Sharpie Uses Social Media to Go From Boring to Sexy

Newspapergirl is impressed with the way that Sharpie is making use of social media to advance their (rather boring) product. Go read the whole post. It is interesting.

34 Million Moms Online

On the eMarketer website there’s an interesting article that suggests marketers just might be missing the boat…..”Moms are the key decision-makers for many family purchases, and increasingly the information they obtain and activities they engage in online affect those decisions.”

When a Blog Isn’t Enough: Expanding Customer Interaction with a Branded Social Network

There’s an interesting article posted on the Marketing Sherpa website. The writer says, “Social media helps marketers create more interaction with their customers. But sometimes, adding a single element — like a blog or a forum — isn’t enough.” The writer goes on to explain using social media to multiply sales.

Does Doing What You Love Mean The Money Will Follow?

The editorial team at Affiliate Classroom says that it isn’t necessarily so. “Today, if you want to be a success in affiliate marketing, you MUST start with a product.” But the writers go on to say that the product you choose should relate to a topic that interests you.

Don’t Be Afraid of Big Niches

Derek, writing on the Click Consultants blog says sometimes new affiliates are told by more experienced affiliates that they should avoid niches such as Payday Loans, Weight Loss, Credit Reports because there is too much competition in them and they are too saturated! He says, “This is completely and utterly false”….and goes on to explain.

Sometimes you can build an affiliate business on your passions or hobbies. But sometimes – most of the time – you can’t.

Yet there are several highly visible affiliate marketing courses that still suggest you can build a large content site about your hobby or pet interest, then cash in from related affiliate products and contextual advertising.

Much as we wish this were true today, it’s not. Sure, back in the 90’s, when affiliate marketing was new and growing, it was possible to build a site about almost anything, keep adding pages, and make money through Amazon.com or other merchants.

But those were also the days when Amazon paid much higher commissions on books… and when the search engines weren’t crammed with niche sites by the millions.

Today, if you want to be a success in affiliate marketing, you MUST start with a product. The product should IDEALLY relate to a topic that interests you (for example, board games). Or it should appeal to a market you belong to, with a mindset you can relate to and understand (such as parents of pre-teens). But even then, that’s not enough.

The product must come from a reputable merchant who is committed to affiliate marketing, supports affiliates, and PAYS ON TIME. The commissions have to substantial enough, with enough potential customers, to justify the effort it takes to build a site, get it into the search engines, and possibly build and maintain an optin list.

The good news is that the odds of finding the right product,that pays the right commissions, from the right merchant are growing every day. Contextual advertising is also making it easier to monetize sites that are all about what you love.

But if you don’t start your affiliate business with a product that’s going to pay, everything else will be a long, dreary uphill battle.

So steer clear of gurus who tell you to follow your passions. You wouldn’t invest many thousands in a bricks and mortar store unless you knew you could stock it with PROFITABLE products that would sell well. Think of your affiliate business the same way.

Affiliate Datafeeds – Duplicate Content and More
Linda Buquet has put together a good explanation. There’s an article by Scott Jangro and a video from Matt Cutts of Google that explains why you can no longer just “slap up a data feed site and do well.”

Forbes on the Advertising Tax
Shawn Collins is steamed. There’s an article in Forbes, “Taxing a Virtual Presence” written by Lee Gomes, that has made Shawn a little hot under the collar. Shawn says, “First off, the article didn’t include any perspective from an affiliate marketer, and the view of affiliate marketers was rather narrow and uninformed.” But what really burned Shawn up was the statement, ” “a large percentage of all spam e-mails are from aspiring affiliate marketers.” WHOA! Who says so? Where are the statistics to back that up? That’s what Shawn wants to know. I want to know, too.

Aseema
Nothing is being sold. Aseema is strictly nonprofit, and this has nothing at all to do with affiliate marketing. The purpose of Aseema is “To provide underprivileged children with a nurturing and stimulating educational environment that helps them recognize their limitless potential.” Go…make a donation, help a child. It will do YOU good.

Facebook Is King but Twitter Makes Waves
David Goldman is a staff writer for CNN. He has posted an interesting news article that says, “no social network is safely on top of the market.” According to Nielsen, “Facebook users logged 13.9 billion minutes on the site in April. That compares to 5 billion minutes on MySpace, 300 million on Twitter, and 202.4 million minutes on LinkedIn.”

Tips to Enhance Your Opt-In Process
There’s an interesting post on the Affiliate Classroom blog today that provides some excellent tips to improve your opt-in process. And, as we all know, “an effective opt-in process can bump up the profitability of your website.” Profit! That’s a good thing!

There is no doubt that an effective opt-in process can bump up the profitability of your website. Having a subscribers list is not only a great way to establish long-term relationships with your clients. It will also increase your conversions, transforming “content surfers” into buying customers.

Here are four easy ways to enhance your opt-in process:

#1 – Make Good Use of the Opt-In Form

Opt-in forms tend to be short and to the point. But in sight of cutting your prospect’s time, you might be overlooking to retrieve important information.

Yes, getting your prospect’s email is the ultimate goal. But why not seize the opportunity to find out more?

Knowing just a few more details about your visitors can help you offer them a more customized subscriber experience. And it can even give you a better insight of who your prospects are and what they are looking for.

Knowing your customer’s first name is important to add that personal touch when emailing a newsletter or product review. Asking about their demographics will give you a nice idea of where you should be focusing your targeting.

Think about your business and what’s important to know about your customers. The opt-in will give you an opportunity to – briefly – ask them about it.

#2 – Give Customers Good Reason to Subscribe

An efficient way to increase email list subscriptions is to give visitors more than good reason to sign up.

Aside from valuable content, you can offer them a 20% discount on their first purchase for subscribing. Or maybe a free PLR package, ebook, or report. Customers love freebies and discounts – just make sure to follow up with special subscriber deals to keep them coming back.

#3 – Showcase a Sneak Peek

Just like a trial gives you an idea of how software works, you can offer your visitors a glimpse of what they can get with their subscription.

You can use your website’s home to showcase an abstract of the current issue of your newsletter, along with a link to that article and an opt-in box where the visitor can easily sign up.

Posting past newsletter issues on your site is another great way to get prospects interested in subscribing. Once published, link newsletters to any relevant articles or blog posts so as to maximize their views. Remember to provide the user with a link, or form, below the article/newsletter so that they can add their email to your list without hassles.

#4 – Test Different Variables

Just like in most aspects of marketing, testing is a critical step to achieving a solid – and profitable – email list.

Test your opt-in forms and pages in different forms. Try changing colors, modifying the layout or even altering the copy.  Then assess what works best. Do your prospect’s respond best to certain form components? Do they tend to subscribe more if the opt-in is placed on the top-left corner of the page?

Evaluating where sign-ups are coming from is another way to test, and improve, the effectiveness of your opt-in process. If a particular article or page is bringing in a big volume of subscriptions, you might want to refocus your future writing on a similar topic to the one discussed in that specific piece.

Enhancing your subscription list will undoubtedly help you establish a good foundation of returning customers. Get on these tips today to accelerate your business’s growth and increase profitability.

As affiliate marketers we all want to use every tool available to market the products and services that we represent. That isn’t a crime; it’s our job. But we need to use the tools at our disposal wisely and marketing on Twitter (and other social networks) is at the top of the list of “tools that need to be used with caution.”

If you’ve been an affiliate marketer long enough to remember the CAN-SPAM Act debate and passage, you know that people hate spam. They really, really, REALLY HATE SPAM. And Twitter users are web-savvy. They can spot spam at 40 paces with one eye shut. These users are devoted to keeping the “twittersphere” free of spam and they see advertising as spam.

So the question is, how can we, as affiliate marketers, advertise our products and services on Twitter and social networks in a way that doesn’t threaten the “purity” or offend users?

The first and most important thing to remember is:

Blatant advertising will earn you nothing more than scorn from social website users. It is very unlikely that you will acquire a single new customer.

One thing that everybody wants, including (and maybe especially) users of social websites is:

INFORMATION!

But tired old facts won’t cut it. They want new and usable information that will help them NOW. They want information that will make their own life better; make them look better, feel better, be more popular, solve a pressing problem, or just catch more fish or save time or save money.

Speaking of saving money:

DISCOUNTS AND/OR SALES

are great incentives when you do get around to pitching your products or services on Twitter. Offer an incentive and make the sale price time-sensitive; limited-time offer, one-day only, etc.

And finally, it is very, very important to remember that the entire purpose of social websites like Twitter is:

REAL PEOPLE EXCHANGING INFORMATION AND IDEAS!

Testimonials are good, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. For social media users, the most important factors are real users’ experiences and real users’ opinions. They want to see notes from real people who use real language and express real feelings and real thoughts. There is no substitute for reality because:

Twitter, like reality TV programming, IS REALITY IN CYBER SPACE!