ASE10 Monday Keynote: Frank Luntz
Monday of Affiliate Summit started off with a keynote by author Frank Luntz, who most notably wrote the book Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear
Considering I focused on creative writing in college (specifically as a playwright, but that’s another story), the idea of using different words to illicit a different response from people fascinates me. So I was very interested to hear some actionable items and learn some psychological wordsmith tactics to use in my writing. Unfortunately, I was distracted during the first few minutes attempting to get the conference wifi to work on my laptop so I could tweet some nice tidbits out to folks (and check my email, I’ll admit). I had to finally give up and accept that the wifi had reached user capacity and I was too late to hop on. So I missed some stuff, and I’m sad to report that the speaker’s contract prohibited filming… bummer. So here’s what I did pick up!
Bullet Point Review!
- Names matter – there’s a right and a wrong way to say things.
- The word “imagine” transcends culture.
- Click on the image above for the 21 Words for the 21st Century.
- Inspire is the closest way to get people to do things.
- Cleaner, safer, healthier = all are better ways to say sustainability.
- Efficient & hassle free are good terms.
- “Security” means there’s something to be afraid of, whereas “peace of mind” means less worrying.
- “Committment” is stronger than “guarantee”. Only 9% of people believe the word “pledge” to be trustworthy.
- The word “value” has increased in importance.
- “Service” is a more human component – you want to humanize your products. “Product” is more emotional.
- The younger the target audience is, the shorter your sentences need to be with less syllables, more examples and metaphors.
- The most powerful form of communication is rhetorical questions.
- The average American loses their job and runs out of savings in just 5 weeks.
- Young target audiences want their products to be customized, personalized, and humanized.
- People complain about security and privacy, but it’s actually their last priority.
- Color is less important than the visual itself on websites.
- If you’re under age 30, you prefer digital interaction over talking to people.
- Men want more money, women want more time.
ASE10 Experience Extravaganza: Tuesday
More Booth Time, Session Fail, & Decompressing
I took the lead on managing the booth most of Tuesday while Forrest ran errands. I did attempt to head into a session, but quickly learned that it wasn’t what I’d initially thought it would be. I guess I must have read the description wrong (or, not at all, though that’s unlike me). Tuesdays, especially in the afternoon, are always slow in the exhibit hall. I had plenty of time to enter Buy.at’s twitter contest, and win a sweet gift card for DebShops.com (which I’ve already used!) and to enter into a booth war with nearby Andy Rodriguez Consulting.
I’d say they started it, but that might not be entirely accurate.
The day before, Andy Sr. loaded me down with a million tins of mints and an entire 12pk case of Oreos to lighten their shipping load. By Tuesday afternoon, they were attempting to be rid of all the beach balls and stress balls they’d brought as well. I went down to chat, and collect the Ear Pollution headphones I’d been promised (thanks again, Andy) and accused Andy Jr. of littering. He said it was branding. Potato, Potahto I guess. Stress balls were thrown at me, which I successfully caught (at least, after that first time of being pegged in the knee with one). I was also very proud of my throwing arm to return one of the balls clear past the three booths between ours and into their area (didn’t hit anyone…but honestly I was just glad I didn’t hit an innocent bystander!).
The afternoon ended after a rather disappointing lunch (I was hungry, so I still devoured it) and an early exhibit hall end time. I had wanted to go to the closing session, but since I was pulling booth duty alone, I didn’t want to leave the booth unattended for too long. The benefit is that the most colorful characters seemed to stop by the booth towards the end of Tuesday. Many New York locals that wandered over after work on Tuesday to see what this “affiliate marketing” is all about, apparently. It was interesting.
Earlier in the day, I’d gotten a text from Jen Goode trying to get a large group together for a final dinner in NYC, and of course for lack of a better decision (because it’s easy, and affordable) we headed around the corner to good old Oldcastle Pub. I think I was there almost every day I was in NYC for one reason or another… Tuesday night was at least the 3rd dinner I’d eaten there! We had a lovely dinner, and gracious Mike Nunez of AffiliateManager.com picked up the check for us – thanks again Mike! We meandered downstairs to keep drinking after they decided to close the upstairs due to lack of staff, and kicked back in a corner discussing how our conference experiences had gone.
At a certain point, a few of us wandered over to Lindy’s to get some dinner and I took care of my New York cheesecake fix (thanks Debbie of Team Loxly!). I realize that we got back to Oldcastle and then left to go back to Bridges Bar in the Hilton to see a few other people over there, so I think I owe someone a couple bucks for the ginger ale I had (if it was you, let me know, and I’ll send you a nifty craft or something in return!). It was a nice chill way to close out the summit and say goodbye to my peeps. Until we meet again in Las Vegas, folks!
Please feel free to view all the photos I took in New York: Affiliate Summit East 2010 on Flickr
Read MoreASE10 Experience Extravaganza: Monday
Expo Hall Booth Duty, The Best Steak Ever, & Trivia Tweet-Up
After going to bed at a relatively decent time considering I was still battling with a 3 hour time difference, I got up in time to get ready, rush up to grab a little breakfast, and make it into the ballroom for Frank Luntz’s keynote. I have his book, Words That Work, though I haven’t yet sat down to read it. I’ll spare you the details here, as I plan on writing another post with the notes I took, so let’s skip ahead to the FMTC booth. We had a sparse set up, but simplicity worked. Despite issues I had working with PromoPeddler.com, the notepads we ordered came out looking great. And the flyers we ordered from PsPrint were awesome as well. I was sweating bullets for weeks because we had the pieces shipped directly to the hotel, sight unseen, so if they were messed up, so were we. Everything at the booth went swimmingly, and after a long day I was headed out with the Schaaf-PartnerCentric crew for dinner.
This is the part where the food lover in me comes out. Of course, I’m a big girl, so I must love food of all shapes and sizes, right? In reality, I’m actually a very finicky eater with an almost ironic love for Food Network. The night before, I’d passed on going out with the team as they were going to a Greek place, and that’s not for me. So a steakhouse sounded much better. Let me tell you, we went to Rothmann’s Steakhouse and I had a fabulous fillet Mignon. It was, hands down, the best steak of my life. That’s not really saying a whole lot considering I’m just 29 and am accustomed to steak places such as Texas Roadhouse and Black Angus.
After said fabulous dinner, the crew went to a party thrown by Google and I opted to go back to the hotel for some Trivia. Unfortunately, someone forgot to send the Trivial Pursuit disk down from their room, so Drew Bennett came to the rescue with some Mario Kart he had brought with him. Not being the biggest Mario Kart fan, I opted to utilize the room for the free conference WiFi and get some work done. For whatever reason the wifi in my hotel room wasn’t working, so I hadn’t been online and checked emails since the previous Thursday! I was able to get some work done, have a nice impromptu meeting, and even play a couple of heats of Mario Kart before the evening was through. And by the end of the evening, Trivial Pursuit was brought down and extended the evening from 12 am to 1 am. I stayed until the bitter end when they kicked me out… utilizing as much free wifi time as I could before getting back to the grindstone of booth duty the next day.
Please feel free to view all the photos I took in New York: Affiliate Summit East 2010 on Flickr
Read MoreASE10 Experience Extravaganza: Saturday Night & Sunday
Where do I begin? For maybe the first time ever, I don’t have a plethora of post-conference posts planned for this blog. This is mostly due to the fact that the only session I attended, aside from both keynotes, was the one I was speaking in. I spent the majority of my time at this summer’s Affiliate Summit East 10 behind a table talking to people about For Me To Coupon. Nor did I use a single drink ticket provided by the staff! Overall I was able to get some great networking jammed into my time in New York, as well as catching up with old friends from all over that congregate at Affiliate Summits like a family reunion. BUT, let me tell you some great things about the parties I attended & working the show based in the expo hall – something I haven’t done in a couple of years since my days at PsPrint.
Before I go into my long recap, some housekeeping. For the sake of keeping my long recount of the weeks events from overwhelming you, I’m going to devote separate posts to each keynote, my disgust at some things that have become common behavior at conferences, the Audience Conference, & something we like to call Affiliate Super Friends. So keep an eye out for those posts in the next few days…
Saturday Night: ABestWeb.com Reception & Buy.at Black & White Affair
Saturday night, after I was done with the Audience Conference and had some dinner & a nice short rest, it was all about the parties. What lovely parties, put on by some lovely folks! First was the ABestWeb.com reception, put on at Cinema the Brasserie. Don’t be fooled, this was no movie theater – it was a very open feeling restaurant with a small lounge area near the bar that we inhabited. I drank a lovely white wine while chatting with some great people. Appetizers were passed around along with great conversation with other posters from the ABW forums. I was able to put some faces to screen names of a few folks I didn’t know in person, and also able to catch up with some old regulars. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no where NEAR an old hat on the ABW forums, but I do like the crowd of posters that tend to show up when events are thrown.
Directly after, we walked over to the Buy.at party being thrown at trendy Inc Lounge. I LOVED the interior and vibe of the party when we first arrived. As a new advertiser on their network, Ghirardelli was sponsoring the shindig, so the trays of chocolate desserts were everywhere! There were comfy couches to hang back on, which was very well received by my tired feet after walking there from the ABW party. At the beginning of the evening as people trickled it, it was nice to sit & chat, have some drinks, and talk… but as more and more people showed up, it got very loud and hot and crowded. To me, it turned from chill lounge to something closer to a night club, which really isn’t my cup of tea. So a group of us left a bit earlier than the scheduled end time of the party & headed back to the deli across from the Hilton for some snacks before bed.
Sunday: Podcasting 101, the Meet Market, Newcomers, & ShareASale’s Under the Stars Party
To keep it short, I think our panel, Podcasting 101, went really well. If you were unable to attend, you can view the slide presentation here. My voice was almost gone from yelling to speak to people at parties, but I made it work. We didn’t have many people when the session began, but more filtered in…probably after they bum rushed the ShareASale meet market table to get their party passes first :). We got some good feedback from people, and I hope this finds a life beyond Affiliate Summit via the presentations and videos.
After the presentation and some questions afterward, I booked it over to the package room to grab the flyers & notepads we’d had shipped to the hotel in my name, then upstairs to the Meet Market to relieve Forrest at the FMTC table and deliver the goodies. BIG thank you to an unknown gentleman from Woot.com who noticed my struggle with the three boxes and kindly carried one up to the Meet Market for me! We sat for the remainder of the meet market talking to people about the service, save for one trip I made down to the sundry shop to grab some beverages and the short opportunity I had to walk around. Because most of my time was spent at the table chatting with folks, I didn’t get a chance to check out all the other tables, but I did walk an aisle or two to hit some that caught my eye (both via their products/services and brightly colored swag).
After carrying our materials down to the FMTC booth, I headed over to the Newcomer Program meet up, headed by the lovely Jen Goode. There I met my super newcomer Jennifer from Affordable Style, who opted to gift me with a fantastic purse from one of their brands HandbagHeaven.com. I am very glad that Jennifer seemed to really get a lot of help from what I clued her in on about the summit & she was able to have a very productive first conference and learn a lot about affiliate marketing in general while there.
Instead of dinner, we went straight to the ShareASale Under the Stars party at the Empire Hotel, with a promise of food. We had some difficulty getting a cab in the rain as someone jumped into our rightfully gotten cab, and then had to stand in the rain outside the hotel waiting for the bouncers to let us inside as the line for the elevator was longer than space inside the lobby would allow. As usual, SAS knows how to throw a spectacular party! Despite the rooftop bar location, the venue had rolling awnings so no one was rained on, drinks flowed freely, and appetizers were passed around. The appetizers only seemed to last for about an hour or so as droves of people started showing up. It got crowded quickly, and a couple hours into the party we’d reached capacity and people were being turned away. Some say this is because the bouncers downstairs stopped checking for the SAS party invites and let just anyone in, but I can’t really confirm this beyond people telling me that no one asked to see the pass they had. It’s a shame that people were turned away, but I guess that just means a bigger venue next time! Or, tighter controls on invitations 🙂
Don’t worry your pretty head… there’s more to come when I recap Monday and Tuesday! Please feel free to view all the photos I took in New York: Affiliate Summit East 2010 on Flickr
Read MoreASW10 Session: How To Get Motivated For Success!
Session Description: Get off your butt and get to work. Motivational tips, tricks & strategies that can put you on the path to online success. The featured speaker was:
- Jim Kukral, President, JimKukral.com
This was a great session, a real kick in the pants to get off your ass and finish those projects you’ve put on hold. I picked up a lot of great tips to put into action here on my site, and I think you will too. Jim is a master motivator, without the cheese (for the most part).
Bullet Point Review!
- Doers get what they want…everyone else gets what they get.
- Be remarkable.
- Have a signature product.
- Are you a loser or a failure?
- The failures are the ones that are successful. Because they keep trying.
- Learn your lessons the hard way.
- Fail hard, fail fast, and try something new.
- Negativity kills. Remove negativity across the board.
- Everything we do online falls under two categories: solve problems or be entertained.
- If you can combine both of those things, you can find a faster path to success.
- It’s about having your pain taken away – find ways to take pain away from people.
- Easy always wins – solving problems is how you make money.
- Think like Google – simple.
- Simple, problem solving, customer oriented.
- Branding is the thick, sticky goo that a company puts on your hand – if it’s good, you’ll lick it off. If it’s bad, you’ll go wash it off.
- You don’t sell what you think you sell.
- e.g. Nike doesn’t sell apparel & sports equipment. They contract spokespeople like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods because they sell winning.
- What is it your customers REALLY need from you?
- Lead with what you sell.
- If you can lead with “We save you time” or “money”, great.
- Universal Internet truths
- No one reads anymore, they scan.
- Average attention span online is 2.7 seconds (about as long as it takes to read a tweet).
- Resource: DontMakeMeThink.com
- Figure out why people come to your site and get rid of the other junk.
- No more interruptions!
- Short attention spans.
- There’s a million competitors out there.
- There’s got to be a way for you to stand out and be more noticed.
- Go back to problem solving and understanding your customers.
- You know you need to do these things, you just need a reminder to apply it. Go out and make it happen.
- Where do you want to be in a year from now? 6 months from now?
- People want bargains
- It doesn’t matter what you sell, people will buy more often if you give them a deal, OR the perception that they’re getting a deal.
- The truth about humans is that they want to feel like they’re getting one over on you.
- Always have some kind of discount and put it in their face.
- Take a chance and get creative
- What ideas have you had that you let slip away?
- You never know what will happen, so try it.
- No one reads anymore, they scan.
Most of the Q&A was just follow up on some of the examples and resources Jim talked about. I really feel energized with this site to take it to another level. Here’s the presentation:
ASW10 Tuesday Keynote Brian Clark
Entreproducer: The Affiliate Marketer as Media Mogul
Thin affiliate sites are disappearing from search engines, while social media is powered by content sharing, not sales pitches. It’s time to start thinking like a new media producer first and foremost, with affiliate relationships as just one form of monetization. The keynote was given by:
- Brian Clark, Co-Founder, DIY Themes
Brian notes that this was his first keynote, so good job on one under the belt! It focused on creativity, which I really did connect with. Unfortunately it did get kind of dry in the middle and I admit, I lost focus on taking notes. But he ended on a memorable note using some music clips to illustrate some points.
Bullet Point Review!
- Focus on branded websites – better for link backs. If you can get a keyword in, great, but that shouldn’t be the focus.
- Positioning – What’s unique about you? How do you stand out in a competitive landscape?
- Design – Great usability of the content (presentation).
- Contact & Community – you want people to raise their hands and pay attention to you over time.
- It’s easier to make money if you’re using content to attract an audience and sell something related.
- From a mindset standpoint, realize you’re in the media business.
- Branded content started with soap operas, kinda.
- There’s nothing more powerful than being an authority figure yourself.
- Branding is really everything – it’s the story you’re trying to tell the world.
- They hear what they want and hopefully it’s what you want them to hear.
- It’s not about traffic, and it’s not just about audience, it’s about creating fans.
- You don’t have to be a rock star to the whole world, just to a group of fans.
- Your brand is a story. If someone is saying something bad about you then it’s still branding.
- If the only thing people are saying about you is bad, at least you have feedback telling you want you are doing wrong.
- Most people that study creativity find that these people have lower associative boundaries.
- We’re socialized to put things in boxes and categories.
- Fail fast – keep trying and you’ll get a lot better at it.
Brian summarized with some clips from a group called Girl Talk that makes unlikely musical mash ups. I highly recommend going in search of this group, who has two albums out if I remember correctly.
Here’s the video provided by Affiliate Summit:
