Charity Bowl-a-Thon March 31st
Affiliate Marketers DO give back!
MarketLeverage is sponsoring a Charity Bowl-a-Thon on March 31st at 7pm in Sanford, FL. The proceeds of the event are going to be donated to the Niemann-Pick Children’s Fund in honor of Parker and Brisan Stults, the children of a MarketLeverage publisher. It’s being held at Airport Lanes in Sanford and costs $25 per bowler to participate. There are also a wide variety of sponsorship opportunities available if, like me, you don’t live in the area. Sponsorship opportunities are:
- Players: Donate 10 cents/pin for each pin knocked down by your chosen player!
- Teams: Donate 10 cents/pin for each pin knocked down by your chosen team!
- Pins: Donate 10 cents/pin for each pin knocked down for the night!
- Team Shirts: Support your favorite team and a great cause for $100- they’ll wear your logo on
their shirt! Max. of 10 logos per shirt + 1/10 shirt cost. - Team Shirts (Solo): Support your favorite team and they’ll wear only your brand/product or logo on
their shirt for $1000 + shirt cost. Max. 10 sponsors (1 per team). - Lanes: Pick your favorite team and they’ll play in your lane. Provide us with a banner to
display on your team’s lane for $250. Max. 10 sponsors (1 per lane). - Registration Area: Sponsor the area where our players sign in. Display your signage, and give away
swag for $500. Max. 2 sponsors. - Power Alley: Throughout the event, each team will have the chance to play in our power alley
twice! The power alley sponsor will donate $2/pin for each pin knocked down in
the power alley for the night. The Power Alley Sponsor will be a sole sponsor,
and can decorate with their banners around the lane. - Restaurant: The bowlers are going to be hungry coming from a long day at work to support
Parker and Brisan. If you have a restaurant or would like to pick up dinner from
the in-alley restaurant, they’d appreciate it. Table tents with your logo and
signage will be set up in the food area. - Door Prizes: Provide our teams and supporters with some great swag and a lasting
impression when they display your logo long after the event!
Niemann-Pick Disease is classified as a terminal illness, with approximately 1,200 cases worldwide. Niemann-Pick disease refers to a group of diseases passed down through families (inherited) in which fatty substances called lipids collect in the cells of the spleen, liver, and brain. Hospital costs for Parker and Brisan exceed $100,000 per month, which is why MarketLeverage is sponsoring this Bowl-a-Thon to help raise funds to help their cause.
For information on how to sponsor or participate, contact Dina at (407) 268-7667 or Dina@MarketLeverage.com. You can also make a donation directly at http://www.bripardun.com/. Do your part and give back!
Read MoreAffiliate Summit East 2009 Resolutions
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So if I didn’t learn from my experience at this last affiliate summit, I’d be crazy. I’ve had some time to think long and hard about my experience in Las Vegas and I’m resolved to learn from these experiences. I wouldn’t say they’re mistakes, per se, but definitely opportunities for learning. Here’s some things I’ve figured out for myself that might just help you too (see, this isn’t my being selfish!)
- Make sure to secure internet for the trip! I had SO many problems this time around, I’m going to make sure the hotel I’m staying at has either wired or wifi connections, and bring my own Ethernet cable that I know for SURE works just in case. Being without internet for 5 days is killer!
- Don’t get sick! I’m going to finally try out Airborne and hopefully avoid catching germs from people. Maybe I’ll even go semi-germaphobe and carry around some PocketBac to help reduce the chance of germs jumping on board after shaking so many hands. I have some awesome peppermint sceneted stuff from Bath & Body Works in a tiny and manageable 1 fl. oz. size. I can’t afford to come back sick from a conference AGAIN!
- Lighten my load. My big backpack was too big – I didn’t need to cart around that much space. Luckily the Buy.at backpack I won is just right to carry my laptop & the essentials (business cards, beverage, wallet, antibacterial hand gel, that kind of thing).
- Get more information from my mentee! I don’t want to be a sourpuss and not do the mentor program again because I have even MORE stuff to tell a AS newbie, but this time I’ll be sure to find out when they’re coming to the summit, if they’ll be there all three days, and try to find out what they look like so I can spot them in a crowd to say hi!
- Attend “Ask the Experts”! I jokingly said that I’d never attend this unless I was one of the experts, but since I don’t see that happening I need to not be lazy that second day and get up and attend. Somehow sleep always seems to take precedent that second morning…
- EAT! I managed to go all day Sunday having eaten just a few snacks and no real meals until a 2am bowl of cereal (thank you Las Vegas for being a 24/7 town). This was not good. Since the provided Continental Breakfast and Luncheons don’t kick in until Monday & Tuesday, I need to remember that Sunday isn’t just the Meet Market anymore – it’s a full fledged day of sessions, so get up and get energy!
- Get a smaller camera. Or bring the smaller one I gave my husband, because I don’t take nearly enough photos and end up relying on the power of Flickr and Facebook tags to find photos of me at the show. My camera that I take most my pics with is kinda bulky and not really friendly “on the fly”. Next time I’ll have my Flip Mino (thank you MarketLeverage!) and will be sure to get video of some of the general events (not the sessions, that’s a no-no) and random people I encounter. I’ll be video happy!
- Pimp myself out. It’s nice to look professional, yes, but being branded like a cow gets noticed. I had my own business cards of course, but no cards for any other departments, no nifty swag to hand people, no visible affiliation with them other than the name on my badge, not even a postcard with the equivalent of a 30 second elevator pitch. Next time, you’ll know who I rep when you see me coming!
Affsum Session: Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?
Date: Monday, January 12th, 2009. Session 5d, 2:00pm.
Session Description: How are videos being used by affiliates and merchants? A detailed look into how and where they are performing best with suggested hints and tips to drive better click through and conversions. The panel consisted of:
- Marty M. Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Moderator)
- Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
- Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing, Buy.com
- Jonathan Stefansky, EVP Sales and Marketing, Qoof
This wasn’t the panel I had planned on going to, but I’m glad I went and checked it out. There was some interesting factoids dropped and I enjoyed the Twitter going in the background with the anonymous admirer of Melissa asking if she was in the videos.
Bullet Point Review!
- There’s tremendous potential.
- Consider your site when trying to figure out what will work.
- Besides person to person, video is the second highest sales driver.
- ML looked at 2008 as the year of infrastructure.
- Big marketers have taken note of online video.
- In 2007, 59% of internet users watched video online. In 2008 that skyrocketed to 77%.
- With banner blindness there’s a need for a new type of creative.
- Banners are the lowest performing; video overcomes even the success of text links.
- Give the affiliate a better way to convert.
- Low cost for affiliates – no streaming costs, no hosting costs, widgets are interactive.
- Attention spans are around 3 minutes.
- Content must be engaging and capture the user within 15 seconds.
- Networks and merchants wouldn’t invest in video if it didn’t work.
- Affiliates are very eager to receive the best content for the least work.
- People who are in video now are in it for it’s potential, not the actual of today.
- 77 million unique visitors on YouTube (my notes might be wrong on that, and I didn’t write down if that was per day or per month, but I think it was per day.)
- MLTV raises brand awareness, bloggers talk about it.
- Companies are very sensitive to UCG (User Generated Content).
- DO: think about the shelf life of a video. Videos about how to do something instead of a hot trend or product will be relevant longer.
- DON’T: set your videos to auto play with sound. It’s incredibly intrusive, especially if someone’s at work, which is where most people view videos due to faster broadband connections.
- DON’T: go over 3 minutes.
- DO: grab attention within the first 15 seconds.
Points brought up during the Q&A
Where are things with .tv domains? They’re increasing in popularity, but they still don’t get near the traffic a .com domain does.- How do you track this? Qoof embeds links with the AID and PID for tracking. Others use view time, page views, how long people stay on the page, etc. to track success.
Once again, Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media blogged about this session for the official Affiliate Summit Blog. Check out his recap for anything I may have missed while tweeting ;): Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?
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