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Affiliate Classroom Blog Archives

Social Network Marketing: Old Idea, New Form

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 8:34 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

In college I had a friend who, as a high school teen, attended rock concerts. He didn’t go for the music. He sold T-shirts, though ’sold’ is something of a misnomer. All he had to do was show up and they were practically ripped out of his hands. (Come to think of it that happened literally, sometimes.) He made a serious chunk of change, ten bucks at a pop.

He understood social network marketing.

He didn’t have to do a lot of advertising. He didn’t spend a lot of money on marketing. But he knew where to find customers… where they congregate.

That’s the not-so-secret lesson of social network marketing. Many sites try to get customers to come where they live. Not a bad thing, as it works pretty well much of the time.

But social network marketing is going where the customers already are. While there you hope to sell them something you have good reason to believe they already want.

The team in charge of marketing the recent X-Men 3 movie did just that. They developed a portion of the MySpace site devoted to talking about the movie. They attracted a lot of people they already had good reason to believe would be interested. Those people told others. X-Men 3 garnered $122 million on opening weekend. ($400 million worldwide from May 26th to June 21st. Don’t you wish.)

No doubt that money wasn’t solely, or even primarily, the result of exposure and buzz on MySpace. But, as we all know, in marketing every little bit helps. And with the growth of MySpace and social networks in general, that little bit is getting a lot bigger very fast.

Something to think about while laundering that old Pat Benatar T-shirt.

Negative Word of Mouth, Geometric Disaster or Double Benefit

Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Word of mouth spreads more or less geometrically. Someone likes what you say or sell and they tell two people, who tell four, three of whom tell six, etc.

Notice, I didn’t say “four tell sixteen, etc” That’s because as the web of popularity spreads, not everyone is going to take the effort to spread the word. Worse, not everyone will be pleased with what you say or do.

Circumstances, misunderstanding, or a variety of other causes may have given some of those a reason to think you could use a little improvement. That can lead to negative word of mouth.

Just as positive buzz helps you by that amplification effect, negative word of mouth hurts you. And, unfortunately, people are often more vocal about what they don’t like, than enthusiastic about what they do.

There are several ways to deal with that inescapable fact, but one stands above the rest.

First and foremost, maintain open and honest communication. Try to avoid letting a customer complaint go by unanswered, especially if they’re being anywhere near reasonable. You won’t have time to address every possible expression of sour grapes, but any genuine beef should be jumped on at the earliest opportunity.

Those who already like you are valuable sources of future business. But, anyone who is annoyed for a legitimate reason counts double. First, you have an opportunity to squash the growth of negative word of mouth at the very beginning. Second, you have a chance to turn a loss into an asset.

Nothing creates allies like converting former detractors. Some of those will become your biggest boosters. That person will recognize that you cared enough about him or her as an individual to address his or her specific problem.

What’s one of your biggest beefs about the bank, the phone company or some other large business you contacted to resolve an issue? You wanted to be treated like a person. Instead, on that occasion, you got a customer service rep that was just following a rule book and treating you like an account number.

But another company you called dealt with you and your problem as if they genuinely cared about your specific, legitimate issue. Did you enthuse to your friends and get the company new business?

You don’t have to be Pollyanna to believe it’s a good idea to make that extra effort to resolve legitimate complaints. You just have to want that practical, positive double-whammy that comes from turning lemons into lemonade.

July Magazine Available Now

Friday, July 21st, 2006 at 7:37 am by Helen Montgomery, AC Magazine

The July 2006 Affiliate Classroom Magazine is on article marketing, a skill you must develop if you want to get an edge in these days of rising PPC costs and constant search engine updates. Download now to get advice from expert writers and working marketers on:

Article marketing best practices: what works and what doesn’t.
How to develop hot article titles and content, even if you’re new to the game.
How to make PLR articles unique, with before and after examples.

Plus there’s an entire article that explains white hat “tag and ping” social bookmarking tactics in a nutshell. Click here to download the July 2006 Affiliate Classroom Magazine now!

Word of Mouth Mathematics

Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 5:43 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Don’t panic! There are no equations in this series of posts — only common sense ideas you can apply to boost your business.

First, a pop quiz. What’s the most effective form of marketing?

Time’s up. Wrong, close, and sort of. Well, some of you were right, I’m sure, because some must have thought “word of mouth”. (The title is a pretty big hint.)

People buy stuff they want in large part because someone they know and trust recommended it. You may not listen very much when your best friend touts a movie — tastes vary and you’ve been disappointed before. But lots of products or services are much less subjective than that.

And, in some cases, it isn’t even a question of quality. It may be simply information about a source for a good price, or availability, or rapid delivery. There are all sorts of reasons one product or merchant is preferred over another.

But before it can be preferred it has to be known. And knowledge comes — more so on the Internet than anywhere else in the modern world — from the high tech equivalent of low-tech: word of mouth.

Word of mouth can spread the literal, old-fashioned way — by words out of someone’s mouth. (Hence, the expression…) More often these days, it happens in the form of a viral email. Or, growing every day, it may be in the form of a blog post and the comments on it.

In short order, the most common form will be social or business networking, ala MySpace and others. (If it isn’t already. Current studies contradict one another.)

But whatever form it takes, it all comes down to the same simple idea: referrals in a good word of mouth campaign grow exponentially.

Remember the old fable about King Shiram of India. Pleased with his counselor’s advice, he granted a wish to double the amount of wheat on each square of a chessboard. One grain on the first, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, etc. This very quickly becomes an impossibly large number.

(For those who enjoy math, this set grows as 2^N where N is the number of squares. For an eight by eight chess board this is 2^64, more than 18 quintillion — 18 followed by 18 zeros, a number larger than the number of grains of sand in the universe.)

You may have heard that geometric progressions get very large, very fast. As the number of referrers in your network grow, the word spreads very fast. Even though there will be dead ends where the word doesn’t go any further, if there are enough ‘tentacles’ reaching out, the word still gets to a very healthy-sized crowd.

But, and it’s a big but, keep in mind that negative word of mouth can grow just as quickly. Often quicker, in fact, since people sometimes seem more inclined to express a complaint than to enthuse when they’re pleased.

Boosting Email Deliverability

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 at 7:55 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Popov and McDonald have done it again. Well, in this case Popov and Pollard. In their recent ClickZ column, the pair offer 10 excellent suggestions for increasing your email deliverablity probability. That’s a mouthful, but the ideas are simple. Here’s a sampling, with my comments:

1.Two-thirds of senders don’t ask to be added to the Safe Sender’s list or address book.

There’s an old rule in sales: you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you do ask, you may also not get, but if you don’t for sure you won’t.

2.Nearly two-thirds neglect to provide a link to the website version of the email content, or related content.

Emails, as list marketers know only too painfully well, often don’t arrive intact. Images can be blocked, special characters can be garbled, etc. Give yourself a second chance by providing the full, unblemished and smartly tailored message in a special area on the site. And on that same page, be sure to provide links to important content — like the product or service you want to sell.

3.Half don’t provide a feedback email address.

Email marketing is about selling, certainly. But it’s selling by establishing and then building a relationship. Give your readers an easy-to-use channel to tell you what they think. After all, you’re emailing them. You surely want them to be able to email you, as well.

4.Nearly one-fifth fail to use a compelling subject line.

A good subject line is often the difference between your email being a spam message and being a successful sale email. Use a line that encourages opens not deletes.

For more tips, see the full text of Popov and Pollard’s excellent column, here.

And, oh, by the way:
a) Please add this email address to your Safe Sender’s list: info@affiliateclassroom.com
b) Use that email address for any feedback, but better still leave comments on the blog at http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com/
c) Thanks for being a reader of Affiliate Classroom and the blog. We welcome your comments.

Email Copy, The Short and The Long of It

Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 7:32 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

How long should a marketing email be? What style should it take? Should you say everything in the body or tease the reader with a few tantalizing tidbits, hoping they’ll click for more?

The answer to all these is: Don’t confuse the medium with the message. (Marshall McLuhan be damned.)

Length. There’s a similar long-standing debate in the motion picture business about how long a movie should be. The generally accepted answer is: as long as it’s good.

Email copy could profitably follow a similar principle. Keep the reader engaged, by offering them valuable information well conveyed, and you can write as much as you need. Or, to paraphrase a quote from Einstein: An email should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Just get the message across and get out. But make sure you do convey the message.

Style. Asked and answered. If you keep them interested you have the right style. If you don’t, you don’t. Think of article writers or novelists you like. Then ask: “How do they keep me reading?”

Tease or Full Monty? A very good question, and one to which the answer is probably: “Either or Both”, depending on your purpose.

Some emails are primarily to inform about a sale, an event, or a product. Others are intended more to establish, retain, or build a relationship. Tailor your message accordingly.

Writing email content is similar in many ways to writing good, albeit short, articles. Pick up some tips in our upcoming issue of Affiliate Classroom magazine. In the meantime, consider the old joke: New York Tourist: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”. Isaac Stern: “Practice.”

Women Play Games

Saturday, July 15th, 2006 at 6:15 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Ever hear that expression before? (If you’re over six you probably have, more than once.) It’s usually said by some bitter guy to a sympathetic listener. (Usually another guy.) But that’s not my area of expertise, so I’m going to pass on commenting about any of that. There is, however, a more literal interpretation.

Guys, often younger guys, are the stereotypical computer game players. Movies and TV abound with images of some scruffy male teen at home on Saturday night whizzing some virtual bazooka around the screen. But more and more, women are becoming the dominant gender in the game playing arena.

The games they like are often more cerebral, less action oriented. (Though, not always.) But they play as often or more than males.

Nearly a third downloaded 21 games in the past year. Two-thirds read game reviews. Of those, nearly half purchased as a result.

Think about that.

Written content about an audio-visual game caused a large group of website visitors to purchase a game they read about.

Over two-thirds purchased a game after a free trial — and watched a video ad while waiting for it to download. (Data based on Macrovision study reported by eMarketer, here.)

Read written review, watch video ad, get free trial, buy game. Hmmm… maybe there’s a marketing strategy in here somewhere.

Go get ‘em, tigress.

BT: Retargeting — An Experiment

Thursday, July 13th, 2006 at 5:40 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Sometimes advertisers act a little too much like used car salesmen: Get the sale now. Don’t let the prospect walk away with a promise to return later. 99 times out of a 100 they won’t come back and you’ll lose any chance at the sale.

However that may be in the realm of car sales, it shouldn’t unduly influence an affiliate marketer’s website design. Often ads are placed with the idea that it’s buy now or forever lose that particular customer. Nothing wrong with that, per se. But it’s not the only way to encourage buyers.

Behavioral targeting, at least in one of its forms, looks at visitor actions over time. One specific kind is called “retargeting”. Lots of users won’t fill out registration forms, nor make a purchase on the spot. Nevertheless, their visit is recorded. Spotting them next time they do, then serving an appropriate ad is what retargeting is all about.

In one test, retargeted ads showed an almost 200% increase in clickthrough rate and 167% increase in conversions versus non-targeted ads. Those are impressive numbers.

Advertisers should remember they are often a lot like their audience. Visitors sometimes need time to think about a purchase and may have to become comfortable with a product or merchant. Repeated exposure and research is one the way that happens.

Take the long view and make your site attractive for repeat visitors. One good way is to offer fresh content frequently. In the upcoming “The Art of the Article” issue of Affiliate Classroom magazine we give you some ideas about how to do that.

Then when they come back, display some content based on the knowledge that they have come back. Not necessarily in an obvious way. “Hi, welcome back” is both too bland and — to some — a little creepy. No one likes to think they’re being watched as they shop. Just a subtle change in graphic or text that nudges that shopper a little closer to a sale the second or third time around.

After all, didn’t you go back to the lot more than once to pick out just the right snazzy vehicle?

BT: More Than You Bargained For

Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 7:06 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Sometimes the campaign results you get are entirely different from what you expected. Sometimes different means better.

A recent JupiterResearch report, as reported on ClickZ by columnist Anna Papadopoulos:

“[A]dvertisers who have used behavioral targeting in the past 12 months are 17 percent more satisfied than advertisers who have not used it, despite campaign objectives.”

[emphasis mine]

Note that last phrase. Even though they started out with certain goals and expectations, which may or may not have been fulfilled, they were happier using Behavioral Targeting than not.

That doesn’t happen often, that we’re more pleased with the results than we intended to be. As realistic idealists (in which category I place almost all affiliate marketers… otherwise they’d be in a different economic endeavor…), we generally hope for the best and settle for what we get.

If Behavioral Targeting can accomplish that, it’s probably something special. But what is it?

As with any marketing term or strategy the definition isn’t as tightly constrained as, say, that of “Eurobond”. Search as you may, you’ll rarely find an expert that even offers a definition, much less the same one most others are using.

So, I’ll skip any technical discussion and shoot straight for common sense. “Behavioral targeting is simply using the behavior of the website visitor to target the message you deliver to them.”

But what behavior is that? Surfers do lots of things, after all. Russell Shaw in a now-aging, but still relevant, column on iMedia uses this example.

“For example, repeat visits to a Web page with reviews of sport utility vehicles, coupled with a cruise to the automotive section of classified ads on a site, clearly indicate at least a curiosity about SUVs.

Now, let us suppose that same visitor is also going to pages where she clicks through to an online book seller to a book about how to help your child adjust to kindergarten. Behavioral targeting specialists may look at this data and start to conclude that the site visitor is looking for an SUV to fit the transportation needs of her growing brood.”

I could have made up my own example, but this one is excellent. The surfer is clearly looking for something and by monitoring that user’s behavior — by observing what they click on not once but repeatedly, and where they came from and where they go to — a pattern emerges over time.

Behavioral targeting requires using navigation data over time to analyze what your potential customer wants.

Does that mean it has to represent a time-consuming analysis project for an already over-burdened schedule? Not necessarily. Tune in next time…

Video Ad Options

Friday, July 7th, 2006 at 4:20 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Rounding out the last (for now) of our posts on video ads, we’ll cover two basic alternatives every marketer faces in that area: In-Page or In-Stream. I.e. where to place the ad.

To quote Jason Glickman from a recent MediaPost column:

“[I]n-stream video refers to video ads that are inserted in the stream of online video content (pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll, within the player).”

and

“[I]n-page video refers to video ads within a graphical unit (banner ad) on the Web page.”

Which to use and when depends on a lot on your goals and what you know about your audience. As with any form of advertising it’s useful to use behavioral targeting techniques to help you decide.

When your audience is engaged, eager to hear your message, in-stream ads are preferred. You get an accurate estimate of impressions to play. You get an audience that is likely to view the entire video. And you have a TV-commercial-like format which the audience is used to.

As the definition suggests, you can use pre-roll (before the main content) or post-roll (after) or even mid-way. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but my money is on pre-roll most of the time.

Theaters learned long-ago that previews of upcoming films generally work best when shown before the main film. Otherwise, the audience is usually on the way out. (In the 1940s they were often after the film, with “shorts” at the beginning.) Mid-way is usually the worst. Many people get up from the couch or use fast-foward when TV commercials start.

Hollywood producers and theater owners are savvy marketers. Learn from them.

In-page ads can be effective, but they’re sometimes ignored as banner ads in general are. But they do offer a lot of flexibility in capturing the audience’s attention. Use sparingly.

Whichever you choose, you need video content and some form of packaging it. One of our readers suggested StreamerNet. Affiliate Classroom hasn’t formally reviewed the product, but the site looks well designed and the video ad was compelling. Interested readers can check it out here. Let us know what you think.

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