But overall, the material was always really good. Until lately.
Lately, Vince's emails have been all about how awesome Vince is. Think I'm joking? These are the subject lines from the last four emails I got from Vince's newsletter:
- How did I do at Worlds last night?
- 1-day out pic! [plus watch Worlds LIVE today]
- last pic before Worlds
- Wanna see how I'm looking?
I understand that when you're looking to motivate people and you're your own poster boy for the products, systems, and lifestyle you're promoting, you have to do a little bit of "wanna get abs like these" promotions. But since the launch of his "Live Large TV" series on YouTube last season, Vince's packaging and motivational message has been all about...well, Vince.
This level of self-aggrandizement is just nauseating. I'm not being a "hater" here. Seriously...he sends out pictures of himself to show his subscribers how awesome he looks. It's frankly a little bizarre. You can motivate people by living your life well. You can have confidence and project that confidence in everything you do. But when all you have to talk about -- when your only contribution to society -- becomes how great you're doing and looking and living, you lose the interest of the common person you're trying to help in the first place.
I'll keep monitoring his blog of course. And if I see a shift back to actual valuable advice, I may reconsider subscribing. But for the time being, as long as his only advice remains "Wanna see how I'm looking?" I don't think I'm all that interested in finding out the answer.
Hey Steve!
ReplyDeleteIt's Vince. Want to thank you for being a loyal subscriber for so long.
As I'm sure you're aware, I like to "test out" different Subject headlines to see what gets a higher or lower open rate. Gives me an idea of what kind of content my readers respond to.
As you know, those were all updates around the BIGGEST physique event of my life and the pics represented a life-time achievement for me. I was talking about the show for months and months and this was the email that showed all the hard work I poured into it.
I understand that most people don't get the physique sports - they look like "we're in love with ourself", in secure and desperate for attention.
I appologize if it came across that way. I was simply sharing my success to inspire you guys to chase after your own crazy goals - whatever they may be.
Best to you and hope to have you back
Vince
P.S. This is the real Vince Del Monte. Not an assistant of mine :)
You know what? Gotta give big ups to VDM for that comment. It takes a man with integrity to step up and address the concerns of his readers. And no doubt WHATSOEVER that Vince is playin' it hard and making shit happen.
ReplyDeleteI still don't like the content. When it gets back to stuff I can use (and I do check the blog regularly) I'll change my mind. Best condensed workouts I've ever burned on, no doubts there!
You know what? I think both comments here are great. It gives VDM an indication of what subscribers like and reminding him that what his subscribers are after - good no-nonsense useful and inspiring content. As a marketer I understand exactly what Vince is saying and I think as a subscriber myself it is important to celebrate Vince success as he showed that he is willing to celebrate the success of his subscribers as well.I get what you saying though. The newsletters are so filled with success stories that lately there was not a lot of useful content to create your own success.Is inspiring though to know that the programs Vince endorse is working for him and as you rightly mentioned that it is the best condensed workouts you ever burned on.There are so many scams out there today, so I am to some extent glad Vince showed off a bit. If you promote something, but there is no results then I would start asking serious questions.
ReplyDeleteAlso an excellent point (this is turning into a marketing discussion, eh?...should repost this on my other blog LOL). In the rules of audience engagement, Vince's strategy is pretty sound: give enough material to get the audience set up to celebrate your own victories, creating a personal relationship that puts you in the unique position of keeping them personally invested in your success. It's a good strategy, and clearly it works.
ReplyDeleteIt might have been less unappealing if the direction swung in the "How I got to this point" direction, featuring either the workout and diet tips involved, or a product recommendation for the same with his own review (that's as opposed to the "This is the point I'm at" direction...subtle, but different). This is all just my opinion of course, and he'll do what the metrics dictate. All I can do is tell my readers what I think of the current state of the content. But DO check out his blog. It's full of valuable advice (that's http://www.vincedelmontefitness.com/blog/).
Despite the fact that the piece in the Post almost backhandedly assigns my blog the role of being just another backwater blog by another screwball with a voice nobody cares about (which it may very well be...I'm not hosting here for serious marketing at all), they did me the great favour of spiking my traffic without any effort on my part whatsoever. However, it's not just a place to bitch about stuff. Part of my mandate here is to provide reviews for stuff marketed to guys. Sometimes the reviews are good, and sometimes not so good. So for the record: I'm not thrilled with the direction of this particular newsletter. But I will state emphatically that the actual programs and products that Vince has either created or promoted do exactly what they say they do. On one of his workouts (15 minutes total), I dropped 10 lbs of fat and added 5 lbs of muscle in about three weeks. On another recommendation, I've had tremendous success with a bodyweight routine. And I got into TACFIT because of Vince's Israeli Challenge video. The guy knows his stuff.
Talking about spiking your traffic - haha, same here. I was so surprised and did not understand what was going on cause I am in a very busy time of my life and there is not time now to blog on a regular basis. I checked my stats and were surprised at the sudden increase in my traffic as I have not been blogging for months.Were so surprised to see it in the washington post. I googled VDM newsletter and realised I am the only one featuring which probably means that no one else ever posts VDM newsletters. That's the reason I got chosen I suppose.The way they mentioned you I was wondering who you are?Sounded as if though you should be important, some kind of big bodybuilder or something and I was trying to go on your site to find out more about you.Haha don't know why, but I am using google chrome and every time I try to go on your website my internet crash - google chrome stops working. Will try again. Take care!
ReplyDeleteHaha...nope, not a big-name body builder. Just a guy who talks about guy stuff and offers up a review here or there. I guess they mentioned me because they were talking about how mundane it is for Rumsfeld to be posting about his subscriptions, and how ordinary folk like to post about crap nobody really cares about. Don't know if I fit in that category -- don't really care either way.
ReplyDeleteI have no explanation for the crashing browser. My Chrome works fine on this blog. I had some issues a while back with Blogger, and it turns out it was some of the Chrome extensions causing the issue, so you might try that.
Hmmm...you'd think Chrome would work with their own blogging platform...