CJU Course: Kerri Pollard – It’s All About Growth
Of course, at every CJU the general manager of the company has to give an encouraging “state of the company” type speech. This year it was all about growth.
- Kerri Pollard, General Manage, Commission Junction (@kerripollard)
I really enjoyed the statistics Kerri shared, despite her saying she wasn’t a numbers person. Neither am I, but these were very “feel good” numbers for current CJ publishers and advertisers.
Bullet Point Review!
- Unless you were a coupon publisher, growth was hard in 2009.
- $1.9 billion spent on affiliate marketing in 2009 – it’s estimated to be $4 billion in 2014.
- Online advertising has tripled.
- Affiliate marketing is growing faster than other advertising types.
- 28% of consumers’ time is spent online, but online advertising is typically only 13% of a company’s marketing budget.
- E-commerce sales are still only 3.8% of total retail sales.
- 62% of adults shopping online seek out a coupon before purchasing.
- Old Spice was the most viral campaign in 2010.
- Twitter is seeing 90 million tweets per day.
- 63% of online retailers that use a 3rd party advertising tracking solution, use CJ.
- Bed, Bath, & Beyond is the newest big-box retailer to come to CJ.
- CJ has seen a 40% increase in advertisers over the last 12 months.
- Publishers need to generate $10k/month in commissions for 3 straight months to qualify for CJ Performer status.
- Monthly income doubled on average after publishers become a CJP.
- There’s a new “Get Links” area, in beta right now.
- Advertisers supporting direct linking are clearer.
- There’s additional filtering options.
- Everyone at CJU now has access to the new “Get Links” area.
- CJ has seen a 24% increase in publisher relationships over the last 12 months.
- Affiliate marketing is now retailer’s first stop instead of their last stop.
- CJ feeds product helps advertisers fix data feeds and also works with 200+ comparison shopping engines.
- CJx beta takes care of finding advertisers, getting approved, finding products, and managing links for the publisher (name is temporary).
- CJ media is more short term campaigns (like an internal CPA network).
- 10 largest publishers on CJ experienced 50% year-over-year growth in Q2.
- 20 largest advertisers on CJ experienced 26% year-over-year growth in Q2.
Social Email Marketing: From Fans and Followers to Customers and Advocates #SMMSF
This presentation took place at the Social Email Marketing event, put on by Influence People with lead sponsor Constant Contact. The conference took place on Friday, September 17, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, CA. Jacob explored changes in customer demands and expectations and looked at how organizations can work with the new “social customer” via Social CRM.
Jacob’s hatred of American Airlines made the presentation pretty hilarious. I was unfamiliar with the concept of Social CRM, so this was really enlightening. The speaker was:
- Jacob Morgan, Co-Founder, Chess Media Group (@jacobm)
Bullet Point Review!
- Email is just another marketing channel.
- 43% of consumers say companies should use social media to solve customers problems.
- Only 7% of organizations understand CRM value of social media.
- #1 thing people care about when purchasing products are personal experiences.
- Traditional CRM involves marketing, sales, and service & support all leading to the customer.
- Social CRM rotates those three things around the advocacy and experience of the customer.
- Building a powerful advocate is important no matter what channel.
- Don’t bribe your customers, fix the problem.
- Download a free white paper on SCRM at the Chess Media Group website
Here’s Jacob’s’ slide presentation:
CJU 2010: Daniel Pink Keynote
Well I returned from CJU on Friday, and I have notes! Unfortunately, my alarm clock failed me and I missed the vast majority of Daniel Pink’s keynote. I saw part, and I took some notes for you, and I’m grossly disappointed that I missed it.
Bullet Point Review!
- DIY performance review works best.
- People do better if they feel like what they do matters.
- Autonomy – Mastery – Purpose
- Sometimes we obsess over how people do stuff when they don’t focus on why.
- When you pair the profit motive & the purpose motive, great things happen.
- Have a purpose bigger than your product.
Social Email Marketing: Growing an Email Newsletter using Social Media #SMMSF
This presentation took place at the Social Email Marketing event, put on by Influence People with lead sponsor Constant Contact. The conference took place on Friday, September 17, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, CA. StartupDigest has grown from 22 subscribers in November 2009 to 67,000+ subscribers today. Chris discussed how social media was used to grow the subscriber base providing actionable strategies to integrate social media into sign up process, pairing blog posts with social media, and using different content types.
Chris was very energetic, and I appreciated his casual presentation. It was a loose case study of what how he grew his own business, so you know the methods work! The speaker was:
- Chris McCann, Co-Founder, StartupDigest (@mccannatron)
Bullet Point Review!
- Make it really easy and clear that you want people to sign up for a newsletter.
- We love newsletters because:
- Brand recognition.
- Only need to get the subscriber once.
- Trusted source (quickly).
- Push vs. Pull.
- Highly targeted niche audience.
- Use social proof on landing pages.
- Introduce share into sign up process.
- Simplify your landing pages.
Here’s Chris’ slide presentation:
Social Email Marketing: Email as the Hub of your Social Media Interactions #SMMSF
This presentation took place at the Social Email Marketing event, put on by Influence People with lead sponsor Constant Contact. The conference took place on Friday, September 17, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, CA. In this session, Mark shared insights from small business owners and provided real world examples of how social media marketing delivered the best results when combined with email marketing.
I loved that real examples were used of small companies that no one on the national scene has heard of that used social media locally for their business. It was some thought-provoking stuff! These small businesses made email and social media work together to maximize their results. The speaker was:
- Mark Schmulen, Director of Social Media, Constant Contact (@mschmulen)
Bullet Point Review!
- The typical small business has less than 20 employees.
- Instead of asking “Should I be using Facebook?”, small businesses are now asking, “How do we get business results from this?”.
- Traditional marketing focuses on the acquisition. The emphasis is put on finding, then converting, then keeping.
- Interactive marketing focuses on the customer service. The emphasis is on keeping, then converting, then finding.
- There’s 5 categories of people when it relates to your business:
- Disinterested
- Suspects
- Prospects
- Customers
- Raving Fans
- Don’t waste your time on the disinterested and focus on the rest.
- 14% of people trust ads, 78% trust recommendations.
- 51% of people made a purchase based on a recommendation.
- Turn your email subscribers into Facebook fans.
- All the channels matter – it’s about the customers and their choice of how they want to interact. Be wherever they are.
- You need to collect people’s emails because that’s longer lasting than some social media sites will be.
- Putting a share feature in emails clearly increases sharing, but it also decreases people reporting your email as spam. This helps your reputation with the ESPs in the future.
Here’s Mark’s slide presentation:
Social Email Marketing: Email for the Generations #SMMSF
This presentation took place at the Social Email Marketing event, put on by Influence People with lead sponsor Constant Contact. The conference took place on Friday, September 17, 2010 at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, CA. In this session, we learned how to use social tactics to trigger responses from the Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials effectively.
I loved this presentation, not only because it was packed with useful marketing information, but also because I learned a bit about myself. I had no idea that I was Generation Y and not Generation X. I enjoyed hearing the characteristics of people in these generations and thinking about people I know who follow the characteristics to a T! The speaker was:
- Jennifer Neeley Lindsay, Host of The A-List on Blog Talk Radio (@jennifered)
Bullet Point Review!
- Characteristics of Millennials (born between 1977 and 1994):
- Real Time communication is key.
- Visually oriented.
- Need immediate gratification.
- Friends=family (they make decisions in groups).
- Share information they consider valuable easily.
- Most likely brand advocates.
- Empathetic.
- Calls to Action for Millennials:
- Prefer to share via text or Twitter.
- Impulse buyers.
- Will share deals as well as valuable content.
- Internet or mobile coupons are ideal.
- If you hit a sweet spot, they’ll create content for you.
- Characteristics of Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976):
- Time considered a precious commodity.
- Actively use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter.
- Shop and price compare online.
- Use email and text interchangeably.
- Self reliant & individualistic.
- Mistrust institutions.
- Calls to Action for Gen X:
- More than 80% text or email deals.
- Reduce their pressures of everyday life.
- Communicate ways to keep kids engaged.
- Deliver quick hit info.
- Help with their work/life balance.
- Characteristics of Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964):
- They’re a squeeze generation, taking care of both their parents and their kids.
- 1/3 are actively online.
- Need to feel catered-to.
- Regular online shoppers and big spenders.
- Like spending recognition (rewards, points, etc.)
- Comfortable with email.
- Twitter is an untapped outlet.
- Calls to Action for Baby Boomers:
- Reach all of them.
- Cash back or savings programs.
- Up-sell areas of interest:
- Prescription medication
- Insurance
- Gifts for grandkids and kids
- Entertainment
- Travel
- Discount wines by the case
- Characteristics of the Greatest Generation (born before 1946):
- Value-oriented – want to discuss areas of interest.
- Spend most of their time online with email and message boards.
- Their Baby Boomer children influence their adoption of technology.
- Actually asking for more social features on their phones
- Calls to Action for the Greatest Generation:
- Emails & messages boards are good for targeted messages about senior discounts.
- Messages need to be in a large enough font size to be seen.
- Message about ways you cater to the age group.
There were some good questions after the presentation about the different email providers, such as AOL, Gmail, etc. She said that the different providers definitely cater to different generations with their levels of difficulty. Older folks tend to like the simplicity of things like AOL, wherase younger folks enjoy more optimization and personalization with Gmail. Link shorteners also matter – older generations are less likely to click a weird looking link (bit.ly, tinyurl, etc) whereas younger generations know what they are and are more likely to click.
Jennifer was kindly enough to put her awesome slideshow online, so check it out here:
Read More
