Although Missy Ward and Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Summit West seminar and tradeshow is now over, going through the 300+ photos I’ve taken makes me realize that although the affiliate industry continues to be male-dominated, there’re a number of female faces to take note of too.
With that, here are the women of the Affiliate Summit:
Justine Ezarik is a lifecasting star who vlogs over at iJustine.tv. She spoke at the social marketing session with Sam Harrelson, Stephanie Agresta, Debbie Schultz and Tris Hussey sitting on the panel.
Schaaf Consulting’s Stephanie Harris spoke at the Anik Singal’s AC Certified workshop the day before Affiliate Summit.
Buy.com‘s Melissa Salas chaired the video marketing panel and also received (more…)
With the Affiliate Summit just days away, here’re a few pointers especially if it’s your first time to the summit:
- Vegas Throat: Specific to Las Vegas, you will lose your voice very easily if you don’t take care of your throat. The dry desert air creates a lot of static electricity, it also dries out your throat and you’ll find yourself losing your voice at the end of day 1 or day 2 if you don’t drink enough liquids or take throat lozenges to give your throat a break. Also worth trying a a honey drink at the end of the day (real honey, not that cheap honey-flavored sugar syrup typically sold at grocery stores). I’m bringing a herbal throat syrup that I expect will do wonders (known in Chinese as “Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa”.
- Camera/Video Camera/Flip Camera: Do the touristy thing and take lots of photos during the summit. Better yet, take lots of pictures with people so you can remember what they look like. It’s fairly safe to assume that 90% of bloggers will look NOTHING like what their avatar looks like. (present company included).
- Business Cards: Yes, the reciprocity thing takes place. I give you my card, you give me your card. Generally a great practise, although if you live in the US, you can expect to get lots of follow up calls over the next week. The most important thing about collecting business cards is to follow up within a week after the summit, something that Stephanie Agresta (AKA Internet Geek Girl) is great at. On another note, if you’re like me and collect a couple of hundred business card each year, be sure to carry a pen and scribble “ASW08” on the back of the card, especially after you put it in the huge pile in your office later.
- It’s COLD: Expect a low of 32 deg F according to the weather forecasts, so bring a heavy coat if you get chilly.
- Networks ahead of the summit: Contact people and companies you’d like to meet, especially if you go through the exhibitors list, or if you know that a particular affiliate or blogger is headed over. Some of the people I’m looking forward to meeting: Heather Paulson, Stephanie Agresta, Sam Harrelson, James and Arlene Martell, Jim Lillig, NeverblueAds’ Samantha Brachat, Revenuewire CEO Geordie Carswell. I talk to many of these folks on a daily basis, but it’s always great to meet up in person.
- Take the shuttle bus: If you’re not in a great hurry, the shuttle bus at the airport costs $7 and goes to the major hotels. The taxi ride costs $20 and is a whole lot faster, but you’ll not see as much of the Strip as you would from the bus.
- Plan your schedule: There’s lots of exciting stuff going on at the summit at any single point in time, so you need to work out a schedule of where you want to be at what time. Else there’s a good chance you’ll miss a meeting or miss a workshop session because you were out on the show floor talking to people.
- Get enough rest: With the summit lasting three days, it’s not too bad. But by the morning of day 2, you’ll start to see people dragging themselves along, or mysteriously disappearing in the afternoon to catch some rest. If you rest up on Friday and Saturday, you should have enough energy to last through the event (even with some parties going on till 4am…)
- ***Most important***: Have a goal and an agenda in mind: Are you at the summit to check out a specific affiliate/CPA network? Visit their website, talk to other affiliates before you attend the show. Are you there to network with a particular individual or company? Visit their blog, find out if they haunt a specific forum and read their posts there. If I were an affiliate manager, and if I was motivated to recruit new affiliates, I’d compile a “hit list” of the top 50 (or if I was really motivated top 100) affiliates, I’d visit their blog or website, and check them out, make some notes. Contrary to popular belief, just having ONE canned presentation doesn’t cut it. Sad to say, but going to every booth and being told “we have the highest payouts, and we have many exclusive offers” makes for quite the yawn-fest. I think being able to present your product and your network in a unique fashion, helps pique the interest of experienced affiliates who’re already have accounts on 10 other CPA networks. So please, have a little pow-wow before heading to the summit, figure out a plan of attack that goes beyond “highest payout, exclusive offers” and you will definitely hook more than your fair share of super affiliates.
Does anyone have other advice?
Breaking with the format you’ve been used to, on this week’s edition of the Friday Podcast, I had a guest, NeverBlueAds Lead Affiliate Representative, Samantha Brachat, who shared three niches super affiliate marketers should be taking a lot at, especially with the element of seasonality playing into them.
Sam covers topics like:
- How to select which affiliate/CPA offer to promote, especially if there might be 10 or 15 in the same vertical
- Demographic and conversion data for the offers she mentions on the call
- How to get great value of the your relationship with your affiliate manager
If you’re new or already working with a CPA/affiliate network, you’ll pick up great tips from this episode.
Check out:
–> NeverBlueAds CPA Affiliate Network
The audio recording is accessible below:
32 Mins | 7 MB
According to a survey of 15,000 people by time management consultancy FranklinCovey, the top 3 resolutions for 2008 are:
- Getting out of debt or saving money
- losing weight
- developing healthy habits like exercise
If you ask me, new year’s resolutions are in many cases “structured procrastination”.
You start out in January all pumped up, ready to lose weight, start going to the gym more regularly, but by mid-year the determination is pretty depleted and by August/September it’s a case of “too late, I guess I’ll work on it next year…”
If you’re a smart affiliate, you’d take note of these trends.
Look at the trends for “quit smoking” and “quit drinking”:
Weight loss and lose weight couldn’t fit on that chart [It flew off the chart], but here’s what it looks like:
See the January spikes?
Speak to your affiliate manager and you’d realize that Q1 is gangbusters time for many health and exercise related niches.
If you don’t get in, you’re leaving a huge chunk of change on the table…
I’m currently testing out a number of lucrative offers from the NeverBlueAds CPA/affiliate network.
If you sign up through the link above, you’ll be under the same affiliate manager that I have, the awesome Samantha “Sam” Brachat. Drop me a note through the contact form AFTER you’ve applied and I’ll help you get priority approval.
