Affiliate Summit Mentor Program – Deadline is CLOSE!
For those of you who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, at the last Affiliate Summit in Boston a great new tradition was started. The Affiliate Summit Mentor Program. This program, headed by the gracious Teresa Caldwell for Affiliate Summit East and now headed by awesome Jen Goode for Affiliate Summit West, is a way for first time conference attendees to learn the ropes.
I remember my first summit, not that long ago, in Miami in July 07. SO overwhelmed with information, especially considering that was my first trade show at ALL and I was relatively new to affiliate marketing and hadn’t been exposed to the industry at large. I’m not the only first time attendee to feel consumed by it all, hence why the mentor program was created. The program matches up volunteer mentors who have experience attending the shows and know generally what to expect and how to get the most out of your attendance, with newbie first timers who’ve asked for a bit of guidance.
At the last summit I agreed to be a mentor, having that be my 3rd show attending, and I felt the experience didn’t go all that well. I exchanged a few emails with my assigned newbie/”mentee” and after they didn’t respond to the last email, that was it – unfortunately I didn’t know if they even ended up attending the show or not.
Hence my reluctance to sign up this time around. I didn’t feel like I was that helpful, and I guess the person was less-than-impressed with who I was the first time, which made me think that perhaps I’m not the best person to be a mentor. But the ever wise Jen Goode convinced me to give it another shot, so I’m happy to say that once again I’m participating in the mentor program for Affiliate Summit West 09 in Las Vegas next month.
I just received the email with my newbie’s information, and I’m off to shot them a welcome – if you’re a veteran attendee of the Affiliate Summit, and haven’t signed up yet, DO IT! Go to http://blog.affiliatesummit.com/affiliate-summit-mentor-program and sign up today – the deadline is December 28th!
Also, watch this video that former mentee turned mentor Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media did if you need more convincing!
Affsum Session: Copywriting Clinic
Yes, that’s right. It’s been MONTHS since Affiliate Summit East 2008, and we’re less than a month away from Affiliate Summit West 2009. And I’m just now getting around to giving you the skinny and my notes on this incredibly helpful session. Why now? Now there’s video:
The panel consisted of:
- Lisa Riolo, Founder, Hammock Ventures (Moderator)
- Adam Gilad, CEO, Gilad Creative Media, Inc.
- Scott Polk, CEO, Purplestream Marketing
- Anik Singal, CEO, Affiliate Classroom Inc.
As I mentioned, this was a fantastic panel. In fact, I might consider this hands down the best panel I’ve attended at any trade show. It was FULL of useful information. Watch the video for yourself (ignore my head in the front row :D) or check out my notes!
Bullet Point Review!
- Copy writing is salesmanship in writing (Anik).
- Headlines are huige – your copy can suck if your headline kicks butt, but the other way around doesn’t work (Anik).
- Simple video dresses up your content (Anik).
- Making an ugly order button actually helps because it stands out – believe it or not, conversions go through the roof (Anik).
- Think of headlines as plot points (Adam).
- Act I is the Familiar World. Turn pain into calling. If you can articulate their pain better than they can – it will bring trust & bring them to the calling (Adam).
- Act 2 is the Road of Trials. Meet new allies and villains – in copy writing allies can be testimonials, villains are negative – brings you to the death of the protagonist (Adam).
- Act 3 is the Resolution. Give them to sword to slay the dragon – the order information and a promise of how great it will be when they get there (Adam).
- Write for your reader (Scott).
- Optimize against the competition (Scott).
- 350-450 words is a good start (Scott).
- Use main keywords you’re optimizing for in the 1st sentence, twice in the first 200 words (Scott).
- Editorial content is what powers the web (Scott).
- People have difficulty getting started, but the key is tight copy.
- Use of active verbs – creates motion & engages users.
- Try to evoke senses when selling -> smell/scent works well. They’re related to positive emotions.
- Listen & read things around you – it will inspire you to get started.
- Process of writing and process of editing are two very different processes.
- Take 12 hours in between the creative of writing and the technical of editing as a buffer period.
- Build momentum – make them want to turn the page (Adam).
- Take note of evocative words.
- There are good books that are just lists of words.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- Adjectives are your enemy.
- Reading out loud helps develop the rhythm of language.
- How does attention span factor in?
- -> The story should be compelling enough and people are drawn in.
- -> The sub-headlines should tell the story.
- Never assume people have read the page before or after on a website – have good site navigation too.
- Tone – more professional robot or real person writing?
- -> That personal aspect is what draws people in.
- -> Talk to them in your voice.
- -> Consistency of voice is important.
- Humorous content is vital.
- What can brands with stuffier businesses do to liven up without adding personality?
- -> If you can’t do it within the funnel, ask affiliates to try stuff or do stuff elsewhere on the site.
- Any tools to check what you’ve written to improve it’s SEO?
- -> SEO Toolkit – keyword density analyzer
- -> Make title tag for search engines
- Have depth – don’t be too dumbed down.
- Supporting information is good, but don’t clutter the conversion funnel.
- It’s difficult to speak in absolutes and don’t disrupt the process.
- Multi-variant testing with copy gives you a realistic picture of what’s going on.
- Pop your sentences into Google to see how many others use those same phrases.
- Copyscape can analyze your content to see how unique it is.
I easily took the most notes of the conference at this session. Great tips all around, and I espeically loved hearing Adam relate copy writing to screen writing – my major in college was Theatre Arts, emphasizing on dramatic writing, so that was a nice way to bring together my visions of what I was going to do for a career and the reality of what I am doing for a career. Very awesome and I hope to see similar clinics like this offered at future shows!
Read MoreAffiliate Summit West 2009 is Fast Approaching!
Can you believe that there are only 45 days left until Affiliate Summit West 2009?! Depending on your outlook of time, this might seem like it’s a long time from now, but just like a project’s deadline, Affiliate Summit sneaks up on you!
At this point all of the meet market tables are sold out, as are most of the sponsorships. According to co-founder Shawn Collins, there are still about a dozen booths available for any interested merchants or vendors. Conference passes grant attendees access to the expo hall, all break-out sessions, and the courtesy meals and drinks the conference graciously provides. These passes usually sell out about a week or two before the conference, so if you’re even considering going I highly suggest you register for Affiliate Summit West 2009 now.
When looking for a place to stay, I really do recommend staying at the conference hotel in all cases, and especially in this case I can personally vouch for the comfort and convenience of the Rio. Being an “all-suites” hotel is awesome as the rooms are totally comfortable and large, and downstairs if gambling isn’t your thing there’s a bowling ally and plenty of shops. Their Carnival World buffet is also excellent.
Or, you can read the reviews I did on Yelp after my stay there last year:
Sao Paulo Cafe
Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino
Carnival World Buffet
McFadden’s
McCarran International Airport
Social Media Marketing Summit: Karl Long
As an excellent last minute addition, Karl Long wasn’t in the schedule for the summit and delayed the release of attendees to the reception cocktail party, but it was well worth it! I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation, titled “Employing Your Customers for Fun and Profit”, and had the pleasure of having an interesting conversation with him and some other attendees during the reception party. So, without further ado, the presenter was:
- Karl Long, Product Manager OVI/Games, Nokia
This session was basically about utilizing social media to get your customers involved to the point where they’re even working for you!
Bullet Point Review!
- Social media is an engine in which to create value.
- Modern marketing theory comes from the last 50 years.
- Companies tend to focus on one motivation – to purchase.
- Tool: trendwatching.com
- Telling people to “pass it on” is a bit insulting to your customer’s intelligence.
- Employ your customers – have them help you create value in a very web 2.0 way.
- Make it easy to join and easy to get better.
- Reward the right behaviors.
- Recognize top performers.
- Allow exchanges.
- Provide rich feedback.
- Experiment. Fail. Learn.
- Now’s the time to fail – fail fast so you can succeed sooner.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- If a company can’t survive, do they warrant survival? Some people see this as a threat – people woill eventually accept it and adopt it, like the internet in general.
- Are there companies that shouldn’t participate in social media? If you can’t handle transparency, don’t do it.
- How do you convince your company to spend money to fail? You have to foster the culture to experiment, it’s cheap to try anything with social media.
- Any strategy that relies on containment will fail.
- No walled garden will succeed (Blue Shirt Nation-type internal networks aside)
All in all it was a relevant and humorous presentation by Karl that really deserved better billing! Check out his blogs at ExperienceCurve.com and Tcritic.com.
Read MoreSocial Media Marketing Summit: Segmentation/Diversity
This session took place October 1st and promised to teach those in attendance how marketers can reach very specific groups of users via behavioral targeting, niche social sites, campaigns at specific demographics, hyper targeting and more. The panel consisted of:
- Chris Saad, Founder and CEO, DataPortability.org
- Will Moss, CEO, ConnectPlatform.com
- Ian Swanson, Founder and CEO, Sometrics
To be honest I didn’t like the unorganized nature the panelists took, but there were some decent take-home notes to be had from the session.
Bullet Point Review!
- Methods to find a niche are Google Search and Twitter Search.
- Don’t just observe, participate.
- Lots of people started with apps and then moved to a main web property.
- Find your audience – use demographics, psychographics, behavioral marketing – find them and partner up.
- Partner with fast growing niche networks or create one if it doesn’t exist yet in the niche you’re interested in.
- Experiment with creative ads with the owners of these networks.
- Advertising is yelling, marketing is having a conversation.
- Learn the social contract and participate accordingly.
- Have a process in place on how to respond and join the conversation.
- Put your money where your mouth is and allocate resources to monitor and respond in social media settings.
- There is a need for a new metric. Keywords used to tell people, not so much anymore.
- Need for interests to be measured (APML).
- How do you target? Try – do sample buys, experiment, do lots of little buys.
- Social networks are still cheap to advertise on because they don’t yet perform like traditional ad buys in terms of CPM.
- See what keywords people associate with your brand (quality, sucks, etc).
- Use social networking for lead generation.
- No one’s talking about your product, they’re talking about your brand – so collaborate and build a product that they’ll want to talk about.
- Use social media to saturate a niche market; brainstorm about communities of interest and participate and show your subject matter expertise.
- Use search engines to find individuals and follow them back to their communities.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- You might want to go local before going national – not all products and services scale effectively to a national audience.
- Widgets are the bumper sticker of the web.
- Develop content and specific tags (zip codes, city names, etc.) in targeting.
- Get analytics to see where your traffic is coming from.
- Keyword ads like AdWords, Facebook, MySpace are great for segmentation.
- Hyper targeting is growing in adoption.
- Open Social – create widgets that will work across multiple social networks.
- If you’re going to buy advertising on a social network, you should also participate in that network.
- Be part of that eco system in as many ways as possible.
- Using engagement to see how well ads work can also be used to see what a particular segment is interested in (e.g. how many people mouse over, click, etc.)
- Data portability will break down barriers to entry.
- Using a 3rd party metric contrasts vs. internal and lends credibility and gives you a comparison of you vs. your competitors.
Even the Q&A portion was just an extension of the session, so it was hard to really distinguish what people were asking. It was a decent session but could have been perked up with a bit more empirical data and maybe some real-world experiences.
Read MoreBlogWorldExpo 08: Affiliate Marketing Secrets for Bloggers
I was looking forward to attending this panel despite knowing that I probably knew all there was to know on this subject, because I knew two of the panelists. Boy was I wrong – it just goes to show you that there’s always something new to be learned when attending trade shows! The panel consisted of:
- Shawn Collins, Co-Founder, Affiliate Summit
- Mike Allen, CEO, Shopping-Bargains.com
- Tim Jones, Blogger, TheRealTimJones.com
I was proud of the boys – despite having a crowd of general noobs to affiliate marketing they did an excellent job and really threw out some solid information.
Bullet Point Review!
- Blended ads look nicer and work better.
- PopShops has a WordPress plugin that’s super easy to use.
- Remember to work the ads in creatively.
- Think and plan for the long term.
- Your blog is your brand.
- Be the expert.
- Share your space.
- Affiliate marketing is a great start but doesn’t stop there.
- Be careful – advertising the wrong way can tarnish your image.
- Think like a business and set goals.
- Craft a business plan and follow it.
- Look for other retail opportunities (your own affiliate program?)
- There’s lots of opportunity for creativity.
- Most people don’t know it’s an affiliate link and most don’t care (when using text links).
- .htaccess redirect helps clean links up – fairly simple process.
- 50%+ of subscribers come by email.
- Utilize social media to build readership and establish yourself as an expert.
- People have to get there before they can click.
- MaxBlogPress, OpenX are good free ad serving plugins.
- Ninja Affiliate 1.5 is a paid plugin that automatically ads contextual links to keywords you enter in.
- Peel away ads (page ears) also work well
- Target your ads to your audience.
- Yahoo! Answers works well to help establish yourself within your niche as an expert.
- Don’t venture too far outside your niche. You want to upsell and compliment your blog.
- The first thing you’d do? Tim says sign up with the affiliate networks. Shawn suggested doing a Google Search to get a feel for your competition. Mike advises to make sure your site works and that content is up before applying for the affiliate programs – the merchant has to want you.
- Spend the $10 on a domain & it’ll get over the first threshold when affiliate managers review your application.
I don’t have any notes from the Q&A portion of the panel because a lot of it was specific to those bloggers asking the questions – they wanted to know specifics. Personally I don’t think a Q&A session is really the time for that but I understand the desire for people to take any opportunity they can get to ask a question of an expert!
Read More
