ThankFrank.com: A Haven of Help for Shoppers

SeanFrank

Hi All,

I am about to launch a new business and I could really use your help!

Thankfrank.com is a new social shopping site, and my idea is to incentivise helpful interactions between shoppers. I want people who are kind enough to help others shop smart to really feel like there is something in it for them too. So, Thankfrank.com will actively reward goodwill or helpful interactions with real shopping vouchers.

To kick off, I want to provide a hub of goodwill, a place for people who like to share opinions and advice with others; a ‘help haven’ for shoppers to converse and advise in an honest and frank manner, and for helpers to get something worthwhile back for their time. To find out how it works, have a look at this post:
http://www.thankfrank.com/discussion/28/competition-1-the-help-haven/p1

To get ThankFrank.com going I’m afraid I’ll need some help getting started. I need to show that having real, honest help from another consumer is highly valuable to all of us as consumers and there are people out there willing to help and take part. I don’t need many, I just need a few helpful consumers who want to earn some free shopping credit to take part, ask questions, and answer any questions that pop up.

The site’s homepage can be found at http://www.thankfrank.com

I also wanted to reach out to you folks before starting the competition in January because I fully intend on using any suggestions or feedback you have. Please be aware that the site design has been (almost!) implemented by a web dev who hates design! (We haven’t found a designer comfortable working with Vanilla yet.) Please also be aware that our devs are taking a well-earned break for Christmas and we will work on any feedback when they return.

But before I launch the service, can you please let me know what you think? The service, the site, the design and any suggestions or feedback you might have otherwise is hugely helpful!

(Please be aware that our responsive design will be fully completed in the new year, so please don't try opening on a mobile!)

Anyway, if you like the idea, please ask a question or help someone with an answer to help us get started! I’ll be putting €1,000 into the ThankFrank pot to ensure there is at least some guaranteed reward for early helpers, and any community points earned by beta testers in December will carry over to the January Competition.

Thanks a million for your time folks, and feel free to ask absolutely anything about the service or site – I promise I’ll be open and frank!

Sean Ahern.

SeanFrank

Hi Folks,

Just adding a few lines on how ThankFrank works. Please let me know if you think it's good, bad or needs work!

To raise money to properly reward helpful shoppers on our forum, I will be looking for corporate sponsorship at the end of each month to sponsor all the goodwill and shopping advice that has taken place on ThankFrank.com over that month. If we can generate a lot of goodwill between a lot of users then we have a strong reason for any brand to connect with and sponsor the goodwill community (not forgetting hugely valuable market research opportunities).

Each month I’ll ask companies to bid for one sponsorship spot, but importantly, no company will be able to see the other’s bids; they will have to place their own perceived value on our community’s combined goodwill. The winner will be hailed on the homepage and will have the community’s special attention for the following month, providing a valuable market research opportunity within a qualified sample of consumer experts.

Finally, the total company donation (-1% for costs) will be credited back to every member of the community based on the amount of help they have volunteered or community points they have earned that month. The credit can be redeemed for shopping vouchers from a list of merchants and the best part is that you can freely run a credit tab and tally up huge discounts over time, even buying products for free if you get that far!

I hope it’s a win-win for everyone, really! Completely free and completely impartial advice for shoppers, heavy discounts available to those nice enough to help, and targeted market data for B2C companies.

Please, let me know what you think!

Sean.

tricky D

This needs a lot of work on the look and feel (design), marketing and copywriting. The look is messy; the purpose of the site isn't clear enough (you should be able to convey the message much more briefly ie. 25 words or less) and there's scope for using more online marketing techniques/resources.

SeanFrank

Thanks for the feedback!

The design and copy is pretty much non-existent, I agree. We'll be working on improving the design gradually over the next few weeks, so any suggestions at this stage would be really, really helpful.

Good advice about the message - I think maybe I'll try to put an infographic-style banner on the home page explaining the concept visually. One thing I personally struggle with is keeping things brief! (As my 2 posts above demonstrate! )

Otherwise, which marketing techniques specifically do you mean? I am not a marketer at all myself but I have someone who is helping me, and she'll be interested to hear suggestions I know.

Thanks for taking some time to help - I really appreciate it!

And Happy Christmas!

Sean.

SeanFrank

Hi folks,

Just noting an update against the last version I posted!

The homepage content (below the 3 CTAs Ask, Thank, Recommend) is just simple text for now, but, I'm getting a more visual guide put together to replace it - hopefully ready next week!

http://www.thankfrank.com/

Does the purpose of the site come through? I'm hoping that at least the intent and basic service is starting to show ...

Really appreciate any further feedback! Negative, positive, it all matters!

Thanks,

Sean.



Oh, re marketing; our marketing at this stage is limited to Facebook and even that is very light. We are really just trying to get our messaging right first so that people are not confused when they enter! Hopefully we are making some progress ... either way, we don't want to market properly until the thing is ready for mass appraisal. We are giving away vouchers to people who take part and help out in beta so hopefully we can get it there soon!

carlmango11

The photo of the two people confused me for some reason. Is it a forum where people discuss consumer issues/products?

Anyway that's not why I'm posting. Have a look at the site on a wide screen. The site stretches all the way out and looks a bit off. Perhaps you should have some sort of max-width attribute and put a nice, neutral background on body.

SeanFrank

Hi carlmango, thanks for the feedback!

Re the 2 faces: Yes, the site is a community site where members help and advise consumers. If the consumer likes the advice they can “tip” a member with voucher credit at absolutely no cost to them. We can do this because we monetise the collective power of the helpful community and distribute it back to the community according to their success helping random consumers.

Now, I’m not saying having the 2 faces being there is absolutely the right thing to do but I do want to set the impression that it is an interactive process where you talk to people who help you. If I’m missing the mark please let me know!

I am now worried that the message is not clear, and I’m open to suggestions on how to correct that!

Re the Max width: I agree completely and I’ve logged the issue – thanks!

Any more feedback is hugely welcome; I fully intend to use it all. Since it’s all I look at/think of it’s hard to step back and assess!

Sean.

SeanFrank

Max width issue fixed (thanks!) - I think it looks better!

I don't have a super high res screen - it's not too small now is it?

Thanks!

Sean.

carlmango11

Looks way better on my wide screen anyway

http://i.imgur.com/Nd9X624.png

SeanFrank

Hi folks,

Just a small update and a bit of an insider tip ...

We are still working on the website homepage and I'm going to show you all a new approach next week BUT:

We haven't really pushed this website out there too far while we try to get the design right, but we have promised to give away €1000 to those that took part and helped others in January.

To the posters above and anyone who has had a look inside, a "Best Answer" is currently netting around €100 in Amazon vouchers since only a few have been helping!

January's rewards window closes on the 31st (tomorrow) and I doubt there will be another chance to bag so much so easily. Not too many know about this yet so now is definitely the time to properly clean up!

Just letting you folks know cause I'd love to spread the love a little beyond the 5 odd people we have so far (most of whom I know anyway and will be gloating about it for weeks ...)

Just throw in some answers before tomorrow and see if you get even one thanks - it might even make your weekend!

Thanks folks, and any questions/feedback and I'm right here!

Sean.

SeanFrank

Just a quick update from the above.

A couple of days ago, we released a new homepage. The last one just wasn’t working at all! So we decided to unclutter a little!
www.thankfrank.com

This one is working better, and we have a good few questions coming in. Now we don't have enough people to give advice!

We still have a good bit of content to add to the homepage but it will all be below the line. I think we should probably keep the landing view as clean as possible. Any thoughts?

Also:

If you have anyone you think might be good at giving advice, there is going to be another €1000 given out at the end of this month. Last month the majority went to one person, and this time I’d hope share it out to more than a handful of users!

Thanks in advance!

Sean.

SeanFrank

Just a quick update from the above.

A couple of days ago, we released a new homepage. The last one just wasn’t working at all! So we decided to unclutter a little!
www.thankfrank.com

This one is working better, and we have a good few questions coming in. Now we don't have enough people to give advice!

We still have a good bit of content to add to the homepage but it will all be below the line. I think we should probably keep the landing view as clean as possible. Any thoughts?

Also:

If you have anyone you think might be good at giving advice, there is going to be another €1000 given out at the end of this month. Last month the majority went to one person, and this time I’d hope share it out to more than a handful of users!

Thanks in advance!

Sean.

Atomico

I signed up yesterday Sean. Cool concept I have to say!

Cianos

Hi Sean,
Best of luck with the site, looks like a good idea.

A few thoughts;

You could think about including a few examples or case studies on the Home Page - maybe a "Latest Comments" stream or something similar, just to give the visitor some idea of what to expect. The first thing I thought of was "looks like a nice idea but I'd need more to actually bother to start clicking"

If rewarding advice givers is a core element of the site, you should push this on the Home Page too. Maybe a

"Top 5 experts last month
John earned €89 with 180 thanked posts
Sean earned €71 with 133 thanked posts"

This should both strongly push the associated incentives but also give them an idea of what they need to do to earn.

Also noticed that you haven't given your Facebook page a proper URL? If you go to www.facebook.com/username you can change it there.

SeanFrank

Hi folks,

Can I please ask for your feedback on the following page: (which I can no longer post as a new user ... )

http /www .thankfrank.com/referralpages/view/4ldqpef

NOTE: the article itself is just a placeholder - ignore it if you wish - but I'd like to get your impression of the sharing & thanks system, the bar on the top.

Thanks in advance!

Sean.

tricky D

The green scroll status bar is a distraction from the task at hand - reading the article. Remove it, it's a gimmick that just annoys and doesn't add anything.

SeanFrank

Hi Tricky D,

I totally agree! But the green bar is within an iframe displaying irishtechnews.net - the ThankFrank content is only the header above.

I know it's not as clear from that page - maybe it was a bad example to use. Sorry!

Have a look at this one for comparison:
http /www .thankfrank.com/referralpages/view/4ldqpeg

Make sense?

Cianos

SeanFrank wrote: »

Hi folks,

Can I please ask for your feedback on the following page: (which I can no longer post as a new user ... )

http /www .thankfrank.com/referralpages/view/4ldqpef

NOTE: the article itself is just a placeholder - ignore it if you wish - but I'd like to get your impression of the sharing & thanks system, the bar on the top.

Thanks in advance!

Sean.

Looks really interesting. Can you give an example of how someone would use the bar? Would they link a shopper to a page via their referral link in the hopes that they'd get a Thanks?

SeanFrank

Cianos wrote: »

Looks really interesting. Can you give an example of how someone would use the bar? Would they link a shopper to a page via their referral link in the hopes that they'd get a Thanks?

Hey Cianos,

Sure! Let's take the laptop forum on boards for an example. If I know my laptops and I wanted to recommend a laptop to someone in a help request thread I might post this in my reply:
http://www .thankfrank.com/referralpages/view/4ldqpeo

(I'd really appreciate it if you could repost this link for others since my account is limited!)


Use case:
1. I see a help request thread on something I know
2. I decide which product I think suits that person best
3. I visit that product in an online retailer
4. I hit the "Frank This!" bookmark (think tinyURL)
5. I enter my comments
6. I post the link

Let's assume:
7. I get 3 thanks from people viewing the thread

Then :
8. My thanks are recorded in my monthly tally
9. At the end of the month those thanks will be converted into shopping credit but I don't know how much until the end of the month.


The whole point is to encourage people to help others and then reward them for it in an impartial way. Make sense?