Author Archives: Andrew Wee

About Andrew Wee

My name is Andrew Wee. I'm 32 years old, live in Singapore and am happily married with a 2 month old daughter. I've gone through a list of various occupations including: * journalist (for a business newspaper) * Internet content developer (for one of Asia's largest media group's Singapore Press Holdings) * trainer in entrepreneurship, business building, life skills * photographer/photojournalist * real estate agent * consultant * entrepreneur (I think that's enough for now...more later!) This is a personal space to express my goals, dreams and aspirations.

Frak GoDaddy: How to Win Enemies and Irritate People

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If you think choosing commodity services such as domain names, webhosting, email service providers is a matter of choosing the best prices and features, you could not be more wrong. A recent experiences has shown just how much the support factor matters when it comes to your online business.

I have a fairly extensive portfolio of domain names, some of which I use for my websites, with the majority of domains kept in storage till I’ve time to develop them.

This past week, I got a message from one of my domain registrars GoDaddy that one of my domains had expired. Since it’s a pretty high value (though unused) domain related to the dietary supplements niche, I decided to renew it.

At the domain renewal screen, I see:

godaddy nonsense

So in addition to the $10.89 renewal fee for a year, GoDaddy wants to charge a “Registry Redemption Fee”.

This “redemption fee” is going to cost me $90.

What?

I have to pay the equivalent of 9 year’s registration to get my domain back?

And it’s not likely that GoDaddy will budge on their policy.

I like GoDaddy’s support of female race driver Danica Patrick. I sometimes even like Continue reading →

An Insider’s Guide To The Not-So-Silent Affiliate Auction

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Affiliate Summit co-founder Missy Ward is at it again, raising funds for Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Los Angeles. To motivate supporters for the effort, a slate of experienced marketers involved in the affiliate marketing industry have put up their services and products up for auction.

The auction closes this Friday, August 28th, 1159pm. Some of the bid prices are ridiculously low at the moment, so if you put in a bid for charity, you’ll either get the product or service at a steal, or you’ll be doing your part to aim in breast cancer research and relief.

You can check out Missy’s fundraising auction post.

Here’re some of my personal top picks for the auctions:

  • Two hours of consulting with Lisa Riolo: Lisa was formerly affiliate network Commission Junction’s senior vice president for business development and has had management roles at brick-and-mortar institutions like Bank of America and Peet’s Coffee. Besides the obvious affiliate marketing issues you might raise with her, she’d be pretty experienced in the operations side of running and growing a business too. The auction is currently in the $100+ region, and even if you were to contribute the retail value of $1,000, there’s no doubt that her advice would bring your business to the next level. (check out my Friday Podcast interview with Lisa R).
  • Two hours of consulting with Lisa Picarille: Affiliates might know Lisa as the former publisher/editor-in-chief of Revenue Magazine, the performance marketing standard, as well as co-host of the Affiliate Thing and TheSpew podcasts. You may not know that she’s a wealth of experience with print, radio and online content publishing. Whether you’re a merchant, network or affiliate, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off Lisa which will help you on the media and content elements of your business. Again, the $100+ bid is ridiculously low, and even the $300 retail value is lowballing the potential benefits. I’d realistically value the advice you could get from Lisa at at least $1,000. (check out my Friday Podcast with Lisa P).
  • Affiliate Summit West 2010 Platinum conference pass (Las Vegas): Gives you all-access pass to the conference sessions and trade show. If you network effectively at this event with merchants, networks and fellow affiliates, there’s no reason why your affiliate business won’t double or triple (at the minimum) from the networking you’ll be doing. In a number of cases, affiliate incomes have increased exponentially as a result of face-to-face meetups at the event.
  • Thesis WordPress template/framework developer’s pack: Thesis is a SEO-friendly WP template that can be customized easily to replace other website publishing tools you’re currently using. I’m developing a new set of affiliate sites using Thesis and with the SEO features, it get much more visibility from organic traffic. Also, designer Chris Pearson has placed a strong emphasis on typography, so readability and usability are greatly enhanced. The lifetime upgrades and great support at the forum is worth its ticketed price many times over. Again, the bids are ridiculously low at this point ($30) on a $164 retail value. (read my Thesis product review for more information)
  • Market Leverage A-List Experience: The highlight of this package is dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant at the Paris Hotel and Casino with Market Leverage social media manager, Dina Riccobono. If that’s not enough, you’ll also get coverage on MarketLeverage TV and be featured on JohnChow.com. With a little out-of-the-box thinking, this package can significantly boost your branding and bring a number of benefits to your business. (Disclaimer: I’m also bidding on this package). (Check out some of Dina’s tips from the Friday Podcast on videocasting and social media branding)

Although I’ve mentioned just a few of the packages up for auction, do check out the various packages available, you’ll be getting resources to grow your business and doing a lot of good for charity too!

The Death of CPA Marketing

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One tired refrain heard among some marketers is that because they’re late to the game, all the “good” niches have already been taken. If you believe everything you hear, there’s “little” money left in CPA/Affiliate marketing because the boat has left for ringtones, dating, Acai, payday loans, etc.

Added to that, with Google AdWords Quality Score, the search network is a much harder game to play, compared to before.

While some of these “facts” have some truth to them, your success as an affiliate marketer mirror that of a brick-and-mortar entrepreneur. If every possible restaurant concept has already been created, why bother starting another?

If anything, this question is pretty self-reflective. If life is so hard, why Continue reading →

Friday Podcast: Effective Content Marketing Strategies with Lisa Picarille

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Lisa PicarilleFor those active in affiliate marketing, Lisa Picarille will be a familiar name, as she’s helmed Revenue Magazine, the Performance Marketing Standard as publisher and editor-in-chief, before working on her own projects now.

What you may not know is that Lisa has a wealth of journalism experience having worked for news organizations dealing with print media and radio work, including Wired.com, TechWeb.com, TechTV.com and CRN.com. Her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, CRM Magazine, PCWeek, MacWeek, Computerworld and InfoWorld.

I invited Lisa on the Friday Podcast to get her take on using content to effectively brand and market yourself, whether you’re an internet marketer or a merchant.

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

  • The role of old media (like newspapers) versus internet content
  • Identifying and understanding hidden agendas behind online content
  • Can content affect your opinion?
  • How do social dynamics and personality affect the content you produce
  • Lisa’s approach to creating and using content
  • Thoughts on internet video and podcasting
  • A teaser of her joint project with Jim Kukral “Your Pitch Sucks”

Check out the podcast below:

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Links:

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PS: If you enjoyed the Friday Podcast, be sure to check out the Members Only exclusive podcast.

7 Tips To Brand Yourself Effectively

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Being perceived as an expert in your niche can play a great part in generating buzz, momentum and ultimately profits from your marketing efforts. If you’re a small or medium business, being able to establish mindshare (the perception of yourself or your company as a player in your niche) is a key strategy for newer players. Here are 7 tips to achieving that goal.

branding

Content: Identifying key issues, especially challenges and problems within your industry and offering a solution to those questions builds your reputation as a problem solver. Experts are those with expertise at solving problems.

It also builds goodwill and encourage reciprocity and a “pay it forward” mentality from those who have benefitted from your advice (which leads to a viral/linkbait effect if they distribute/syndicate your content).

Content was one of the major issues that I discussed with veteran journalist and former editor-in-chief of Revenue magazine, Lisa Picarille, for this week’s Friday Podcast. It’ll appear on Friday.

One of the easiest ways to brand yourself is by starting a blog and start putting out quality content.

One major issue I have with bloggers, especially affiliate marketing/internet marketing bloggers is a tendency to excessively sell ad-space or run banners on their blog. If more than half the screen real-estate is dedicated to ads/banners, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Are you more interested in making money, or providing information.

Looking at your signal-to-noise ratio (content vs ads) and maintaining a 80% content : 20% ad ratio will create a great user experience. Going beyond a 50% content vs 50% ad ratio is pushing the limits.

Guest author and guest post: If you’ve established a reputation and are seen as credible, take the next step to approach the top 10 channels/outlets in your niche and offer to guest author on their site – whether it’s a news site, a content aggregator or a blog.

If you are known and the site publishes guest posts, you stand a good chance. If not, it’s back to step #1.

In the affiliate marketing context, specialist magazines like FeedFront which comprises an online and print edition can provide great visibility.

Public speaking: Speaking at industry-specific events and related events are Continue reading →