ASE09 Meet Market Observations
Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.
During Affiliate Summit I visited both the Meet Market and the exposition hall to see the booths. I was impressed at how good some of the booths and tables were, and also at how bad some were. If I could recognize they were bad as a first time attendee, they must have stood out to veterans. Here are some general comments based upon my experiences.
- Have a banner behind the table, giving your name and hopefully an idea of what you are (network, merchant, etc.)
- Have a give away: this is something that will make people remember you later. It is even better if it ties in with your company name, slogan, or something of that nature. It never hurts to be unique.
- Have people at the booth (I would have assumed that was obvious).
- Be friendly (again, obvious).
- Don’t have several people working the crowd and handing out stuff (I got asked if I wanted Perfect English at least 10 times) and no one at the table.
- If you have a giveaway or are doing a contest make sure to enter people that come up in it. If there is a scanner make sure that all of the people working the booth know how to use it.
- Make sure that you are not crowding into the booth next to you.
- If your giveaway is beer make sure there is plenty of room for people (very good attention getter in my opinion, but a zoo if not handled right).
I would have thought most of these would be completely obvious, but I saw multiple examples of each. Companies are paying for these tables, so the focus should be optimizing the experience to bring in business, not turn it away. I was really impressed with adCanadian and how every little detail of their table tied into company branding – their banner, the sticker, the giveaway, their jersey – and they were really nice guys to boot (eh!). They created a positive, lasting impression, which is what you should be doing when representing the company at any conference or industry event. Keep these tips in mind when planning your own Meet Market table or booth for future conferences!
Read MoreASE09: Tuesday Peter Shankman Keynote (Dominic’s Take)
Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.
I see that Trisha has already given a really good outline of the topics covered by Peter, so I will just briefly mention a few things that I got out of it.
This was one of the most entertaining, insightful, and inspirational speeches given at the Summit. I really enjoyed how Peter was able to engage the entire audience by using current examples mixed in with examples from his own experience. One of his key points was that you can not make something go viral; you can make something good, and if people like it, it will go viral. This keynote (along with all that I learned at Affiliate Summit) has given me the inspiration to continue on with a couple of projects I had been thinking of for a while.
That’s the mark of a good keynote.
Read MoreASE09: Monday Chris Brogan Keynote
Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.
The keynote address was pretty good. In effect it gave an overview of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s new book, Trust Agents. It was based on research that shows that there are more than one type of currency. One of the most important one of these is social capitol, which is based on trust. Once you gain the trust of people they will look for your opinions, and trust them, thereby making it much easier to sell things to them. People will trust your recommendations of products and services. Knowing the “insider vocabulary” can be a major advantage, and most important: “be known as a person” Julien Smith.
The keynote was mostly a conversation between Julien and Chris. I am looking forward to completing the rest of the book and will be posting a review when I do so.
Read MoreASE09 Session: Hot Topics in Marketing Compliance and Enforcement
Session Description: Hear from regulators and industry insiders on critical legal issues facing affiliate marketers today, including advertising practices, affiliate liability, and enforcement priorities. The panel consisted of:
- Jeffrey Greenbaum, Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC (Twitter @jeffgreenbaum) (Moderator)
- Leonard Gordon, Director, Northeast Region, Federal Trade Commission
- David Graff, General Counsel and Sr. Vice-President, Corporate Development, Epic Advertising
- Peter Marinello, Director, Electronic Retailing Self Regulation Program, Council of Better Business Bureaus
With all the talk about disclosure going on lately, I thought this session would be a great chance to learn more about how the FTC expects to enforce the over-zealous disclosure they’re now talking about requiring. I was disappointed that there was no mention of it until the end of the session and that no one asked about it before I had to leave. The session went long and I had to run to get to GeekCast Live. It was definitely a wealth of information; I just wish Jeffrey hadn’t talked and gone through his slides so fast!
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- Affiliates need to be careful about the types of endorsements they use.
- Affiliates can get into trouble using celebrity pictures and trademarks.
- Epic Advertising does their research to make sure testimonials used are legitimate and documented.
- There’s no silver bullet.
- Noncompliance is more lack of attention to detail than maliciousness.
- Even if a celebrity endorsement is true, you need their explicit consent to use it.
- What is Advertising?
- Traditional Media
- Company Sites
- Public Relations
- Spokespeople
- Branded Content
- Viral Videos
- Product Placement
- Review Sites
- Facebook Pages
- Blogs
- Tweets
- What Rules Apply?
- Federal
- State
- Local
- Deception
- Tell the truth and don’t mislead.
- Keep your promises.
- You’re responsible for express and implied claims.
- You must have prior substantiation to back up your claims.
- FTCv. CVS Pharmacy Case
- Accused of misrepresenting how they were protecting customer privacy.
- Found that discarded customer information was thrown into dumpsters behind the stores that were accessible by anyone.
- Held accountable.
- Disclosures
- Is qualifying information necessary to prevent a claim from being misleading?
- Disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous”.
- Mouse type probably won’t do the truck.
- Is the disclosure in close proximity to the claim?
- Disclosures are judged by a performance standard.
- No pre-checked boxes.
- Disclosures must be separate from terms and conditions.
- Endorsements
- Must be real.
- Honest, unbiased opinions.
- Accurately reflect performance.
- You can’t use an endorser to make a claim that you couldn’t make yourself.
- Subject to FTCreview.
- “Results Not Typical”
- Unfairness is about harm, not about deception.
- ERSP is a self-regulating body.
- No real punitive damages; can only recommend changes to be made.
- Clinically proven claims have to be reliable and competent evidence.
- Clinical Testing Data
- Independently conducted (double blind study, placebo controlled).
- Adequate sample size.
- Conducted over a reasonable period of time.
- Statistically significant results (95% confidence level).
- Claims = data.
- Affiliate has the responsibility to confirm that the claims are true.
- There are some obviously questionable categories of offers that should always be questions before run, like nutritional supplements, weight loss, etc.
- You as an affiliate can be held individually liable for damaged in a lawsuit.
- FTC has two responsibilities – consumer protection and anti-trust.
- The Obama administration has put pressure on the FTC to look to protect consumers heavily affected by the economic downturn.
- Extra scrutiny of loans, mortgage, jobs, debt consolidation advertising.
- Be careful when marketing to children as the rules are becoming more strict.
- Is it okay to collect data when a consumer consents?
- Consumers don’t understand terms and conditions – the FTC thinks it’s borderline absurd to think that they do.
- Disclaimers should be written with the same panache as the ads themselves.
- Terms need to be crystal clear.
- Consumers don’t understand how online ads work.
- FTC doing more research of “green” ads and hope to publish more guidelines soon regarding claim standards.
- FTC is expecting to be partnering with the FDA more to regulate health and safety advertising.
I talked to another attendee of the session, Rebecca Madigan from the PMA, who said the session went on for about another 15 minutes after I just had to leave to get to my next speaking engagement on time. I hope she posts more about the session somewhere! Jeffrey, Peter, and David all had their own presentations, but the only one on SlideShare is Peter’s. Here’s the presentation:
ASE09 Session: Profitable Performance Marketing: More Money for You
Session Description: Presenting actionable items for 7 main topics, including social media, negotiating, points of sale opportunities, content that pulls, partnerships, prioritization, and the expense of inefficiency. The panel consisted of:
- Lisa Riolo, Consultant, LisaRiolo.com (Twitter @lisariolo) (Moderator)
- Jason Oates, VP Media Services, Datran Media
- Durk Price, President, eAccountable OPM LLC
- Chuck Hamrick, Affiliate Manager, AffiliateCrew.com
This session was a perfect mix of business 101 and affiliate marketing. I think a lot of affiliates get into this thinking they’re going to get rich quick and don’t really consider that they’re really creating a business. So this little business intro and how it applies to performance marketing was a nice session.
Bullet Point Review!
- Top line thinkers focus on revenue, whereas bottom line thinkers focus on profit.
- You might think you can, but you can’t do it all. Learn to delegate.
- Develop tools and methodologies to do more with less.
- Think long term and potentially sacrifice short term gains.
- You should be spending less than 50% of your time putting out fires.
- Prioritization
- 1st Priority -> High growth & unknown costs
- 2nd Priority -> Highly profitable growth
- 3rd Priority -> Profitable with limited growth
- 4th Priority -> Undetermined growth and costs
- Coupons are one of the best performing verticals.
- Affiliate marketing is not a brand meter.
- 6-12 month curve; don’t expect overnight results or a 90 day ROI.
- Everything is negotiable; evaluate other programs.
- It doesn’t hurt to ask but remember it’s a business relationship.
- Make sure to negotiate with 2-3 partners at once – and that they know you’re exploring other options.
- Be data driven and use data to your advantage.
- Find someone that’s going to vouch for the vendor you’re negotiating with and ask for referrals.
- Be more available and transparent.
- Three uses of email
- Acquisition
- Retention
- Monetization
- Many people using feedback loops and opening dialog in order to improve.
- Find ESP that will work on a performance basis – they will help you weed out non-responders.
- Synchronize your email expertise.
- Use employees in the smartest way possible for maximum operational efficiency.
- You need metrics before you negotiate either internally or externally.
- Points of Sale
- Up-selling
- Add-on Products and Services
- Continuity Programs
- 2nd Sale and Renewals
- Providing valuable, free content is a good way to capture emails to market to.
- To decrease unsubscribers, offer other subscriber options with different frequencies or options.
- Positions 3-5 on the SERPs are the secret sauce of SEO.
- Calling a customer to confirm a sale will encourage return business.
- Know key metrics – average order value, conversion rates, lifetime order value (that one is tricky).
- You can’t just be an OPM, you have to be a consultant.
- Doing more targeting is effective.
- A monthly affiliate newsletter isn’t that effective.
- Just keep the parasites out.
Overall I got a lot out of this, and I hope others did too. I wished the panelists had had a bit more fun with the topic to liven things up, but I understand there’s only so much you can spice up such a dry topic. Here’s the presentation, though this is clearly an older version since Karen White didn’t end up making it and Durk & Chuck stepped in:
Read MoreASE09: Tuesday Peter Shankman Keynote
I’m a lover of both Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman, but I have to say that I took more from this keynote than Chris’. I was surprised that Peter wasn’t TOO hyperactive, but was still incredibly entertaining and engaging.
- Peter Shankman, Founder & CEO, The Geek Factory (Twitter @skydiver)
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- HARO has grown to just under 100,000 subscribers in 14 months.
- It’s helped 24,000 journalists.
- $0 to just over $1,000,000 revenue in 14 months.
- Peter worked at AOL News launching their digital news.
- You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.
- Social media is trust.
- Social media is the ability to screw up to a bigger audience in a faster amount of time.
- We’re a society that loves to be finders.
- Doing something to be nice gets you remembered, not just recalled.
- We covet what we know.
- 4 Ideals of Social Media
- Transparency -> Immediate Trust -> Viral
- Relevant
- Brevity
- Top of Mind Presence
- Social media is 2 way communication – you must be prepared to talk and listen and respond.
- Giving people what they want, when they want it.
- Have you ever asked your audience how they like to get their information?
- The average attention span is 2.7 seconds, or 140 characters. (Coincidence, Twitter?)
- There are three categories email falls into
- Ones you can answer immediately and delete.
- Ones you have to wait until you get back to the office to reply to.
- Ones that aren’t getting to the point and require too much attention to figure out what it is they want or need from you.
- Learn how to write; take a class if you need to.
- You have 1 paragraph to get someone’s attention and keep them interested.
- Paramount Studios CEO Barry Diller was known for getting to the office 30 minutes early and opening his Rolodex and calling 4 or 5 people randomly just to say hi -> this created good will and helped build relationships that could later be leveraged.
- Peter checks Facebook every day and sends people a short note when it’s their birthday – this is his version of the Barry Diller method.
I know that now I have to find a Poken since they just look so cool and really start to think more about the altruism of business, something I don’t think most people think about. As an added bonus, Peter showed us a video that was just GOOD and so it went viral. Here it is – it’s a bit longer than a video I’d normally watch, but it’s worth it. Funny yet touching. Enjoy!
Here’s the recording of Peter’s Keynote as well for your viewing pleasure:
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