Day 2 of Affiliate Summit – Suck All!
Almost a month ago I was granted a press pass for the Affiliate Summit. I was excited to get into the bloghaus and blog about the day as it happened. I was thrilled to walk around and network with people. I really wanted to get some great coverage of the Keynote (coverage hell, I wanted to just listen too), but… none of that happened.
Why? Because Las Vegas hates me. And there are far too many germs here. And somehow during the day on Sunday…I developed a cold. A bad one. Damn this dry air & germs!
So I didn’t get up in time to make it downstairs to have breakfast AND make it to Jason Calacanis’ keynote like I wanted to. I managed to grab some breakfast and share some stats about our affiliate program with my colleague here with me from PsPrint to help out and then to man the booth. I sent her out to get the table top sign made that wasn’t made in time for the show. I station the booth for awhile and talk to some good people before it’s time for me to head off to the morning session I planned on going to.
Oh, incidentally, for anyone who wants some GREAT coverage of the keynote, check out J. Botter’s Blog.
I digress.
I attended this morning’s “Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing” panel. Good stuff, although I was a bit disappointed in moderator Melissa Salas reading off a prepared script pretty much verbatim. But I really enjoyed the insight from video professionals, and it’s comforting to know that content really is king, and that production value isn’t as important. Woo Hoo! I was wondering how you’d go about monetizing a video, but Revver.com seems to answer that. I’ll definitely be checking that out when I get back to the joy that is desktop computer (this older laptop isn’t that great). I really enjoyed Gary Vaynerchuk’s sense of humor & ballsy honesty. I’m excited with my new Aiptek A-HD 720P 5MP CMOS High Definition Camcorder
Some great points from the panel session:
- Most people come on the internet for two P’s – pleasure or problems. If you solve someone’s problem, it’s a good video.
- KNOW what you’re talking about. As long as you know your subject, you can produce great content.
- In the next 12 months, you should test video on your site. By 18 months from now, if you don’t have video on your website you may be in trouble.
- Video really works to sell as it gives your brand more credibility & builds brand equity.
- Depth of information is quality will translate to a successful video.
- Work on integrating video into your current web experience for the most effective video experience.
- The average video watched online is about 2 minutes long.
- An enormous amount of video watching is done at work, so keep that in mind. Melissa added that a Click to Listen button is much appreciated by these people.
- In terms of size & format, go for the best quality you can when shooting, even if it has to be compressed when uploading online. If you can afford it, shoot in HD. It’s where everything is headed. (Side note – this makes me really glad that I bought my new HD mini cam! It’s the one in the picture.)
Day 3 should be good – hoping for some informative sessions and to feel better.
Read MoreAffiliate Summit Day 1 – Grab My Nuts!
Okay maybe it’s been closer to half a day of festivities for me, but my feet are killing me already, I’m annoyed with the venue, and missing some boxes that were supposed to be shipped. But with my track record, it just wouldn’t be a true trade show if I had everything prepared like clockwork 🙂
After having some breakfast I went to set the room service tray just outside my door for pick up and the door shut behind me and I was without my key. So I had to call down to get someone to come up and open the door, but I managed to be helped by housekeeping first and got let back in AND got fresh towels. Bonus!
So I hauled down to the registration area and got my badge and went in with my colleague to set up our modest booth. We don’t have a big dynamic display like most companies do; just a table cloth with our logo, a banner, the highlighters we had made to give away, and the printed materials about our affiliate program. I brought the table cloth and sales sheets with me, we found the highlighters there shipped from the vendor, and the other things we’d shipped out here – our banner, a fishbowl for a giveaway, and a sign holder announcing our giveaway – were nowhere to be found. As well, there was no table there from the convention services company.
After procuring a table and still not locating the box or getting our manager on the phone to get more details about the shipment, we set up what we had and headed to the meet market, where we proceeded to be asked to grab Andy Rodriguez’s nuts & naughty nurses asked us to enter to win a hummer.
Yes, you read that right.
Of course it would have been genius if they two tables had been beside each other, but they weren’t. Andy Rodriguez Consulting was handing out packets of cashews and the company that hired the naughty nurses luring people in for a chance to win an H2 didn’t really interest me so I don’t remember the company name. They were some kind of information source like a magazine and I remember the man at the table was also at yesterday’s Affiliate Classroom Live event.
It was good… got some cool freebies (heee!) and did some light networking. My feet were soon killing me and I came back up to the room, only to find that my room key had somehow gotten demagnetized. Locked out AGAIN! So I opted to wait for security to come let me in rather than walking my tired feet all the way down to the lobby to get the card redone. I took care of it when I went out again for dinner.
So more will come tomorrow!
Read MoreQuote of the Day
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
-Plato
Affiliate Summit West 2008 kicks off today (officially!). Stopping in around 2 to set up our booth and then heading over to the Meet Market with plenty of spiffy die-cut business cards in hand! Too bad they all have my former title on them :p
Read MoreQuote of the Day
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
-Lily Tomlin
Even though it’s Saturday, I’m stuck in a 10 hour Affiliate Classroom LIVE affiliate manager training. I can haz break?
Read MoreGetting ready for Affiliate Summit West 08
Twitter is alive with activity. The summit has set up a group twitter that tracks whenever someone uses the keyword asw08 in their twits. This is very cool, especially considering I didn’t know Twitter had this capability!
Everyone seems to be in a rush to get things done. Jim Kukral from ScratchBack.com is MCing the keynote on Monday. He’s twittered several times tonight about the video he’s working on for the presentation. At ASE07 in Miami the keynote was Ze Frank, a hilarious individual, so I’m hoping for no less at ASW08.
Stephanie Agresta from Stephanie Agresta Consulting is also a speaker and author of the Internet Geek Girl blog. She’s twittered off and on today about her flight information and getting ready for the trip from out east. Sam Harrelson from Affiliate Fortune Cookies has been twittering as well and he’s even had to change his flight because of inclement Northeastern weather.
Of course myself, I’m twittering here and there about getting ready. I’m not lucky enough to have a nice new company supplied laptop, so I’m on my own personal laptop this weekend. I do have a press pass, so I be working on keeping the interweb updated from the blogger’s room through this blog and Twitter. I’m committed despite my chunky clunky Dell Latitude laptop :p.
As a final note while I’m getting my laptop set up tonight, I encourage everyone associated with affiliate marketing in any way to check out this month’s issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine. Besides there being a keen write up of the PsPrint Affiliate Program, there’s a lot of great affiliate manager tips. I’ll be attending the whopping 10 hour Affiliate Classroom LIVE affiliate manager training on Saturday in Las Vegas before the summit. I’m eager to get in there and take notes… is it too much to hope for actual desks? :p I know that it’s at the Rio and from all the conference space I’ve seen at hotels in the last year, I’m sure there won’t be surfaces to write on readily available, so I’ll be taking my clipboard with me.
Hope to see you there! I’m considering bringing my camcorder with me to the exhibit hall, so if you’ve used PsPrint in the past, come on by for an impromptu video plug!
Read MoreMeet me in Vegas!
Thanks to the great team at Affiliate Summit, you can now schedule appointments with exhibitors in a nifty online interface.
So if you’re going to the summit, schedule an appointment to talk to me & my PsPrint colleague! Go now to http://sponsors.affiliatesummit.com to schedule an appointment! We’ve already got a couple of meetings scheduled outside of this super sweet interface, so be sure to get us while we’re hot!
Remember the 20% off printing discount with PsPrint for attendees and exhibitors… you only get more details if you register to attend! And the word today is that the event is SOLD OUT! So get on that waiting list!
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