Creating the Right Deal For You and Your Affiliates #AMDays |  |
- Creating the Right Deal For You and Your Affiliates #AMDays
- Do You Have Business Relationships or Mere Entanglements?
- How to Recruit Better Value Affiliates #AMDays
- Lines Drawn on Debate Over Cyber Security Bill (CISPA)
- 5 Tools to Create Your 2013 Spring and Summer Event Calendar
- iPhone YouTube App Introduces Live Streaming Feature
- Why Google Plus Wants Every Business Blogging
- Twitter, Google Key Communications Channels After Marathon Bombing
- Allegations Illustrate Social Media Dark Side
| Creating the Right Deal For You and Your Affiliates #AMDays Posted: 16 Apr 2013 05:30 PM PDT
Editor's Note: This is the second in our series of live coverage from the Affiliate Management Days conference. Creating the right deal for you and your affiliates is the topic in this 2nd article in the 2013 series. This series of articles is on topics of interest to businesses that offer affiliate programs. More coverage of #AMDays.
Declan Dunn (pictured), CEO of Dunn Direct Media, spoke at #AMDays about the art of creating the right deal. He spoke about the ongoing challenge of balancing the high acquisition cost of affiliate programs with the right payout to motivate and qualify affiliates. Here are highlights of his session. There are 3 things to consider when creating the right deal for affiliates – one that works for you and for your affiliates:
If you are on social or mobile, you probably see affiliates every day, without even thinking about it. The next generation of affiliate marketers will be be data people. Five percent (5%) of affiliates generate all your sales. If that’s the case, you’re not looking for affiliates — you’re just looking for that 5%. When you go out and just copy your competition, you are creating no opportunity to differentiate yourself. Adapt and find your own swing of things. Do you predict when your customers are most likely to buy? Do you ask qualifying questions? Do you use data to convert higher sales? What are the key action points and key data points asked of you that you need to keep track of and have access to in order to make better decisions? You’re going to hear about people talking about attribution, multi-touch points, and it’s not because people are being difficult, but because people are on multiple devices for multiple reasons. You want to learn how to do mobile properly? Get your attention out of the United States. Focus on Asia and Europe where they are exponentially more advanced in mobile strategies and data analysis than we are here in the United States. Who are the best affiliates?
New customers – this is what it looks like right now:
Creating the Deal – Choose from 3:
Social is driven by status and subscription. Check out SilverSaver.com – these guys target women in a heavily male dominated industry. No one can touch them because they are going after an industry everyone else is too scared to touch. The post Creating the Right Deal For You and Your Affiliates #AMDays appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Do You Have Business Relationships or Mere Entanglements? Posted: 16 Apr 2013 04:00 PM PDT
There was a time not long ago, when most business owners considered it a hostile world. They were at odds with their competitors, with labor and with their community. They felt at the mercy of the economy, the environment and the government. In short, it was “us” against a pretty big “them.” But there has been a shift in the landscape. Today collaboration is becoming the norm. To survive and thrive as business owners, we must work in harmony with our community, with our labor force and for the benefit of the environment. They, in turn, have to work with us. We must each be cognizant of and communicate about our needs and our limitations. We must seek solutions together that benefit all parties. It can be a scary thing to start trusting entities that you have always viewed with suspicion. Perhaps you have had bad experiences with some constituencies that seemed to be out to drive you under. But it is worth noting that these other parties are under the same pressure as you to adapt to a new environment that is more collaborative and more interconnected. Survival is no longer you or me. It is now you and me – or it will be neither of us. The business interactions we had in the past were often strained ones. If we dared to call them relationships, it is safe to say that we were in need of “couple’s therapy.” Our relationships with our workers, with our suppliers and with our neighbors may have hardly been relationships at all by any meaningful definition of the word. It would be more accurate to call them entanglements. When things get tangled, there is a lot of twisting and pulling. It is frustrating and time consuming. In short, it is not good business. At this juncture, we can no longer settle for entanglements. We need true relationships. When you are in a relationship, you care about the other party. You also count on them. So how do you upgrade your previous business entanglements to real relationships? Recognize that Giving and Receiving are Two Sides of the Same CoinOne does not exist without the other. There is no coin with heads but no tails. If you think, “I’ll worry about my heads, they can worry about their own tails,” I promise you will find yourself getting old paradigm results in a new paradigm world. The real world will pass you by. Let me translate that into business terms: It will cost you money. Giving and receiving are not the same as giving and taking. Taking is the old way of doing business and it is not even present in the new model. Receiving replaces taking, upgrades it, really. Receiving requires a willing giver. Taking never did. You cannot sustain a business if you are regularly dealing with the unwilling, whether they are your employees, your investors, your customers or anyone else. If you come at these relationships with the expressed or even unexpressed intent of remaining “in charge,” you will weaken the relationship. That is not to say that present hierarchies need to change. You still get to be your employee’s boss or your supplier’s customer. It’s just that it’s not about domination, but rather cooperation. Fully take on your role. If you are a superior in that role, recognize you also must be a protector and benefactor in the truest sense. These true relationships have some new overhead, but they also have valuable benefits that more than offset your investment in them. Someone has to go first, though. You are a leader. That means it ought to be you. People like leaders and they will follow. So lead. There are the occasional few who won’t follow, no matter how well you lead. They don’t want a relationship, they expect to stick with the old, substandard arrangement of entanglement. So how do you let go of entanglements that will never become relationships? Recognize Them for What They AreJust because you have always bought from Prickly Supply Corp. doesn’t mean it is worth it to stay with them. While familiarity is a factor in a relationship, it is only one. The best price often comes with other costs. So does the best selection or the fastest delivery or the longest terms. You have to weigh all factors. If they don’t care about you, the day will come when the price will be too high, and yet you will still be obliged to pay it. Get in front of that curve by finding the people who are your supporters in the companies that are your supporters. It all begins and ends with people. One person you know you can count on in the shipping department can make all the difference. Maybe it’s someone in accounting or customer service. Yes, it can even be someone in sales. Sales people as a group have often had an unlovely reputation. But as the world shifts, so do sales people. In fact, they are at the forefront of this shift. Look for sales people you can count on. More and more come online every day. For those that can’t or won’t get with the program, it is time to say your goodbyes. You can ask for new contacts: New contacts in sales, in service, in accounting, in shipping and more. Sometimes the answer is, there is no one else. If that’s the case, make your choices mindfully. Just remember, entanglements are burdensome. Breaking an entanglement isn’t necessarily permanent. I know a beautiful company that has rehired a certain employee twice after twice letting him going for not being committed enough to their relationship. They continue to be on good terms. They remained on good terms even after firing him. It’s not about making anyone wrong or punishing anyone. It’s just about setting a high standard for the mutual care between you, and then living it. Some of our entanglements exist because of other relationships. Hiring your nephew might not have been as great for business as it was for family. Really though, you aren’t doing Nephew or Auntie any favors if you allow for a dependent or codependent entanglement to exist. Nepotism gets a bad rap. There is nothing wrong with familiarity opening doors. But it’s a real relationship that keeps those doors open. Be flexible but strong. Business is about people. It’s about relationships. It’s about working together, not just for the common good but for the good of each individual. As this standard rises, all of society rises. We entrepreneurs are at the head of this charge. Society will follow. So foster strong business relationships. The world needs it.
The post Do You Have Business Relationships or Mere Entanglements? appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| How to Recruit Better Value Affiliates #AMDays Posted: 16 Apr 2013 03:00 PM PDT Editor's Note: Once again we bring you hot-off-the-press live coverage from the Affiliate Management Days conference. How to recruit better affiliates, i.e., better value affiliates, is the topic in this 1st article in the 2013 series. This series of articles is on topics of interest to businesses that offer affiliate programs. More coverage of #AMDays.
Below are some of the key takeaways from this packed session. Eighty to ninety percent of affiliate programs are relying for most of their affiliate sales on coupon and loyalty sites. Based on their traffic strategies, these sites may not be providing incremental sales There is a place for working with coupon sites. The reality is people want coupons. Brand loyalty is higher when coupons are involved. However, coupon sites are better for customer retention versus customer acquisition. They will not bring the incremental sales your program needs to be truly successful. Why is Coupon / Loyalty Site Dependency Bad?
There are more efficient ways to work with coupon sites. Partner with coupon sites that can give you more. Examples would be the ability to promote your product via blogs or newsletter. You will reach people who did not know your brand. Then they are giving more back. Now you have received incremental value. Alternative Affiliates to Recruit Sarah shared these tips for how to recruit better affilites: Partner with 100 semi-influential bloggers with an exclusive offer. You get a unique story, images, etc. New customer acquisition. These are incremental sales. Podcasters also bring you incremental sales. Higher conversion rate because they have a strong connection with their users. YouTube personalities, podcasters and 'semi' influentials provide you incremental sales and ability to reach audiences you have not reached before. Don't forget you can work with online and offline magazines as well. Be open to different ways to track such as tracking through coupon codes and pay per call. Private consultants are a great resource and many times overlooked. Look for someone who does presentations to or work with clients in their industry's niche. Institutions such as schools and church groups can be very successful. Similar to loyalty but will require offline solutions as well. Benefits of Alternative Recruitment Channels:
Affiliate recruitment needs to be a huge piece of your affiliate strategy to diversify. It should be part of your everyday tasks. There are resources for this piece if you do not have the time. Below are examples of strategies for how to recruit these high value affiliates. Strategies for How to Recruit Better Affiliates:
If you provide better tools to your affiliates than your competition, the affiliate will choose your program. Offer tracking strategies for online and offline options. The post How to Recruit Better Value Affiliates #AMDays appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Lines Drawn on Debate Over Cyber Security Bill (CISPA) Posted: 16 Apr 2013 01:30 PM PDT
[Chairman Mike Rogers] A new cyber security bill known as CISPA, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, is expected to reach the U.S. Senate floor soon. It pits high-tech startups against the giants in the industry in a privacy debate. The Los Angeles Times reports the Senate is likely to vote on CISPA next week. The bill would allow the high-tech industry to share information on a real-time basis with the federal government in the event of a cyber attack. The bill has garnered support from the titans of the tech industry. Oracle, IBM, Intel, and Motorola have all signed on in support of CISPA. But the proposed legislation is not being viewed favorably by those representing small businesses in the tech industry. The main point of CISPA is to share information in the event of a major security breach. Companies that have been attacked are often hesitant to report an attack because of the potential legal implications. But many believe that if they’re able to share information with a government agency, they can stop and prevent future attacks. CISPA would essentially free liability concerns for companies that willingly surrendered information about an attack with the government. Small businesses argue that CISPA would allow major corporations to share any information with the government. They say it doesn’t do nearly enough to protect private citizens from having their information shared with the National Security Administration and other agencies without the consent or knowledge. The Hill reports, “Privacy advocates warn that could lead to people’s email and IP addresses, names, and other personal information being inadvertently passed on to the NSA without their knowledge.” The post Lines Drawn on Debate Over Cyber Security Bill (CISPA) appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 5 Tools to Create Your 2013 Spring and Summer Event Calendar Posted: 16 Apr 2013 11:00 AM PDT If you’re a globetrotting type who likes to take in industry events and conferences as a regular way of staying in touch with your profession, you know that keeping track of the ever-changing cities, events and venues can be a full-time job in and of itself. Luckily, there are a wide variety of tools out there that can help make that job easier, keeping track of your comings and goings so that you don’t have to. Below are five tools, along with event examples of events in a variety of niches, to help you to create your own event calendar through the spring/summer of 2013. (Check out more events to add to the calendar here.) 5 Tools to Create Your Event Calendar1. April 2013: Google Calendar / Google Docs and PubconIt’s easy to mention Google Calendar as our first entry, even if only because it is one of the most well-used online calendars in the world, allowing you to have private calendars, calendars that are shared with friends and colleagues and the all-important reminders to help to keep you on your toes about what’s up next. Google Docs is another great tool to use here. Here’s a good example of conferences in the Google Doc (courtesy of StateOfSearch):
When filling in your Google Calendar for April 2013, consider adding a stop at Pubcon New Orleans conference, the place to be for learning about the present and future of Internet Marketing – and how your business endeavors can benefit from it. 2. May 2013: CalendarsQuick and Mom 2.0 Summit
If online calendars aren’t your thing, CalendarsQuick offers you the ability to quickly and easily design your own calendars to print, allowing you to fill them in with every imaginable bit of information before making it available to grace your wall.
Before you hit the print button on your May 2013 calendar, be sure to include the Mom 2.0 Summit on your to-do list, an event that aims to bring together women and mothers of all stripes to learn about how to take their professional endeavors to new heights, networking all the while. 3. June 2013: ReminderFox and EmMeCon
If a full-fledged calendar application simply falls outside of your humble means, the ReminderFox plugin for Firefox is an excellent tool that gets right to the business of giving you a heads up about a given event, without the need to add anything other than a title, a date and a time.
For your June entry, everyone in business should think about the possibility of attending EmMeCon 2013 in San Francisco, a place where business leaders and the technologists who provide them with the tools for success congregate to exchange expertise and contact information. 4. July 2013: RSSCalendar and MozCon
In some cases – as a blogger, for example – you may want to make your event itinerary available to your readers. For these cases, RSSCalendar is exactly the tool that you need. Via a slick and easy to use interface, you can create simple event listings for yourself, then instantly republish them for the world to see in an RSS feed.
If there is only a single event entry in your calendar for July 2013, it should most definitely be MozCon, a Seattle-based conference that will bring together the best minds in SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing) and social media to discuss the direction of the Web, and how businesses can best climb aboard for the ride. 5. August 2013: Outlook and An Event Apart
Deserving of at least an honorable mention is the well-used calendar functionality to be found in Microsoft Outlook, a piece of software that most of us use, but few of us really give the credit it deserves. Tack on the use of Office 365, a cloud-based technology from Microsoft that many businesses are implementing, and you’ve got the ability to collaborate with others as you keep track of the events you’ll be attending, all from within your email client.
Finally, to top off your summer with style, check out An Event Apart in Washington, DC, a gathering strictly aimed at people who design for the Web. Workshops, keynotes and hands-on sessions will abound, helping you to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving business of making beautiful, functional designs. Image Credit: 1. The post 5 Tools to Create Your 2013 Spring and Summer Event Calendar appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| iPhone YouTube App Introduces Live Streaming Feature Posted: 16 Apr 2013 08:00 AM PDT
Google has announced the addition of a Live Streaming feature to the latest edition of its iPhone YouTube app. Before that, iPhone users were unable to connect to live streaming events broadcast on YouTube. The lack of that feature has rankled those who tune into the site for live events using the iPhone. The addition should further boost the site’s impressive one billion unique visitors per month. YouTube announced its new traffic milestone in March. The new streaming feature is important not only to iPhone users but to content creators and advertisers who can look forward to an even broader audience on YouTube. In a post on the official YouTube blog, the company says those increased viewers translate directly to a bigger market for the site’s advertisers. The company claims that roster already includes all of the Ad Age Top 100 Brands, all of which the company says are currently running campaigns on YouTube. The site continues to bring on advertising partners as its traffic grows. One commentator calls the new live streaming feature the most attention-getting of all the improvements to YouTube’s iPhone app version 1.3. The Next Web details some of the new features offered in the new YouTube app, available in the Apple Store beginning this week. Among those upgrades are an improved subscriptions feed, the ability to queue videos to play back on a television, and other “stability and performance improvements.” The post iPhone YouTube App Introduces Live Streaming Feature appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Why Google Plus Wants Every Business Blogging Posted: 16 Apr 2013 05:00 AM PDT No, Larry Page won't be cold calling you anytime soon. But as Google Plus continues to explode (now the second largest social network), you can expect to start feeling the heat from Google. Google's powerful social media platform may not be as convenient as Facebook or as sexy as Instagram, but ignoring it is certainly more dangerous than ignoring any of the other platforms. The Huffington Post recently devised a case for why no one should be ignoring Google Plus. It comes down to this:
How Google Plus Rewards BloggersOkay, so that's all well and good, but what about blogging? Well, the Google Plus blogging connection has been inarguably forged. At this point, it's only a question of how strong it will become. Google Plus has this little feature known as the rel="author" tag. This short piece of code can be added to your blog or website, letting Google know that this content belongs to you (and your Google Plus account). When you show up in the Google search results, your relevant Web page will look like this first search result (instead of the non-Google Author results below it):
Not only does that first link look more authoritative and click-worthy, it actually is. According to Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO:
By the way, when Schmidt says “anonymous,” he isn't referring to any subjective position about your Internet status. In Google's mind, if you're not on Google Plus, then you are anonymous (and will be treated as such). Avoid Anonymity: Set Up rel="author" in Google PlusSetting up the rel="author" tag really isn't that difficult to do. If you know enough to operate your own little business blog, then you're definitely capable. There are a number of short tutorials out there, but I recommend this one from Search Engine People, which will show you how it's done from point A to point Z. While setting up a Google Plus profile and this tag will produce the desired result (a picture next to your search engine results), I highly recommend using Google Plus actively. We're not sure yet exactly how users' level of Google Plus activity will affect their results in the search engine, but it's very likely that more engaged users will be better rewarded. If you're a business owner and you're not blogging, then the time to start is now. You don't have to take it from me – just ask Google. The post Why Google Plus Wants Every Business Blogging appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Twitter, Google Key Communications Channels After Marathon Bombing Posted: 16 Apr 2013 02:50 AM PDT The tragic Boston Marathon bombing Monday again highlighted the power of Twitter and other social media. Social media became key communication channels as the tragedy unfolded and people flocked to understand what was going on and find out about loved ones.
Twitter Broke the Story on the Marathon BombingTwitter users shared the first posts and photos on the marathon bombing before traditional media could react. The first reports were shared with the world by eyewitnesses via Twitter.
Twitter, while sometimes enabling the spread of rumors that inevitably occur immediately after a tragedy, also helped dispel rumors. For instance, one report held that cell phone networks in Boston had been shut down supposedly to prevent remote detonation of additional bombs. That report appeared later to be false — it was just a temporary overload. ATT and Verizon representatives used Twitter to reassure customers their cell phone networks were still operational, and remind people to text their messages to free up voice capacity in the network. Google, Facebook and YouTube Also AssistGoogle set up a Person Finder to help people look for loved ones after the blast. People also used Facebook to check on friends and loved ones at the scene of the tragedy. Those who were there signed into their accounts to post they were OK so that friends and family could breathe a sigh of relief. One commentator called it the “Facebook huddle.” YouTube set up a page dedicated to aggregating video on the explosions and related issues in YouTube Spotlight. The page, at last count, had more than four million subscribers. Social media was used to share other important details including hotlines and emergency information, too. It all serves as a reminder: in a breaking situation or public tragedy, turn to Twitter and other social media for on-the-scene reports and to learn where to find more. Image credit: ABC news coverage The post Twitter, Google Key Communications Channels After Marathon Bombing appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Allegations Illustrate Social Media Dark Side Posted: 16 Apr 2013 02:30 AM PDT Social media may be a powerful means of building your personal and business brand. But there is a social media dark side. It can tarnish personal reputations and make ugly situations even uglier. In the past two weeks, the entrepreneurship and tech community got a full demonstration of this social media dark side in a high-profile battle that is still unfolding.
At the center of it is TechCrunch founder and venture capitalist Michael Arrington and his ex-girlfriend. She charged him with making death threats and rape — and she made the charges on social media. Soon friends, former co-workers and others were lining up and taking sides across the Web, on Facebook. Google+, Twitter and blogs. It started when the ex-girlfriend, clearly on edge emotionally, made certain allegations in a personal entry on Facebook about Arrington allegedly making death threats. Gawker picked up the Facebook posting and wrote about it. Then, in a lengthy comment on Gawker, the woman enlarged her allegations to include rape. She said the alleged rape took place in 2012. She did not report it to law enforcement officials at the time. Soon supporters of both sides piled on. Few of the people commenting actually know any facts — they just “believe” one thing or another. That didn’t stop them from commenting. What has happened is that far too many observers, instead of just reporting on the story, have become part of the story. The author of the Gawker piece taunted tech publications on Twitter for not writing about the situation. As VentureBeat notes, some media and tech blogs, grappling with the dilemma of whether to write about it or not, chose to stay silent. Eventually, TechCrunch came out with a carefully-worded piece reporting the “extremely serious and criminal allegations” involving accusations of physical and mental abuse. It was handled in a professional way by TechCrunch. Others were not so circumspect. In at least one case an influential tech commentator commented that he believed the allegations. A few days later he retracted and said he regretted the comments. Arrington at first was silent but has since followed up with two statements on his personal blog, Uncrunched. First he made a brief statement denying the claims as untrue. He said he ”hired a law firm to represent me in the legal actions against the offending parties.” Then on April 11th he posted a very lengthy letter by his attorney refuting the claims. If they hoped the lawyer’s letter would stop things — well it hasn’t. The war continued on Twitter and Facebook and some other places. To us, it demonstrates the social media dark side. When emotions run high, it’s much too easy for a lynch-mob mentality to take hold. In traditional media, stories are often scrupulously researched and passed through a rigorous approval process before ever reaching publication. However, social media postings require no such research or verification process. Thus, social media postings may reflect the thoughts and feelings of the person who posted them, but not necessarily the truth. They risk making an ugly situation uglier. There’s a lesson for entrepreneurs and small businesses in this. Taking sides on controversial situations without knowing all the facts can make you part of the controversy, muddy the waters, and make things worse for all involved. Social media is not the place to hold a trial about the truth of serious criminal allegations. That belongs in a court of law. The post Allegations Illustrate Social Media Dark Side appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
Speaking to an audience of affiliate managers, 
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