To whom it may concern:
My name is Jeff and I’ve been riding the same Trek 7000 mountain bike (hardtail) for the past 7 years. The bike has been everywhere as my wife mudhunny and I have explored the singletrack from Georgia to California and from Colorado to Vermont (and plenty in between). All told my trusty Trek 7000 has pedaled through almost 130 different MTB trails in 11 states over thousands of miles – but now it’s time for me to move up to something a bit more modern.
While I don’t really have the scratch to buy a suitable replacement mountain bike, I do have a deal to offer you: give me a new bike before June 21, 2007 and I’ll change my name to whatever you desire. My screen name, that is.
You see, our little mountain biking website, singletracks.com, has grown a bit since we started it in 1998 and today we have almost 18,000 registered members (and growing by 50+ per day). Since the beginning my screen name has been trek7k, an obvious homage to my ride, and if I got a new bike, I’d naturally have to change my name. According to Google, my name appears 181,000 times on singletracks.com so that’s a good place to start advertising your mountain bike brand. I’d say a name change alone is worth about $1,000.
But wait, I have much more to offer. Recognizing that brand owners rarely value product placement as they should, I also have other ways to sweeten the deal. First off, how does half a million brand impressions grab you? Yep, 500,000 impressions for your brand is good business and I’ll place your mountain bike branding ads (image or video format) in one (or both) of our top branding spots (at the top of each page and/or in the body of our trail listings). We’ll even stagger your ads over several months so they don’t run out in just a few days. Value: At $5 CPM (what we generally charge) that’s worth $2,500 to your brand. Sweet!
In addition to the name change and brand impressions, I’ll also promise you at least 4 blog posts about the bike you give me (not including this one of course 😉 ). I’m sure I’ll write a glowing assessment of my new bike, especially if it’s a sexy full suspension ride. Not only that, I’ll pimp you in my review of your bike on our new and improved mountain bike review site. Oh, and don’t forget trail photos – I’m sure your bike will appear in at least a few trail photo shots over the next few years. Value: a reasonable $100 per blog post ($400 total) plus $100 for a glowing product review (photos are free).
All told I’m offering you $4,000 of value for a new mountain bike that retails for anything less than that (and we all know how much you like to mark up your retail values, but that’s cool). I won’t reveal specific brand preferences because that I don’t want to exclude anyone but suffice it to say I’m looking for a lightweight, full suspension XC mountain bike (though I might be persuaded to do a similar deal for a svelte single speed or 29er).
I’m very excited about a potential partnership with you and I know you’ll see a tremendous amount of value in what singletracks has to offer. I look forward to hearing from you soon, thanks for your time!
Sincerely,
Jeff Barber
[email protected]
P.S. – Feel free to pass this letter on to anyone you know who might be interested in unique MTB branding opportunities.
3 Comments
Mar 22, 2007
Aug 18, 2009
Jan 21, 2010