Posts Tagged ‘amit-mehta’
Over the weekend, I stayed up till 1:30 am to plan my flights and get my hotel confirmed for Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s upcoming Affiliate Summit West, at the Rio in Las Vegas from Feb 24-26.
Unlike the past Affiliate Summit where I found myself hiking from Harrah’s (which has great prime rib) to Bally’s every morning, I was determined to get lodging at the Rio where the summit will be held.
Having said that, here’s some summit survival tips:
- Take the bus if you have time and like to see the city. It costs about $6 for a 1-way ticket and stops at most of the major hotels. It does take a little time to get around though because it stops at quite a number of hotels.
- Wear comfortable walking shoes as you’ll be pounding the show floor if you’re diligent about meeting merchants and networks (I only got through about 25% of the booths the last time round because I was talking to and got waylaid by people as I was walking around).
- Carry a backpack if you don’t want to be lugging your schwag all over the place. Especially if there’re booths giving out Plasma TVs, Xbox360s and Nintendo WIIs (I think most of us can go out and buy one, it’s just the ultra competitive streaks in every motivated affiliates that comes out when it comes to competitions…)
With that out of the way, and a 15 hour plane ride (I’m taking a direct Singapore-Los Angeles flight on a brand spanking new Airbus A380 this time) ahead, what’s in store at Affiliate Summit?
The fun begins before the event starts.
Anik Singal and his Affiliate Classroom team have organized Affiliate Classroom Live, a 1-day workshop for affiliate managers on Saturday 23 Feb. What’s more it’s free…Places are very limited though, so check out:
–> Anik Singal’s Affiliate Classroom Live
Chase the workshop with Brook Schaaf’s Affiliate Dinner. Expect to see a guest of honor. Expect to see the guest of honor roasted…What fun!
Is Affiliate Dinner a ponzi scheme? Here’s the answer…
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So day 1 of the summit kicks off with the “Affiliate Meet Market” from noon to 6pm. I missed this the last time because of a delayed flight, but I’m arriving a day early to make sure I am able to take part in the meet-and-greet and associated networking.
Here’s the floorplan for the Affiliate Meet Market. (PDF format)
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Day 2 kicks off with Jason Calacanis’ keynote.
With Jason recently refering to “Affiliate Spam” “polluting” the search engines at the Paris Le Web seminar, you can expect some fireworks during the keynote.
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One note about the presentations that follow. An overwhelming number of presentation proposals were submitted, with the result that about 4 presentations are simultaneously ongoing during each time slot. In many cases, you have great sessions going on at the same time.
I checked with Shawn and he mentioned that the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing later.
I’d suggest prioritizing your favorite sessions and making a beeline for them. In some cases I can see the majority of the crowd gravitating towards ONE session…
Forewarned is forearmed…
I’ve listed some of the sessions I personally am interested in attending:
As I’ve been doing a number of podcast and vlogging (video blogging) lately, I’m keen to check this session out.
I met Buy.com’s Melissa Salas last Feb at ASW, and she present a pretty great show for Buy.com over at Buy.Tv.
(As of last October, on the BuyTV MySpace page it’s mentioned that “BuyTV was just informed that it has been picked up for local programming via Time Warner, Cox, Charter, DirecTV, Echostar, Dish Network and others – Sunday mornings at 11:30am PST”)
And you have a panel of other video marketing/video blogging folks (more…)
Two elements are critical to the success of any social marketing campaign.
The first element is one that just about everyone is good at – The size of your network.
I say everyone is good at this element because all it takes to massively increase the number of friends in your MyBlogLog, BumpZee, YouTube, Facebook or other community is hitting the ‘add friend’ button and doing it over, and over, and over, and over again.
But here’s where it gets interesting, the fine line between social marketing and spamming is drawn when the relationship and more importantly permission and consensus are factored in.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve datamined someone’s email, cell phone from the net, your attempt to game the social network for personal gain falls flat on its face if you don’t have the relationship to back it up.
You might be wondering if this is merely ‘theoretical’ or ‘hypothetical’ or how well it works in real life…
Look at what happened to me last year…
I’ve been active on the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum for some time, giving advice on my pet area of blogging. So having been invited to be a ‘Blogging Guide’, I spend more time on the forum and create an instructional thread on “Blogging For Bucks”
And one day I read a thread on the forum about this new Super Affiliate’s blog, Super Affiliate Mindset.
And after talking with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta for some time, we decide to jointly work on a product, which eventually becomes the Super Affiliate Accelerator. (the site is being upgraded at the moment).
The project is intended to create a series of custom training to provide business strategies and PPC tactics to new and experienced affiliate marketers.
Part of the program involves inviting other established Internet Marketers in on some of the mastermind sessions we’re organizing.
So I ask my friend Wil Reynolds, founder of top SEO agency Seer Interactive, to join in on one of our upcoming calls.
And as part of my research, I watch some of Wil’s videos from Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit Seminar.
If you’re new to Search Engine Optimization, undoubtedly, Wil’s suggestions to check out 3 key blogs to keep you up to date on SEO developments will be intriguing.
What are the 3 blogs?
Listening to Wil’s recommendations, I opened my copy of SEOBook I’d purchased early last year.
I’d glanced through it a number of times and picked up great SEO tips and subsequently listed it on my recommendations page.
Now, with the weight of Wil’s endorsement, I re-read it (all 350 pages in a 2 hour sitting).
If you have not read it yet, you will not know that it goes beyond SEO, to encompass Aaron’s copywriting strategies and even PPC management. More importantly, Aaron includes elements of his Internet Marketing journey from spamming links to creating quality white hat links.
If you haven’t yet, why not spend the opening days of this year, checking out Aaron Wall’s SEOBook.
…There’s just a little more than a day to finish what you were supposed to have completed this year.
It’s natural to measure your achievements by how much you have earned, but I think a more important measure is how much you have learned this year.
Even a salaried employee can go through the year, earning a steady paycheck, with a fat bonus on top of it, and not learn much or be very much improved over the past year…not to mention an internet marketer or entrepreneur who spent all year reading, “finding their direction” and still not be much closer to their goal.
Look into the psychological mirror and take a hard look at the reflection, is the “You” on December 31, 2007, very different from the “You” on January 1, 2007?
What are 3 achievements you have made this year, and what are 3 achievements you plan to achieve next year.
In his book “The Magic of Thinking Big” author David Schwartz says if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person because it will get done. If you give it to someone with lots of free time on their hands, it’s likely they won’t get it done because they aren’t able to prioritize and take action. And action is where it counts, because ideas and thoughts are not active till acted upon.
In January, I’ll be:
- Developing and launching a membership site as part of the Super Affiliate Accelerator project I’m working on with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta.
- Interviewing Seer Interactive’s Wil Reynolds (one of the best speakers addressing issues in SEO).
- Launching a guerilla style PPC campaign which I’ve adapted from tactics my buddy Ruck has blogged about over at CashTactics.
- Developing a series of content creation tutorials over at Haiko De Poel’s ABestWeb affiliate marketing forum.
- Launching a contest on this blog with attractive prizes. (I have a $250 prize in the bag now and will aiming to get $1,000 worth by the launch).
And a number of assorted administrative and tax issues for a new Internet Marketing company which Amit and I formed about a month ago.
I can’t really say I’ll get the 8+ hours sleep per day that I’ve enjoyed over the last 2 weeks…
But it’s going to be one heck of a wild ride!
See you in 2008!
It’s been more than a week since I left Las Vegas after attending Anik Singal and Jeremy Palmer’s PPC Classroom Live.
So the question is “Was it worth a 20+ hour plane ride each way?”
Certainly a resounding YES!
I got to meet a bunch of great people and the stellar cast of speakers presented great content. Now it’s a matter of hunkering down and putting some of those ideas into practise.
The turnout was very respectable with the room filled to the gills…
It was great to hear how Anik took one of his info product sites, added CPA offers to it and have it generated $42,000+ to date this year.
Andrew Wee and Anik Singal
Just as you’re seeing a convergence of search marketing and PPC marketing, I believe the worlds of info marketing and lead generation/affiliate marketing are going to draw closer in the coming year.
Andrew Wee, Kirt Christensen, Greg Cesar
I look to Kirt Christensen as one of the pioneers in Internet Marketing, together with his partner, Terry Dean.
It was certainly illuminating to hear about his strategies for positioning yourself as a PPC management agency and it was pretty impressive hearing about some of the biggest Internet marketers he manages PPC campaigns for.
Greg Cesar is someone who’s in my mastermind and this was (more…)
Internet Marketer Brad Callen, known for his products SEO Elite and Keyword Elite has just released a new software aimed at helping affiliate marketers bring their campaigns to the next level.
Containing various affiliate product analytics tools, spy and intelligence tools as well as PPC tools, Affiliate Elite looks poised to put another weapon into every affiliates’ marketing arsenal.
Rather than merely write about Affiliate Elite, I’ve created walkthrough videos and review videos capturing Affiliate Elite’s key features.
Here’s an introduction of Affiliate Elite, which consists of 4 modules:
- Affiliate Product Finder (for Clickbank and Paydotcom) / Marketplace datafeed analytics tool
- Google reverse search
- Analyze Adwords Competition
- Super Affiliate Finders
Here’s a walkthrough of Affiliate Elite’s features:
Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite Product Review Part 1
And detailed looks at: Affiliate Product Finder
Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite Product Review Part 2
Google Reverse Search
Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite Product Review Part 3
AdWords Competition Analyzer
Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite Product Review Part 4
Super Affiliate Finder
Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite Product Review Part 5
Overall, this could be a good addition to your affiliate toolkit and compliements similar tools such as WordTracker, SpyFu, KeyCompete and others.
PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta and I have put together a special Affiliate Elite bonus which will bring your affiliate campaigns to the next level if you get Affiliate Elite through us.
You can check it out at:
–> Super Affiliate Mastermind promotion for Brad Callen’s Affiliate Elite
In contrast to the numerous “I am new to the Internet, I have no money and I don’t have a computer (I’m typing this to you at work), I want to make a full time living online as a Super Affiliate. Please advise me” emails I received [Do send me the answer to that because I don’t have a ready answer…], I’ve got a more realistic question this week:
I am willing to learn, I have bought a number of ebooks, and have made a few affiliate sales (about $50-100 worth of commissions each month), but at this rate, I doubt I’ll be able to quit my day job and live on my online income anytime soon. What do you suggest I buy next and how much do I have to spend before I make a full time online income? Thanks!
Here’s a list of what I bought:
[A list of about 5 ebooks follow. I’m guess she’s spent about $300 on them]
Patty
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My Answer:
It’s encouraging to see new Internet marketers take responsibility for their actions and I think the fact that you’re generating sales from your website each month shows that you’re taking consistent effort.
To make the gap between generating “hobby money” (I define this as less than $2,000 a month in online income) and a living based on your online businesses means that you need a couple of ingredients:
Have you defined what income level you’re aiming for? ($1,000? $10,000? $100,000 per month?). More importantly, have you listed the amount of time and resources you’re willing to put into this?
Most new marketers write down a $20,000 a month goal when they start out, and they put in barely 2 hours a week into their business. There’s a serious effort-reward gap in the equation…
An online business still follows the effort -> result equation. You don’t just need to dream big, you need to put in the sweat equity at least in the early stages.
Do your research before you begin. What niche are you going to focus on? Is it a niche market? Is the demand sufficient to sustain your revenue (and profit?)?
Is it a competitive market? Can you compete effectively?
What’re your monetization strategies? A goal of 100 Adsense clicks a day might be a good start, but are they only paying $0.10 a click? Are there affiliate programs available? Would you create your own product?
Once your research has concluded and you’ve decided on your business model, you need to be focused and consistent in your efforts. There was an Internet marketer who built their blog up to about 500 visitors a day, she left for a 6 week vacation and the visitors dropped to about 5 a day when she returned. It took another couple of months to build it up to her pre-vacation traffic level.
- Go Beyond Costs, Focus On Results
Here’s one takeaway from my buddy, Amit Mehta’s post “What’s Your Investment Plan?“, you need to figure out what your expect return or result is from any investment you make…
It’s not just a cost issue, you need to take stock of (more…)
