Tag Archives: lisa-picarille

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!

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.

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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 →

Can Professional and Personal Boundaries Be Easily Defined in Social Media?

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Here’s an issue that experienced and aspiring social marketers will face: How to effectively balance publishing content related to your business, and your personal life on the social web. While personal content can help create a connection and rapport with your audience, it can sometimes be a double-edge sword.

In an episode of TheSpew, a business-related podcast on the GeekCast content network, I had the opportunity to discuss this issue with Missy Ward, Lisa Picarille, Connie Berg and Karen White.

While Missy and Shawn Collins are able to effectively inject personal opinions, together with the business content in their twitter streams and blog posts, some of us who’re focused towards corporate clients who are less familiar with the social media environment and operate on a more “rules-based” corporate culture, seeing someone tweet about how great “Lost” was last night or “Free Cone Day” at Ben and Jerry’s might be perplexed, confused and even get riled up because they can’t figure it out.

If you’re a consultant/trainer, there’s a split between presenting a professional image because that’s what’s expected, compared to having the free rein to say what you really think.

It was insightful hearing Lisa, Karen, Connie and Missy who are all engaged with consulting, share their experience in managing these expectations. And any social marketer can get some food for thought in handling this personal vs professional dichotomy on the social networks.

Check out TheSpew Episode #8 on GeekCast.

Geekcast Ups The Content Ante With BrandMouthing and TheSpew

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New podcast network Geekcast (owned by the Affiliate Summit) looks set to be a major player in the audio content game with the recent launch of two business-related podcasts.

A minor quibble I have about the Affiliate Summit is not being able to hear presentations by the event’s co-founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins because they’re busy presenting awards or talking to folks during the 3-day event.

In launching and leading their own new podcasts on Geekcast, this should address the appetite to hear and benefit from their expertise.

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shawn collinsBrandMouthing, a new solo podcast by Shawn Collins, gives his take on branding strategies and marketing techniques that affiliates and internet marketers can employ in their own business. Usually featuring a 5-10 minute duration (the longest has been about 22 minutes thus far), the short, punchy format (with a high signal-to-noise ratio) gives immediate tips.

I’ve enjoyed Shawn’s synopsis of the Cast of Geeks/GeekyBunch sessions when his Skype recording software failed to activate (resulting in a loss of about 1+ hour of content) and the BrandMouthing podcasts likewise provide a short burst of actionable information.

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missy wardTheSpew, helmed by Missy Ward, is vaguely themed after popular women-themed talkshow “The View”, with an affiliate marketing slant. Featuring prominent affiliate marketing/internet marketing veterans like Lisa Picarille, Connie Berg, Karen White, Lisa Riolo, Kim Rowley and featuring guests like Brian Littleton, Scott Jangro and others, the sessions are chock full of useful content, involving issues like the California affiliate tax, Missy’s fundraising projects, insights into the affiliate industry.

Bundled together with this, you’ll also hear about how several marketers got their start, get some insights into what makes them successful. TheSpew bunch have also thoughfully included snippets into managing a healthy work-life balancing, addressing issues like dating other members of the affiliate fraternity, networking at events and balancing parental duties with running your own internet business.

Although the sessions clock in at more than an hour, the time will probably fly by and I’ll be saving the sessions to listen to again.

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I’ve certainly got a healthy fill of content and will be looking forward to more episodes from Shawn and Missy.

You can check them out at:

Listen to the previous Friday Podcast where Missy and Shawn talked about their plans for Geekcast.

Weekend Wonderings – 18 May 2008

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I’m listening to Geekcast ep 16 with guests Scott Jangro and Todd Crawford. Much funnier than the regular series (I think Lisa Picarille’s presence helps up the content quota on both Geekcast and Affiliate Thing). Perhaps it’s time to break the Geekcast into 2 separate sessions (1 content-driven with Lisa and/or a guest on) and a “frat boy” humor edition focused on Stadium Pal, Hand Teddys (sic?), Man-dles, being unable to pee in airplane toilets, etc. (language may be NSFW)

Sam talked about Todd’s new blog, be sure to check out Todd Talks. If you’re nice, you might even hear about his secret project…

This week also saw the launch of Sam’s new RedHatBlueHat political podcast. (and if you’re following the industry, political blogs are quite the money rakers…)

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In other news, I’m getting blog consultants to work on the this blog and there’re a number of neat enhancements coming up. You’ll see the weird MySQL errors popping up when you post comments, but they do end up in the moderation queue. If you posted a comment and didn’t see it published, chances are you dropped a “nice post” or “come and look at my site -> [link to made for adsense or ebook opt-in page]. Your name makes it into the master blacklist of bloggers too…

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I’m posting twitter updates more often too. Twhirl seems to be working like a charm.

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I got a bunch of schwag from CPA network Market Leverage (Thanks Debby and the ML crew!) and have been playing with the Flip Ultra that came in the goodie bag. I’ll post an update next week.