RFID Blocking Sleeves Review
Anyone who is even a little tech savvy knows that RFID stands for Radio-Frequency Identification. That’s how some hotel key cards work and that handy tap & pay feature on your debit or credit card works. So of course, that’s how savvy identity thieves are thieving. Fortunately, here’s my review of these handy RFID blocking sleeves.
Read MoreAnother Amazing Affiliate Summit East 2014
Last week I attended another amazing Affiliate Summit East 2014 – big thanks up front to Shawn Collins & Missy Ward for their tireless organization of a terrific conference. I was very excited to return to New York again after missing Affiliate Summit East 2013 in Philadelphia. This was my 15th Affiliate Summit, and as usual I got more out of it than I ever thought I would.
Read MoreVouch for my Expertise: Utilizing Affiliate Manager Relationships
Photo Courtesy of Affiliate Summit
For the first time ever, I submitted a solo speaker proposal for Affiliate Summit. I’ve spoken on 5 panels in the past, all of which were terrific experiences. For Affiliate Summit East 2014, coming up in August back in New York City, I decided that I’d dip my toe into the solo speaking with an Ask the Experts round table discussion proposal.
You can vote for it here: Utilizing Affiliate Manager Relationships
Whenever affiliates ask me for advice, I always recommend creating a good relationship with their affiliate manager. I think there is endless possibility to grow your business when you take advantage of someone who has expertise that you don’t have. This goes for any person, but it’s the most accessible for affiliates to reach out to an affiliate manager. There’s nothing a good affiliate manager wants more than to make a connection with an affiliate, so why more affiliates don’t take advantage of good managers who work with the merchants day in and day out is beyond me.
Why Should You Vote For Me?
I have been an affiliate manager since late 2006, managing a variety of programs in different niches. I’ve been both an in-house manager working for the merchant and an outsourced program manager working for a third party agency. I have been a speaker at marketing conferences in the past, as well as contributing many guest articles for industry-leading publications like FeedFront Magazine, Marketing Pilgrim, and others. I know what I’m talking about, I promise 🙂
Take Action
Please do me the favor and vote for my proposal. You will have to register for the site in order to vote, but it’s a very quick registration process so please don’t let that deter you! Voting closes on March 14th, so be sure to vote before then. Speakers at Affiliate Summit are based on this voting process, so your vote for my proposal definitely makes a difference. If you haven’t already, you can also register for Affiliate Summit East 2014, taking place August 10-12 at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square.
I’m very happy to report that, as of last night, my submission is among the most popular, so thank you to those that voted already. I’m looking forward to making a return to being a speaker at summit after a few Summits off. If you’ve already voted, please do me a favor and share the link with your audience for more votes! Thank you!
Read MoreAffiliate Summit Reviews Coming Soon – Promise!
Everyone who’s ever handled multiple clients at once knows that the end of the month is a nutty time. Reports! Preparations for next month! ACK!
So in that spirit, I WILL post my notes and reviews from Affiliate Summit East AND Affiliate Summit Central soon. Sure, that was at the beginning of this month… but lots of client stuff takes priority! In the meantime, take a listen to the inaugural episode of Affiliate Marketing Fanatics on QAQN – our rebooted podcast with Daniel M. Clark as my co-host!
In that spirit, stay tuned… some awesome resources from the likes of Chris Pearson, Wil Reynolds, and more are coming soon!
Read MoreReflecting on an Origin Story: Affiliate Summit East 2007
Yes, you read that right. After a whirlwind trip to Oregon this week for a wedding, I’m making off into the night on a red-eye flight to New York for Affiliate Summit East 2012.
This marks a milestone for me. Affiliate Summit East 2007 in Miami was my first Summit, so this will be (counting last May’s Affiliate Summit Central) my 10th Summit and the 5 year anniversary of this blog and my participation in Affiliate Marketing. I was just a baby in affiliate marketing back then.
Wow… how things have changed! Back then I didn’t know what I was doing at ALL, somehow teaching my co-worker everything I knew about affiliate marketing on our red-eye flight from Oakland to Miami. And by everything I knew – that means everything I’d learned since about November of 2006, so not much. How naive we were – we totally blew off the Meet Market thinking it would be lame (maybe back then it was, I wouldn’t have known) and didn’t participate in hardly ANY networking. We were more interested in South Beach every night to eat dinner on the strip.
The trip was not all fun, and I did take it seriously and so glad I did. I still use the same college-ruled composition book for notes. The sessions I went to at that Summit might make you chuckle:
I remember some of the speakers, but not all… Jeremy Palmer, Scott Jangro, Rosalind Gardner, Stephanie Agresta, most notable in my mind at the time was Jay Berkowitz and his 10 golden rules session. I remember offering up the merchant I worked for at the time for analysis in the Conversion Rate Clinic and going back to my manager at our booth saying, “We have a LOT to fix when we get back! Josh Sloan made a magical impression on me with his magic tricks as we exhibited beside 1&1,. We went to ONE networking event and only because we were told we could win some sweet prizes. It was there that I met Karen & Joel Garcia, who I count as friends now. I remember returning from that show and deciding that I should start a blog. I started it on Blogger (I know, I’m ashamed too…) and later got with it and ported it over to self-hosted WordPress. Want to read my first post? It’s a doozy… but it was 5 years ago on 8/2 (also my wedding anniversary & Kevin Smith’s birthday).
So in a few days I’m off to Summit again, and I’m so glad I went to summit back in ’07. It set me on this career path when I just had a job, so I’ll be forever grateful to the speakers in the sessions I attended and the people I met back then that ignited this spark. I’m proud to say that 5 years later, I’m still loving it!
Want to sit down with me and chat about any of the affiliate programs I manage? Check out my schedule at Tungle.me/trishalyn and let’s set something up!
Another laugh… my random photos from Miami in 07!
Affiliate Summit East 2011: How to Pitch Your Company #ASE11
Session Description: Candid advice for exhibitors representing their company at the Affiliate Summit conference. On the panel were:
- Tricia Meyer, Owner, Sunshine Rewards (Moderator)
- Robert Adler, President, The Link Builders
- Ad Hustler, Chief Hustler, Ad Hustler, LLC
- Kim Rowley, Owner, Key Internet Marketing, Inc.
I have to admit that this session came off unlike what I thought I was in for. What I expected was tips to hone your pitch when talking to people. What I got was a newcomers’ guide to attending conferences. While there’s definitely a lot of value in that, especially for, well, newcomers, there wasn’t a ton of value in it for me. However, I did pick up some “best practices” that I’ll definitely be sharing with folks that are new to trade shows and nervous about representing their companies well!
Bullet Point Review!
- Don’t look straight at a person’s name tag for their name, just ask for it. Don’t devalue a person based on what their badge says their role is – people wear many hats in this industry.
- Business is supposed to be personal to a point.
- Don’t look over people’s shoulders to see who else there is to talk to (it’s rude!).
- Don’t judge people based on what they’re wearing. Never think the way they dress equates to how much money they can make.
- CPA networks rely on a gender bias going towards men. Ladies can drive leads too.
- Don’t assume people are in a role they’re not.
- Highest price, best offers…most of your CPA networks claiming these things are full of it. Only one network can have THE highest price or THE best offers, so you’re all just lying. Develop a relationship with the affiliate – the rest is nonsense.
- Have a unique pitch. What is it about your company that’s different from your competitors?
- Name one thing that will make you walk past a booth?
- Booth babes. They don’t know anything about your company and it looks pathetic. You’re not going to attract real performers that way. As Ad Hustler said, your hot chick isn’t going to entice them because they can probably afford a hotter one!
- When people working at the booth look disinterested in being there. Potential partners need to see your excitement!
- Aggressive sales mentality. It doesn’t work in affiliate marketing. These panelists said they’d avoid a booth if they saw the staff trapping other attendees.
- Knowledge is the best sales tool. Everyone at Affiliate Summit is a sales person when you think about it. Make us interested.
- Don’t spam. If you add a person to a list after a short conversation with them, it’s a big turn off. A follow up email, however, is good; if you don’t follow up within a week, people will forget about you.
- Be memorable, in a good way.
- Have you had bad booth experiences?
- Don’t snipe people as they walk by your booth with the lead scanner gun.
- Tell someone what you do quickly – be respectful of people’s time and busy schedules during a conference.
- Anecdote: Tricia was trapped in a conversation in a booth for almost 10 minutes and couldn’t get away. The personal eventually admitted that they wanted to practice their pitch on her!
- Good booth experiences?
- If someone is an expert at whatever it is they do, it gives a person confidence that they’re the best person to work with. Be the expert.
- Listen to what the other person is saying about their company. You can brainstorm together.
- Just don’t lie.
- What do you NOT want to hear at Affiliate Summit?
- I can get you higher payouts!
- We have the best offers!
Points brought up during the Q&A
If you’re confident in what you do, you can afford to be a little annoying.- Some of the best opportunities to pitch your company can be the least obvious.
- How do you quickly explain affiliate marketing?
- You’re the guy in the duck outfit outside the pizza place trying to get people to come in and order.
- What you put in is what you get out.
- Is there a tension of working with both affiliates and other vendors?
- Affiliates expect it, as long as you’re not wasting the other vendors time they’ll be open to partnerships.
- What are the best opportunities for networking?
- Meals and cocktail hours. Just start a conversation with someone.
- Let people know that they can refer people to you if they think there’s a good fit.
- Cab lines, heck any line where people are probably from the conference.
- Don’t pitch people you don’t know – wait until they ask what you do. Wait until someone asks for your card.
- Hang around and talk to speakers after sessions.
- Give free stuff to bloggers.
- How do you pitch when you have multiple hats on?
- Start with everything.
- Come up with something memorable (e.g. I’m a hustler).
