Archives for January 2010

1938 Business – The PR and Marketing Solution

January 26, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Loren Feldman of 1938 Media has announced a new agency, 1938 Business, that offers a wide array of services, including strategy, video production, digital marketing, public relations, and affiliate marketing services.

1938-business

Loren, serving as the CEO / Creative Director, has assembled a dynamic team with Dina Riccobono as Director of Business Development; Ezra Butler heading up Social Media Strategy, and Michelle Feldman handling Community Relations.

I’m excited about this announcement and to see these services provided by a bunch of doers, instead of the usual talkers that tout these sorts of offerings.

More details at http://www.1938business.com/.

Video: 1938 Business

Activating Affiliates

January 24, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Q: Why aren’t more of my affiliates active?

Shawn Collins A: It’s all about the connection between the affiliate and affiliate manager (see Activating Affiliates video for a visual explanation).

I am assuming you are like too many affiliate managers who think they can run an affiliate program on autopilot, where affiliates are recruited or join your affiliate program organically.

And then those affiliates are expected to be excited and anxious to promote your affiliate program.

While you may get lucky and have some affiliates that will do that, the majority will never become magically active in your affiliate program.

So anyway, it’s important for you to make a connection with those affiliates. All of them. If that seems impossible, you’ve probably got too many affiliates in your affiliate program, or the program is understaffed.

It’s essential to focus on activating your affiliates after they join the program.

Provide them with reasons and guidance to promote your company. Plus, some affiliates will be new to affiliate marketing, and will need some degree of hand holding.

You should also give them educational resources and tools to more efficiently promote your affiliate program. Give them reasons to pick you over the competition.

But wait… there’s more. After you’ve activated your affiliates, you need to continually focus on retaining them.

The cycle of working with your affiliates never ends. This isn’t a media buy. It’s a relationship.

So change your paradigm to this sequence: recruit > activate > retain affiliates.

Principles of Ethical Influence by Robert Cialdini

January 23, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Dr. Robert Cialdini delivered a keynote address to the audience at Affiliate Summit West 2010 in the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Monday, January 18, 2010.

At the conclusion of the speech, Dr. Cialdini gave away a pocket guide to his Principles of Ethical Influence.

Also, if you haven’t read them already, be sure to pick up Cialdini’s “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” (my favorite business book) and his latest best-seller, “YES! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.”

Online and Offline Affiliates

January 22, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Q: I’m promoting a Real Estate Investing Event and personally know the owners of company running the event. They have a website where people will make payment for the Event and I just wanted to ask you what’s the best way to track the traffic and conversions I generate? I’ll be using both online and offline advertising but nothing like PPC – it’ll be radio advertising, integration marketing (having people promote to their lists), and classified postings etc. Please let me know as soon as you can I’d be very grateful for your help.

Shawn Collins A: I’d suggest using a combination of approaches. With the radio advertising and classifieds, try pay per call tracking, assuming this is supported by the tracking for the event.

And with the other forms of marketing, use sub-IDs in your affiliate links, so you can identify the sources of each click and lead. You’ll just append a unique identifier for each person who has a list (the format varies depending on the type of tracking you are using).

Pinnacle Awards Winners at Affiliate Summit West 2010

January 20, 2010 by Shawn Collins

The fourth annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards were presented on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at Affiliate Summit West 2010, which took place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

The Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are affiliate marketing’s most prestigious, competitive honor for the leaders in the space. Award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.

Below are the finalists for the Pinnacle Awards at Affiliate Summit West 2010 and the winners are in bold:

Affiliate of the Year

Nicholas Koscianski
Eric Nagel
Kim Rowley

Affiliate Manager of the Year

Jamie Birch
Stephanie Harris
Matt McWilliams

Exceptional Merchant

Amazon.com
BowlingShirt.com
eBay Partner Network

Affiliate Marketing Advocate

Angel Djambazov
Karen Garcia
Rebecca Madigan

Best Blogger

Murray Newlands
Geno Prussakov
Jeremy Schoemaker

Affiliate Marketing Legend

Scott Jangro
Heather Paulson
Brad Waller

Video: Affiliate Summit West 2009 Pinnacle Awards

Affiliate Summit West 2010 Day 3 Recap

January 20, 2010 by Shawn Collins

The final day of Affiliate Summit West 2010 began with the fourth annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards.

The awards were followed by a keynote address from Brian Clark, Co-Founder of DIY Themes.

Then there were a series of breakout sessions, as well as the final day of the exhibit hall.

The conference wound up with the GeekCast.fm Live session, where podcasters from GeekCast.fm took questions and discussed industry issues.

Thank you to all of the folks in the industry that came out for Affiliate Summit West 2010 – it was great to see you all.

Affiliate Summit West 2010 ended up with a total of 4,125 attendees, making it the biggest of all 14 Affiliate Summits to date.

Registrations are now open for Affiliate Summit East 2010, taking place August 15-17 in New York City.

Affiliate Summit West 2010 Day 2 Recap

January 19, 2010 by Shawn Collins

The second day of Affiliate Summit West 2010 started with a keynote address by Dr. Robert Cialdini.

The talk from Dr. Cialdini took place in front of a packed house at the Penn & Teller Theater in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

After the keynote, crowds filed into the exhibit hall, which was bursting at the seams throughout the day.

Sessions were well attended in the morning and afternoon, too.

And even more crowds kept the hallways busy with informal networking.

The second day of Affiliate Summit West 2010 also marked the first time we held two networking events, Affiliate Showcase, where affiliates hosted tables and merchants could sit down and do business with them, and then the Vertical Exchange, where tables were broken up by vertical and affiliates and merchants in the same niche could find one another.

The conference agenda for the day ended with Ask the Experts tables, where six folks presided over roundtables on various discussions.

There were many networking events in the evening, but the one I attended was the Affiliate Summit Trivia Tweetup.

There were dozens of us broken up into four teams to battle it out on Trivial Pursuit on the Wii.

All four teams got each of the six wedges, but there could be only one champion.

Thanks to everybody that came out for some networking and brain bending. These trivia titans all got a gold pass to Affiliate Summit East 2010 for participating.

Off to day three!

Affiliate Summit West 2010 Day 1 Recap

January 18, 2010 by Shawn Collins

The first day of Affiliate Summit West 2010 started with a series of educational sessions and the opening of the Meet Market, which was divided into two rooms for the first time to accommodate growth.

We had a big screen set up in the front of the Meet Market for the football games. While I am not going to tell anybody my favorite affiliate network, I was happy to proclaim my support for the Jets as they moved on to the AFC Championship.

There were lots of networking events all around Las Vegas for attendees of Affiliate Summit. I headed to the ShareASale Under the Stars Party and had a blast.

There were all sorts of games, food, open bar, a moon bounce, gaming tables, karaoke and more. Great time!

The last thing of the night was the Strike Out Breast Cancer Midnight Bowling Fundraiser, where over 100 folks turned out at midnight to bowl and raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Sadly, I didn’t manage to break 100.

Off to a little bit of sleep, and then day 2 starting up with the keynote address from Dr. Robert Cialdini.

Finding Super Affiliates

January 17, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Q: I have been a long time listener, first time caller, LOL. I am the affiliate manager for a publishing company of self-help programs. One of our programs sells well in the parenting niche and my question is about attracting super affiliates. What is the best way to find them and approach them with our CPA offers? Most of my affiliates now are just bloggers. I have a few highly authoritative websites but I want to land bigger fish.

A: For starters, jump into Google and search for keywords that are relevant to your business to see which sites are ranking well for them. This will provide you with an initial target list of sites.

Also, search for your competitors and see who is ranking for their name, as their affiliates could be in the mix there for reviews or other content about the companies.

As far as reaching these affiliates, in the past I would first try with the contact pages on their sites. If they don’t have one, search for their domain at http://www.domaintools.com/ to get the WHOIS information (data used to register the domain).

Video: Finding Super Affiliates

The Day Before Affiliate Summit West 2010

January 17, 2010 by Shawn Collins

Yesterday was the last semi-quiet day in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2010. We were readying everything behind the scenes and had an early checkin at the registration desk.

We managed to get our new book, Internet Marketing from the Real Experts, published in time to give a copy to each attendee.

This book is a collection of articles on affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, social media and more from 88 writers in the first seven issues of FeedFront Magazine.

In the evening, we had Purpose Inc’s Affiliate Summit Charity Poker Tournament, where proceeds went to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Approximately $15,000 was raised for the charity – we’ll have a final number soon.

And while we are all about Affiliate Summit West 2010 for the next few days, registration for booths and Platinum passes to Affiliate Summit East 2010 opened today.

We’ll be in New York City on August 15-17, 2010, and there are special, discounted rates on booths and passes during Affiliate Summit West 2010 only.

Archives for January 2010

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