How does a site get credible enough to get free products

for reviews and evaluations?

[MrSpeed]

I am a gear freak and usually research like a madman before a purchase. I write reviews for products on my site sometimes for the purpose of documenting my decision process. I would like to expand on this.

How do sites like tomshardware or camcorderinfo do it? There must be a certain point when a site becomes "credible" and get press passes to shows, products for evaluation etc

Does anyone here have a site like this that can share pointers? Do manufacturers and vendors have programs to lend out equipment for reviews?

The best I can do is to run down the the local store to check out the products. Kind of makes it hard to take pictures, open covers, etc..

[SeanW]

I don't do hardware, but I get sent a lot of books. The marketing people are mainly looking for audience (how many people are you going to reach? are they the target market for the product?).

Tom's Hardware gets lots of free stuff because companies know thousands of computer geeks will read about it.

I started off by contacting publishers and telling them about what I had to offer and what I was looking for. Digging back to late 2000, here's the first letter I could find:

Hello,

I write a weekly Linux newsletter for Brainbuzz.com, and am interested in
reviewing some of Peachpit's books. I notice that you have some titles on
GIMP and general Unix topics, which would be of interest to my readers.

The Linux newsletter covers news and resources for Linux users. Book
reviews would be published on the main Brainbuzz.com site, and further
announced in one of the weekly newsletters. The main site has 300,000+
subscribers. The Linux newsletter is relatively new, readership is in the
1,000 area and growing. Before the newsletter, I wrote articles and
reviews for the main site, and hosted Linux forums.

The information you requested on your media review page:

(contact information for me and my editor)

The number of reviews per year is variable... As it is a weekly
newsletter there is lots of opportunity to include links to reviews. In
practice, I would consider a review a month to be a target.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sean

This worked well for a lot of the major publishers. As the membership grew I started trying to get into products and such. Software was pretty easy, but I only tried hardware a couple of times with no success.

Sean

[newguy1]

I get more samples sent to me each month than I know what to do with...

Here is a rough outline:

It started out as seeing an opportunity where a few companies were getting wealthy with generic impersonal information. I then took that a step further and reviewed what I already owned within that sector with a personal edge. Then I reviewed my friends things that matched too. Finally I contacted the companies and asked for a loan of items and a few companies provided.

I would review A then get B because it was better. Then company two would come in and offer C because they thought they had a better product than the competition and so on.

You need to have an audience and an angle. Write both objectively and subjectively and keep the content fresh.

[frup]

I used to give out products to reviewers. Persistence sometimes pays off. I'd have people keep bothering me for products, eventually I'd give in. Also if you go ofter slightly older or less popular products, you're more likely to get a shot. Sometimes people just want them returned, if you can show that you'll return products quickly, for instance by starting on an older product they have lots of, you can show you are reliable and get in their good graces.

People also use other tricks. Like have a friend who works at a retailer and test the product after hours, buy and return, etc. You have to be aggressive at first to establish yourself.