one of those questions in advance to yourself, then maybe you shouldn’t be even asking. If you do ask then be professional and customer service oriented, because in the scheme of things as the reviewer you are providing a service to a client, both the client reading your review and the client supplying the gear for your to review. I disagree that the print media is dead, but certainly feel it has not been a huge factor for us, and can back that up with numbers. However, the ease of doing an online blog or review has really removed the professionalism as for most it is a hobby so they don’t need to professional like they would if it was a job from which they could be fired for being a jack ass and not doing their jobs. All of the print media people who have approached us have been very professional and immediately set out to sell us on why they could help us as a business. I have experienced none of the arrogance (this is not directed at Yeager), or I am doing you a favor attitude that I get from a lot of bloggers. Be professional in your communications and polite.
Next, unless you just expect one of everything to be automatically sent, which most small companies you are hitting up can’t do, it helps as a company to know what you are trying to get for review and why (i.e. what service are you offering to provide). If you solicit something from a company it is on you to answer their responses especially if you don’t specify what you want. Remember that while you are providing a marketing service for them they are paying you with gear to do it, which means it is not free for them as alluded to in Yeager’s post. Gear costs money to make, stock, and ship not to mention people’s time processing your request. Certainly there is no ad space charge like with print, but there are costs involved, which brings up my final point. Be realistic in your requests, and understand that the company may not be in a position at that time to provide you something or can’t provide you everything you want. We have been hit up with a request for one small item that suddenly blooms into a laundry list of free gear to outfit several people. Folks have gotten very nasty when we are forced to say no due to their long list of stuff they want for free just to do us the service of reviewing it, or couldn’t get something to them in their timeline since they didn’t plan ahead.
In the case of Yeager, he emailed us with a polite general form email basically listing his credentials and reach, which is so far so good, but it concluded without a specific item(s) request. In my opinion he is certainly a master marketer, and while I don’t agree with him on a lot of stuff he undeniably has a long reach. Within 24 hrs he had a response asking what he wanted to review and some more information about how we do things. We still haven’t gotten a response, and that was over a month ago. The reason he didn’t get gear from us is that he never followed up telling us what he was interested in reviewing. Not saying we would have automatically provided what he asked for, but we never even got to that point.
Contrast that with another gentleman who hit us up via email with a very specific item request, timeline for review, location for review, and why he wanted to review in addition to the same information as Yeager provided. He got a response via email within 24hrs, and immediately followed up with a phone call to me to provide further information and get further information including recommendations about our gear. He knew what he wanted to review, but wanted to make sure he was correct. He was also very careful to stress that while he had a larger list, he was focused on one product and wanted to be very careful to not ask for to much. As a small business I really appreciate folks understanding that items shipped to them for review cost money, and being sensitive to us as a small company. That is customer service from the reviewer. Over a couple of days we had things figured out and his item, plus a couple of more items he wanted that we were able to provide some discounts on, where on the way to him. In all it took less than a week. He has nowhere the reach of Yeager, but he sold me on the why in a professional manner.
One of the things that bugs me the most is the “we are doing you a favor” attitude. Lets be honest it is a symbiotic relationship, and basically you need to sell yourself as the right reviewer, and have the customer service and salesmanship to back it up. If you can’t articulate to me in a well written way what you bring to the table and then follow-up why should I believe that you can do a good review. Bullying me, or rather attempting to, is not a good way to change my mind or influence me and unfortunately it is not that rare.
As to why companies don’t send gear, I can only answer for our company. We do send free gear or discounted gear as we can afford to, and as a result are very select about who we send gear to. If we had a larger budget for such things we would probably send more gear, but since we don’t we have to get it in the right hands, and in our case some of the people who have driven the biggest numbers to us haven’t even asked for free gear. SSD is a great example he has probably been one of our biggest if not our biggest marketing tools, and never once has he asked for gear. We have certainly sent him stuff, but it is always after the fact and something he really liked. We also don’t expect him to cover us if it is not something he wants to cover. Another example is a reviewer who has helped us sell a lot of gear through his reviews. His first three or four reviews were done on things he spent money on and took the time to do extensive field testing on, write a phenomenal review including points he didn’t like and why something might not be for you (i.e. was honest and thorough) and helped people out with follow up questions based on his review. We approached him to do a review on the last piece of gear he reviewed with the understanding we expected another thorough, honest, warts and all review. It was the power of those first reviews and the fact we could see it was driving traffic to us that got him selected for free gear. In both cases the worth was proven before a dime was even spent by us making it an easy decision. In other cases we sent free gear because we liked the other reviews we had read or could find or understood the reach involved.
It is up to you as the reviewer to sell to me on why I should send you something and help make it easy to do. If you get nasty, don’t have the right market following, try for to much stuff, don’t have a big enough following, or simply hit me up at the wrong time you are not going to get gear.
Good post and excellent approach from a company standpoint.
The only reason I ask for T&E samples is I can’t afford getting by myself the stuff I would like to write a T&E review. If I want/need something for my personal use I buy it.
Fantastic response. HPG makes well-thought gear that speaks for itself. SSD is the place that lead me to the company, like many of us here, and it’s because of the Admin’s straight-talk and honesty that I felt confident in ordering a runner’s kit bag.
I think a lot of companies are hesitant to send out gear for reviews these days due to a large amount people claiming to be “bloggers” or “industry professionals” that are just fishing for free stuff and will say whatever to get it.
As far as running and jumping in a ditch, that’s exactly what I would do if I got bushed by a couple of PKM’s and only had a pea shooter to return fire.
Why would anyone want their product associated with that clown? It should be obvious, even to him why…
“Cause you are a tool, and we don’t want our company even remotely associated with you”
Maybe print isnt dead, there sure are magazines on the shelves. However of the 20 or so guys I shoot with, none of them has purchased a gun magazine in 3-5 years. Most of them dont even take the “free” one with their NRA membership. I still buy a few magazines myself, but not any that would have tactical/weapon advertisers. Gun magazines have been worthless since the mid 90s.
I know a lot of people this way. When is the last time you read a book?
Apparently someone is buying them. They certainly aren’t printing them every month at a loss. I think that those of us in the community, who often deride airsofters and “fat weekend warriors in MC”, need to remember that those folks with day jobs and disposable income often keep afloat and thus fund new product development of many companies. I think those guys are probably a large percentage of print sales. Does that make print “dead”? I don’t think so. Just because the latest issue isn’t laying around the Team Room doesn’t mean it isn’t generating income for advertisers.
Bottom line – feel free to ask but don’t bitch if the answer is no.
Print may not be dead yet, but how are you going to compete with the relevance of instant and novel gratification provided by the internet.
Perhaps there are still a few generations that haven’t moved on, but with more and more legitimate “free” content websites and inevitable mortality, I can see magazines packing up shop much like the Silicone valley.
Think a lot of folks here are spot on with why Yeager isn’t getting much headway on his review ventures.
The future is specialization. Hell, SSD is a prime example of this. And in print, you’ll notice a lot of this going on. Referred to as Special Interest Publications or SIPs, they may be sponsored by one company or another or have a very narrow focus such as hog hunting or AR15s or AKs. They only come out 3-4 times a year but there are enough of them that each publishing house is capturing a corner of the market. Print is far from dead, it’s just regrouping.
I can dig that. Someone will find a way to keep things afloat, but I can see a lot of publications going the way of the dodo if they don’t keep up with the times and offer interesting and fresh content.
RECOIL just published a specific issue highlighting only FNH weapons, it’s on the shelf today, and our SCAR Charger Charging Handle is listed as one of the accessories available for SCAR’s. We were approached by the Editor for a sample for the article, because he reads Forums and found the many favorable posts from our customers regarding the function / quality / improvement it offered.
It wasn’t Recoil, it’s another clone magazine.
Its called Zeroed, but done by Recoil. I picked one up the other day. I can see how those magazines would be of interest. Definitely a specific Niche, but those guys would be willing to pay for it.
How magnanimous of James! He is willing to accept and use the latest and greatest in tactical gear for free and not expect any compensation for it. The internet has become an amazing thing that enables any hobbyist with a blog to extort small (and large), specialized companies for free product.
Most businesses in this industry are trying to stay afloat by getting their gear in the hands of guys on the pointy end of the Mil/Gov/LE spear with the hopes that it catches on. This also applies to top tier competitive shooters.
Businesses in this industry would be better served putting their gear in the hands of the guys actually going into harms way or winning matches, instead of hobbyist douchenozzles like James Yeager and his ilk. A quality product tried and tested by our Mil/LE professionals will sell itself to those looking for decent gear whether they are civilians, grunts or cops paying out of their pockets.
Businesses shouldn’t feel compelled to bankroll the shiny kit addiction of internet tough guys and keyboard commandos just because the have a modest following of mouth breathers and basement dwellers.
I’ve been working in publishing, and my work was related both to printed and online parts of company’s product. Situation is simple, but not really uniform.
If there are magazines, covering the real situation in industry, with good reputation, professional writers (getting enough money or another kind of profit from selling their work to magazines) and own qualified target auditory – printed media aren’t dead in this area. That’s how it works, for example, in science (with some special details).
If there are magazines, publishing old/compiled crap written by outsourced writers who are likely students with no professional experience neither in writing nor in industry, covered by magazine – printed media are dead here. At least, because readers are not professional enough to spend enough money for advertised or reviewed products. That’s how it works in computer hardware.
The level of sales or views (respectively, for magazine or website) does not reflect the actual conversion of advertising published there. An opposite statement, repeated by advertising agencies multiple times, is absolute bullshit, having its purpose to support the profit of these agencies. Making someone aware of your brand or visiting your online store/catalog gives you exactly zero cents, if your product is not cheap like air to produce. And only some companies, selling absolute crap (like penis enlargement instructional videos) can make a profit of this advertising, because product itself costs them almost nothing.
So, the statement like “there are a lot of magazines on the shelves” means nothing in general situation, because these magazines can sell crap to idiots and still survive (the line where it will not be so isn’t crossed yet).
Speaking of videos – it’s just another kind of visual media. The only difference with photos is that it’s significantly easier to make useless shitty video than shitty photos. And resolution is not good enough yet to see the small details (important, at least, for some skilled people, but not important for the most of people, who have no skills or experience to understand, what’s good and bad). Personally, I like professionally made videos, showing how the product actually works. But I hate time-stealing videos with talking heads, just humping and shaking the product with their hands and telling how cool it is – no one could get anything useful from it.
I don’t know who’s the hell is Yeager, therefore I have nothing to say about him personally. And I suppose, the point of this post was not his personal features.
That is one of the most poorly written wall of texts I’ve seen. My 11th grade English teacher Miss Harriet J Henderson would have flunked you if the above was an example of your work. You have commas all over the place and you even started a sentence with “And”.
Wow, I usually keep guys like you around so I can belittle them. Thanks for showing up! I haven’t had anyone like you visit here in quite some time. And, I enjoy pointing out how pathetic the lives of guys like you are are. And, it’s fun to do so, like a kid pulling the wings, off of a grasshopper. And, well, I’m not sure what the point was of your post, but please, feel free to stick around SSD, because I’m sure everyone will be laughing at you soon, and you’ll be crying, and sending me emails, threatening to report me to the FCC for being a big oil’ meanie.
I am surprised he has that many followers and views.
Most cults have a ton of followers until they start dieing off immediately after the Kool-Aid social
Not everyone subcribes to youtube channels as fanboys. Some want to see the next train wreck. May not be the best audience for a product if the haters are going to question the company’s reasoning and overall image when they are giving away gear to a controversial figure.
Companies have total control over what’s going in print, especially if it’s an entire catalogue, then no other unwanted advertising, or counter arguments/reviews going against their own products are present as well. A well made catalogue is nice to look through and have as well, large sized photos and what not.
But yes, digital media is so accessible and most of the time free, and all the cool kids are doing it!
It is because the reviewer can not be controlled and can give a bad review. The companies/advertisers do not want that for their product.
Obviously there are some haters here, but like him or not you can’t argue with 1.5 million views a month. There are over 10,000 students of his a year that probably would buy if a certain piece of gear got a good review. If companies are putting out what they think is a good product maybe they should put them out to several different people that are in that line of work. It doesn’t cost them a dime and if it’s good they will make money. If it sucks the reviewers will tell us and it doesn’t cost me any money. And…personally I think my money is more important than any company that makes gear that is crap. So, put your money where your mouth is. If you have something you think is great let someone review it and not just those people you have paid off for good reviews.
if it goes one more inch im going to start killi.. …….
Because of this James;
https://soldiersystems.net/2012/12/14/james-yaeger-is-so-sick-of-being-called-a-coward-that-he-will-challenge-you-to-a-duel/
http://hockscombatforum.com/index.php?topic=2690.0
Crawl back into your hole Sir…
I’m stunned that anyone would expect to be compensated for a review. An analysis, sure, but those generally aren’t for public consumption. I can always use free kit, but ethically and objectively I place more weight on reviews that are “blind,” in which the item is purchased on the open market and beat to death, or in comparison to like items. Granted that’s expensive for the writer, but unless the item is clearly on loan, and that it’s clear that there will not be any loss of objectivity or quid pro quo, it’s the only way.
Nobody wants to write a bad review, and companies don’t want to gamble on getting one, but it’s getting into a really grey area between journalism and marketing, the magalog being the best example.
People constantly ask manufacturers for free products to review. You want free stuff to review? Prove that you’re a competent reviewer. How to do that? Create a history of reviews done on your own dime. Having a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers does not a reviewer make. Any press is good press? Hells no. Especially when associated with a widely disliked and generally vilified individual like Yeager.
It always amazes me that people can have me all figured out without ever having spoken to me.
Welcome aboard James.
Print is dead. Unless you have half a mil to spend, you’re not going to have much reach. You’d be better off taking that to Vegas as you’d have better odds against the house than having a print ad with decent ROI.
If I might give a block of instruction… Hang on for the blogger tie in as it is coming.
Learn these acronyms: SEO and CPC. Search engine minimization and cost-per-click advertising are the two most effective ways to market your company or organization.
Search engine optimization basically means the content you have on your website is Google friendly. The best way to have this is via great content that is relevant to the subject or product. A lot of content really help based keywords that people are likely to search for. The overall sales goal would be to per-educate the customer so that your top sales people are answering specific relevant questions and closing more sales.
Keywords used in actual content matter most and not trying to spam the system.
Pass along is vital here so naming your product or service is crucial to being found. For example, “John’s Rambo Guns” will be totally lost in a Google search. “Destructox Arms” at Destructox.com would be at the top of any search (that’s currently open BTW). This is very limiting for what you might want to name something but that’s the way of the world. I call this SEO@thesource.
Next is cost-per-click advertising (adwords in Google). You purchase an ad and you are charged, usually on an auction system, when someone clicks on your ad. Advertising relies on BS numbers of circulation and pass along. It is total BS. The truth is no one knows how many would see your ad but you’ll pay as though everyone in a household saw it.
CPC is an art and science. Write the ad to vauge and you’ll get a ton onf unqualified leads. Write it to specific and you’ll not get any. Nice thing is you can run a bunch at the same time. Choosing what keywords is also an art. Choosing a generic word would be crazy expensive but a refined set of works is very cheap.
Here comes in the tie in.
Your early adopters are the most important folks you have. Here’s why:
They talk. A lot. Hopefully about you in a good way.
Incoming links to your website make it more valuable to Google and will raise you in the process. Additionally, you can get great pass along as long as they can find you. Don’t forget Google owns YouTube so video also make a big difference as well. Links from social media too.
Look, as a marketer, I can say whatever I want and you *might* believe part of it. Maybe. As a reviewer blog, they have to have credibility to keep their subscribers.
For Mr. Yeager to have that many unique users he’s clearly doing something right. Certainly better value than a print ad.
The reality is that with internet marketing everything is trackable. You can track inbound from blogs and CPC directly to your CRM software or cart. From click to ship everything should be tracked.
So you’d know what sales were inbound from Mr. Yeager so if it was successful you’d be able to fully embrace the blog.
I hope this might help folks as this is all free stuff. Anyone can do it.
Disclosure: I’m not currently in the marketing biz. I’m a gov employee with a marketing background and a Reservist with 7 deployments.
If I can help connect with me at:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeph4e/
Correction: “Write the ad too vague and you’ll get a ton of unqualified leads.”