CJU Keynote: So what drives customer engagement, anyway?
2011’s keynote speaker was the very informative Dr. Jeffrey F. Rayport, Ph.D. Jeffrey coined the term “viral marketing” and brings an incredible knowledge of the online commerce space. He advises businesses in rethinking how they interact with their customers. His keynote focused on how the networked world requires new approaches to drive customer engagement, which in turn is changing the face of online and multi-channel commerce.
Last year’s keynote was informative, but dry. This year’s keynote was awesome. Dr. Rayport was informative as all get out while being funny and engaging all at the same time. I’d love to see him speak again, and I definitely ended the keynote feeling jazzed to keep learning more and energized for my meetings!
Bullet Point Review!
- Consumers have changed over the decades
- Consumer 1.0: Demand was greater than supply
- Consumer 2.0: Demand was equal to supply
- Consumer 3.0: Supply is greater than demand
- We’re all in the business of demand generation.
- Engaging and captivating consumers is key.
- Toyota’s Scion is a great cast study of how to do it right.
- Scion never spent money on TV advertising: 60% allocation of their marketing budget to events and 40% to online advertising.
- Made a lot of after market peripherals and accessories for the car.
- It’s changing the way car buying works. Most owners customize their Scions online.
- Integrate social networks, read dynamic comments, follow Twitter streams.
- 2/3 of the 100 million streams of videos happen on exterior sites, not YouTube.com
- StumbleUpon now accounts for over 50% of all the referral traffic from the topographic social media sites. There are 12 million SU users vs. 750 million Facebook users and yet SU just surpassed Facebook.
- Best Buy extends multiple-channel retail experience into many useful OUTGOING points of presence, such as Facebook, online magazines, mobile apps, Twitter-based customer service, and crowd sourced ideas.
- A single social graph can become a vast constellation of thousands of INCOMING points of presence.
- With the proliferation of local deals and offers, mobile couponing is growing rapidly in appeal.
- It’s expected that 16.5% of adult mobile phone users will be using mobile coupons by 2013.
- iPhone and iPad apps enable mobile access to flash sales with “call to action” offers for people on the go.
- To boost mobile sales, companies have provided a “virtual shop window” for the retail experience without the inventory. Ocado in the UK has a store front, you can scan the barcodes on the window with your mobile phone and order items.
- Mobile smart phone apps provide branded city guides to deepen brand engagement and drive sales.
- Hulu’s move beyond online video streaming is fueling growth for it’s business and content owners, too. It went from a website to having multiple platforms to provide premium content.
- The highest productivity retailer in the world as measured by retail sales per square foot is the Apple Store.
- Publishers and advertisers will win consumers not through Customer Relationship Management, but Customer Managed Relationships.
- Forget segments and niches in the traditional sense.
Dr. Rayport’s 5 Main Takeways:
- Target your diehard fans: put them in the driver’s seat
- Social the brand: make rewards matter
- Work the web: let the outside in and the inside out
- Experience is everything: form factors rule
- Integrate the touch points: be savvy and seamless
CJU Course: It’s a TAXing Debate: Don’t Cut Me Off
So many states have implemented affiliate nexus tax laws. What does this mean to you as a publisher? What does this mean to you if you are an advertiser who does not have a store in the state? Come listen to our panel to hear how others are managing the challenge. The panel consisted of:
- Jennifer Lovette, Vice President, Client Development, CJ (Moderator)
- Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director, Performance Marketing Association
This was a very informative discussion, even for someone like me who tries to keep abreast of what’s going on in an effort to help however I can. I should note that since CJ (since this info is about a month stale) that the Governor of CA has signed the deal with Amazon and many merchants have welcomed CA affiliates back into their programs.
Personally, I only accepted a few that I really liked before and declined the pushed offers from the others as I already did my link removal on my sites, but I’m the lowest level of affiliate in terms of how much I personally make, so it’s the bigger affiliates who can really make a difference in leveraging their income figures in this fight!
Bullet Point Review!
- Do we want to fight this on a state by state level or on a national level.
- Publishers aren’t mad at the advertisers, they’re mad at the legislature.
- On average affiliates lose 25-45% of their revenue, the state loses income tax revenue, and never collect the sales tax.
- There are a lot of names, which are confusing, but we’ve chosen affiliate nexus law as a general catchall phrase.
- Quill Corp v. North Dakota: advertising does not constitute physical presence or nexus. It became a constitutional issue.
- Passed: California, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Illinois, Connecticut, Arkansas.
- Big box retailers banded together this year to support this tax to try to get Amazon to pay tax. Rumor is they spent 11 million.
- The PMA surveyed California affiliates after the budget bill was signed here:
- 32% are moving out of state or plan to.
- 20% decided to shut down their affiliate marketing efforts altogether
- 35% of lost over half their income when the law passed.
- Amazon & CA have come to an agreement that will eliminate this tax for 1 year – we need to look at it more long term.
- They want to get a federal sales tax solution in place by July 2012. If they’re not successful, the law gets reinstated September 15, 2012.
- Streamline Sales Tax Project. 24 states have agreed to this. Main street fairness act needs to pass to allow SSTP. The chance of this happening isn’t very high.
- Amazon just cut a deal with the state that benefits their own business, so now all these other advertisers who haven’t been involved in the fight or the opposition will be forced to collect tax. Now is the time to fight for yourself & promote the federal solution.
- Board of directors of the PMA are new and still determining whether to fight nationally or state level.
- What can you do?
- Think before you act.
- Make Your Case
- Simplify actions
- Measure twice, cut once. Advertisers need to make sure you’re doing what’s best for your business before making a knee jerk decision to cut affiliates. Talk to a lawyer if you have to.
- There are ways to work together, identify your threshold of risk.
- Taxes will always exist, think long term when making decisions that are going to affect your business.
- No matter what side you’re on, WE can make a difference
- Things change quickly so don’t give up!
If you were an attendee of CJU and registered for their (awesome!) CJUniverse network, you can download a PDF of Jennifer’s slides here.
Read MoreAffiliate 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).
Affiliate Summit East 2011: Wil Reynolds Keynote #ASE11
Wil Reynolds knocked it out of the park once again speaking at Affiliate Summit East 2011. Not just the most requested session, but as a keynote speaker! It was the only keynote I attended this time around, and well worth it!
Bullet Point Review!
- We fall in love with the things that are easy.
- This is the 12th affiliate summit Wil’s speaking at.
- Sick of shortcut tactics that win.
- Find .edu clubs on topics that you could sponsor.
- Intitle search.
- Google is matching synonyms so sometimes you don’t have to do as much work as you think
- Believe in the power of 1. What are you doing to turn 10 to 10,000?
- What value do you add?
- Google will eventually figure it out.
- Rel=author (once you get to a certain level, Google starts putting your picture by articles).
- 30-40% of searches are related to brands.
- If you’re being un-followed en masse, you screwed up. Invest your time & find out why.
- Underutilized assets: badges, giveaways, social.
- Invest in assets.
- Find .edus or k.12 that list scholarships – make one!
- Strong connections are always valuable.
- Little tidbit: Press 4 in Google Voice to record. Pay Speech Pad $1 per minute to transcribe and use that as your content!
Wil was goodly enough to utilize the power of the SEER Interactive Blog and his twitter following and posted all the links he mentioned in his keynote here: Affiliate Summit Keynote Links.
Read MoreCJU Course: I Wish I Had Known… #CJU2011
We’ve all had experience with 20/20 hindsight. Here’s your chance to stop looking back and start looking forward. Learn from veteran advertisers, agencies, and publishers about the most important things they wish they had known when starting out in the affiliate marketing industry. Join us to find out how to avoid marketing pitfalls in this informative session for all levels of attendees. The panel consisted of:
- Isabelle Meyer Stapf, Sr. Director, Advertiser Development West at Commission Junction (Moderator)
- Carolyn Kmet of Groupon, Phil Ayers of Hotels.com, Brook Schaaf of Schaaf-PartnerCentric, Jennifer Nissenberg of Upromise, and Mike Allen of Shopping-Bargains.com
This was a great session to kick off the conference. I always appreciate when industry veterans share what they’ve learned along their affiliate marketing careers for newbies. I think I can say I’m not a newbie anymore having been in affiliate marketing since late 2006 myself, but I still learn something new when I go to sessions like this.
Bullet Point Review!
- Do what you want, not what people expect you to do.
- You can’t always recreate success at one company with another company in the same niche.
- Mike had enough sense to get outside help, but not enough sense to evaluate that help. Don’t trust a salesperson off the bat, but do your homework and due diligence to read the fine print & make sure it’s best for you.
- Affiliate programs take time, it’s not a get rich quick.
- You can’t expect to build a business overnight, affiliate marketing isn’t a one trick pony.
- Have realistic expectations.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, diversify your portfolio & traffic strategies.
- New customer acquisition isn’t the end all be all, affiliates bring more than new customers. Don’t ignore the value of repeat consumers.
- Mike would have had a better plan and been more focused on the plan. It ended up working because of persistence. Don’t ever give up.
- Really get to know who you’re working with and their business models and what’s important to them in what they want out of the relationship.
- Play the newbie card & don’t be afraid to ask for help.
- This industry is so vibrant & fun, and people are so personable and approachable and willing to share knowledge. Never be intimidated by someone just because what their brand is, they’re just a person.
- Spend more time on the things that are actually going to drive the business. Invest the time in things that are really going to grow things, not day to day stuff, delegate.
- Everyone is an expert at or passionate about some thing. Find that thing and put that energy behind the business and focus on that.
- Work on developing your relationships with your partners. It’s not just important from a business perspective but from a personal perspective & having a personal relationship goes a long way, and you’re more top of mind.
- Respect the value of your own time. Distraction is easy, so be focused but do indulge those distractions and see a pattern in your own life and really decide what you put your time into.
- If you have the inclination, you can figure something out. Anyone can find a solution. Don’t bang your head against a wall; try a different path to get there. Try a different road.
- Don’t get attracted to all the shiny marketing objects. They’re usually not a long term sustainable strategy.
- Come up with a different twist to something, don’t just try to go do what someone else is doing successfully.
ThinkTank Remix 2011: ‘El’evated Marketing Tools
This is the one other set of notes I still have from May’s ThinkTank Remix conference. Next week I’ll share the way more recent CJU notes with you 🙂
- IAB has new standard sizes and de-listed a bunch of common sizes. Most managers agree that it’s more important to listen to your affiliates as to what they need first.
- A lot of blog templates automatically included spaces for 125×125 & 468×60 so you should include those or you might lose a lot of bloggers.
- Must be very responsive to your affiliates and what their needs are.
- If you’re going to have an extensive text link library, be sure to include all the various landing pages.
- Being able to customize where links land … Deep linking is critical.
- Optimize the first still image in the video…call to action, not commercial so it doesn’t scream ad, most users drop off video at 45 seconds so get your offer across in 10, main point in 30, make sure your background soundtrack isn’t too loud.
- ShareASale uses Flash & sometimes the browser needs to upgrade to the latest version of Flash, so including a small text link suggesting the viewers upgrade flash on their browser is a good practice.
- As an affiliate, I’m not going to use the video if you have a 800 # that’s not tracked or mention your website a bunch of times (thus encouraging viewers to type it in instead of clicking on the site’s affiliate links. Mentioning the product is much better.
- Giving your affiliates content standards & suggested content makes it easy for them. The merchants did the research to know what works.
- Experience with the product helps, so if you can get the product into their hands, that’s beneficial.
- The content you need is already on the merchant’s site. That’s the content that converts their customers. Don’t copy it blatantly but replicate it and improve upon it.
- Give affiliates a heads up on media exposure of your product.
- People spend most of their time on the web on published content (53%). 23% social media, 7% email.
- Create your own surveys & share the results.
- 66% of content is shared via email. 28% social networking, 4 IM, 1 message boards, 1 personal blog.
- 99% of people sharing through social media are sharing via multiple platforms.
- Start collecting emails (double opt in) start small but start today. Email is very neglected in affiliate marketing. Instant traffic.
- 20% of sales coming from the links people share what they bought.
- Include the social sharing!
- People are still comfortable with the brand advertising/ sharing on their news feeds on Facebook.
- If people know who’s behind the business, they see those notes as sharing not as advertising.
- Engage people because Facebook pays attention & burgs things that don’t get interaction.
- Just asking a question & tell them what to do (Like this) is better than nothing.
