Congratulations to our winners! The financial community Sharewise and the crowdsourcing platform humangrid won our $2 Mio zanox Application Store Contest.

With more than 100 participants, choosing the top candidates wasn’t an easy task for the jury. However, the winners’ innovative monatisation models as well as their conversion-oriented approach to the crowdsourcing idea were the most important factors that fully convinced the jury.

humangrid’s “people as a service” SEO Text Create enables publishers to use more than 10.000 international clickworkers to create unique, search engine optimised texts for their website. With Adibility, Sharewise created an app that increases the credibility of ad media by adding  matching Twitter feeds.

We are looking forward to more great ideas by our winners and wish them best of luck with further developing their businesses!

I had the pleasure of attending London Fashion Week with the guys over at Topman yesterday.

You may remember a similar post back in September, where Topman Design featured in the MAN show for Spring/Summer 2009.

Well, this year saw Topman Design host their very own show for Autumn/Winter 2010. A positive step in the right direction for Topman, putting them on par with designers such as Carolyn Massey and James Long.

It was a full house with three queues of people eager to take their seat, amongst them were some familiar faces I was able to recognise; Kele of Bloc Party, Mr. Hudson, and of course Arcadia’s own Philip Green who spent most of his time on the phone and in front of a dozen cameras.

The range was very inspiring, with lots of dark colours and textures being coupled together. An easily wearable collection, with an edgy, industrial feel. The models looked very relaxed, with slouchy being the main focus.

I would definitely recommend that you watch the show for yourself, and welcome any comments you might have.

Once again a huge thank you to the Topman team for an enjoyable day.

Until next time,

Dean
dean.murr@affiliatewindow.com

Bookmark It

Don’t forget tomorrow is the Affiliate Marketing Council’s monthly meeting at the IAB’s offices in London.

Up for discussion this month are the rebate catcher guidelines, key projects for 2010 and potential changes aimed at making the meetings more effective.

If you’d like to come along then drop by (14 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5NF) at 3pm to find out more – you may even get a post-meeting drink thrown into the bargain.

Alternatively drop Kevin Edwards an email or follow the Council on Twitter @IAB_AMC

Bookmark It

Written by: Simon Slade, Guest Blogger

If you read my earlier post on acquiring visitors’ email addresses, you understand how important it is to build an email list, and how a newsletter can be a great way to get value from those subscribers. But how can you promote products in your newsletter series without sending your subscribers running for the “unsubscribe” button? How do you promote newsletter loyalty and, at the same time, monetize it to the max?

Let me share with you my 7 steps to a killer newsletter: How to grab readers’ attention, hook them, and sell to them. We at Affilorama employ this strategy quite regularly with our newsletter lists, and with subscribers topping 100,000… we must be doing something right!

Step 1 – Refer to it as a ‘6-day mini course’ instead of a newsletter

• Firstly: It’s more exciting than a newsletter – Essentially it’s the same thing but it sounds a lot more interesting. And, because you usually pay for a course, subscribers will feel like they’re getting something of value for free!
• Secondly: It lowers the commitment barrier – By signing up for a 6-day course, subscribers will not feel like they’re being added to a list they’ll never get away from.
• Thirdly: It builds trust – By creating a 6-part series of high quality emails, you build a good reputation with your subscribers and get them used to opening your emails.

Step 2 – Build an inviting sign-up box

You need to make it really obvious how to subscribe. A good idea is to have your sign-up box display “above the fold” and appear on every page of your site.

Your sign up box really has to pack a punch. Don’t just shove a little form in your sidebar and hope for the best. You need to sell your newsletter – almost as if it was a paid product.

We’re not saying that you have to create a huge sales letter for it; a few bulletpoints covering what people will learn in each lesson is sufficient. But don’t give too much away. Create a bit of mystery, and make it enticing!

Step 3 – Make sure your content is the very best you can offer

It’s an old saying that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and it’s true for your newsletter. If you don’t capture the attention of your readers from the start, there’s every chance they will unsubscribe and you will have lost them forever!

Conversely, if they haven’t unsubscribed within the first 10 to 15 emails, then they will probably stay on your list for good. Fantastic! Another reason to make sure that your first 10 emails are first class.

The quality of your content also sets the tone for how much readers will respect you as a source of trusted advice. If the content has obviously been copied, scraped, or lacks substance, it’s likely your readers won’t view you as an authority and your product recommendations will be far less successful.

Step 4 – Include affiliate promotions, but leave the hard sell at home

While there’s nothing wrong with including relevant affiliate links to ClickBank products in the body or signature of your emails, the focus really needs to be on valuable content. So avoid the hard-sell in your mini-course.

One technique is to just say “if you’re looking for the best guide to XYZ, I really recommend ABC. It gets right to the heart of 123 and will teach you XYZ in no time” and then return to your main content. You need to remind yourself that you are trying to build trust. A constant sales pitch will undermine that.

Step 5 – Day 7 promotional email

After the 6-day course has ended, your subscribers are ready to get a hard-sell promotional email. This could be a product review or talk of a recent product launch. Pull out all the stops and sell, sell, sell. Include limited, time-sensitive offers or create truly unique deals by adding your own bonuses that you’ve put together for this promotion.

Step 6 – Keep emailing them every 3 days

At this point you need to decide which direction your newsletter will take:

Option 1 – If you want to build loyalty and have long-term subscribers, then offer a mix of informative and promotional emails, emailing every 3 days, with every 3^rd email being something promotional like a product review.

Option 2 – If you’re not interested in building up your email list as a long-term asset, you can take the option of ongoing, rapid-fire promotion. Product reviews, launch offers, YouTube reviews and affiliate links should feature heavily in all your emails. True, your subscribers will probably end up growing tired of it but hopefully by then they’ve bought from you at least once!

So, is emailing every 3 days too much? Surprisingly, our tests proved that emailing two or 3 times a week was optimal. There are reasons for this and why email frequency is a vital part of your newsletter strategy but the key is: don’t be afraid to email people frequently. Chances are they won’t be opening all your emails so in reality they aren’t actually getting 3 emails a week after all!

Step 7 – Track your newsletter performance like a bloodhound

Don’t fire and forget. Know which newsletters are helping and which are hurting.

• Check your autoresponder statistics to see which emails are generating the most unsubscribes. Look at what might be offending your subscribers in these emails. Can you fix it and keep them hanging on?
• Use ClickBank’s tracking IDs (TIDs) to see which promotional links are getting the most clicks. Create a new tracking ID for each newsletter. If nobody is clicking the links in a particular email, can you see why that is?
• Don’t forget to use redirects or other link-rewriting services to make those nasty affiliate links look pretty and inoffensive to click on!

Hold up just one minute – Is your niche newsletter-worthy?

Before you even start down the road of building a newsletter and getting sign-ups, you need to determine if a newsletter would be helpful or appropriate for your niche. Not every niche works well with a newsletter series. Dog training, World of Warcraft, and dating niches are good because people have a passion for these topics. On the contrary, I am yet to meet anyone who has an ongoing interest in yeast infections or hemorrhoids. Nobody wants to be reminded of these problems every three days!

Don’t underestimate the value of a good newsletter

Many affiliates find that a large portion of their earnings comes from their newsletter series. Sometimes they earn more from their newsletter than their actual website! Rolling out a killer newsletter strategy is one of the most profitable exercises you can undertake – you just need to make sure you do it right!

Have you used this newsletter strategy? Did you modify it to boost its converting power or did it not work for you?

If you haven’t already, I’d recommend you review the Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing before kicking off your next campaign!

About the author

Simon Slade is the CEO of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers free video training, education, and affiliate tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers. You can follow them on Twitter.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Email to Promote ClickBank Products
2. 5 Steps to Making Your First Sale as an Affiliate Marketer
3. Acquiring Leads: How to Capture Visitors’ Email Addresses Before They Leave

Last week, we were happy to announce the finalists of our $2 Mio zanox Application Store Contest. With more than 100 participants, choosing our top candidates wasn’t an easy task. During the past ten months, we were looking for the best monetising applications and we are really close to having found the most promising ones! So, what we can tell so far is that we decided to award more than just one winner

It’ll be this Friday, 26 February, that we announce the winners of our $2 Mio zanox Application Store Contest! They will receive a total of 2 million US-Dollars in growth capital for their businesses. You can check out the finalists again here – we wish them all best of luck and of course will keep you updated!

Wiskirchen to discuss venture idea evaluation with other prominent figures in entrepreneurial and investor communities

Feb. 16, 2010 — Brad Wiskirchen, CEO of Idaho’s top performing privately held tech company Keynetics and its subsidiaries Kount and ClickBank, has been selected by the Stanford Graduate School of Business to take part in an important panel discussion during the university’s annual Entrepreneur Conference.

The conference, scheduled Feb. 26 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., features a series of interactive panels and a list of speakers that includes prominent figures in the entrepreneurial and investor communities. It will be held in the South Building of the Graduate School of Business.

Wiskirchen will serve on a panel entitled “Idea Evaluation.” Also on this panel are Dave Whorton, Tugboat Ventures; Kevin Reeth, Outright.com; Bob Fell, Pricelock, Inc.; and Justin Fishner Wolfson, Founder’s Fund. Panelists will address how to determine whether an idea is substantial enough to start a new venture, how to solicit and incorporate feedback to make an idea more viable, and how the evaluation process impacts decisions on how to structure and fund future stages of development.

“The Entrepreneur Conference is one of the programs the Stanford Graduate School of Business provides to helps students, faculty and alumni develop a greater understanding of the issues and challenges faced by entrepreneurs,” said Wiskirchen. “By sharing what we have experienced first-hand, we can deepen and advance attendees’ knowledge of business enterprise and management. I look forward to being part of such a valuable learning experience.”

The Stanford Graduate School of Business Entrepreneur Conference is expected to draw about 350 attendees. For a complete conference schedule and list of additional panel discussions and speakers, please visit the conference website.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. ClickBank VP Appointed to Advisory Board of European Affiliate Marketing Conference a4uexpo
2. ClickBank Provides Affiliate Marketing Insight at Affilicon Israel
3. ClickBank to share insight on European affiliate marketing growth strategies at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas

Last night Ogilvy HQ in Canary Warf was the home to a fantastic melting pot of the great and the good of Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates, merchants, agencies and networks enjoyed complementary food and drinks at this invaluable networking event.

This was the fourth event the networks have hosted and was open to anyone and everyone involved within the industry.

The event proved to be a success with many new connections made and existing relationships strengthened, but don’t take my word for it here is some feedback from the night.

“If that was my office, I don’t know how I’d get any work done. Fantastic venue! Had a great night catching up with old friends and of course making new ones; it’s always best to talk commission rates over a beer… even better if it’s a free one!”
Dom Hodgson, Hodgetastic

“It is always great to meet people within our industry and last night’s event was a superb, laid back way of doing so. I caught up with lots of old friends as well as meeting some new people, discussing new ideas and hopefully instigating come new partnerships. The fact that interaction is encouraged, but not forced, and that no-one is giving you the hard sell made it a really enjoyable event.”
Matt Bailey, Head of Affiliates, www.i-level.com

“Ogilvy have done themselves proud with a fantastic event really slickly arranged. These events are always a great opportunity for networks, agencies, affiliates and advertisers to get together and network in a really informal atmosphere”.
Kevin Edwards, Strategy Director, Affiliate Window

Many Affiliate Window staff attended the event and we were able to get some great shots from the evening

There are more photos on our facebook page and on Flickr

Bookmark It

Dush Ramachandran to lend international affiliate marketing expertise to a4uexpo board as plans solidify for Munich conference this May

Feb. 11, 2010 – ClickBank Vice President Dush Ramachandran has been appointed to the advisory board of a4uexpo, a European conference focused on bringing together top affiliate marketing specialists to discuss global industry trends and business opportunities.

Ramachandran joins other leading affiliate marketing experts on the a4uexpo advisory board including Sabine Haase, director of marketing & performance technology at affilinet GmbH; Alison Guise, general manager at ValueClick; and Missy Ward, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

“Dush gives the board an added dimension,” said Matthew Wood, founder and managing director of Existem Events Ltd, the company which coordinates the highly-successful series of a4uexpo conference events. “He has a considerable amount of practical experience and industry knowledge, not to mention a network of more than 100,000 affiliates to tap into. This is complementary to the many resources that existing advisory board members bring to the table.”

Wood said affiliate marketing opportunities in Europe are numerous and extremely diverse. The advisory board, he said, helps ensure that conference agendas, presentations and panel debates remain current and relevant.

“I look forward to working with the extremely talented and knowledgeable members of this board, and to helping ensure that a4uexpo remains Europe’s premiere affiliate marketing event,” said Ramachandran.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. ClickBank to share insight on European affiliate marketing growth strategies at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas
2. ClickBank Sponsoring a4uexpo in Germany & Offering Discount Code
3. ClickBank Executive Dush Ramachandran on Affiliate Boards

Written by: Charles Kirkland, Guest Blogger

This is the final post in a three-part series. Be sure to read Parts 1 and 2 first!

Factor 3 – PPC Marketing the Smart Way

When using PPC marketing, there are several factors to take into account to guarantee that your ads are displayed properly so that your money is spent on the clicks that have potential for converting into affiliate sales. These are some tips will help you get started with PPC marketing for your affiliate products the smart way.

1. Properly group your keywords

Creating groups of keywords based on their theme will assist the search engine in displaying ads that are relevant to those particular keywords.  Avoiding placing all of your keywords in one large group makes it easier to test the strength of your different campaign ads.

2. Link to a specific web page on your site

Every click counts. If you are displaying a specific ad for a particular keyword then you want to ensure that the ad directs the visitor to the appropriate page. In general, this would mean a specific landing page and not the homepage of your website.

3. Focus on a keyword’s overall conversion rate

It is common for marketers to confuse a keyword’s high click through rate (CTR) with its actual overall ability to convert. The CTR is only referring to those who clicked on the ad and reached your page. It does not count the amount of people who then went to the merchant’s sales page and actually purchased the product.

4. Split up campaigns based on region

It is ideal to display your ads based on the geographic region of the visitor. If you organize your keyword ad groups properly, you can customize your ads to attract more people. This is a key method to personalize your ads, as you can write them in a language native or familiar to people.

I hope these tips have been helpful for you in getting started in your affiliate marketing business. The key point that I want you to remember is that PPC can be done very effectively on a shoestring budget, when you have the right offer, when you have the right landing page and when you are taking advantage of PPC marketing.

About the Author

You can read about Charles Kirkland and his adventures and misadventures in affiliate marketing at his blog. He also provides free affiliate training and videos for marketers at any level there as well.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. The Low-Cost Guide to Getting Started in PPC Marketing: Part 2
2. The Low-Cost Guide to Getting Started in PPC Marketing

Yes the title is correct, the Internet Advertising Bureau are hosting a FREE Marketing Workshop. This specially organised session comprises of a host of practical tasks – utilising the IAB’s Affilaite Marketing Council’s expertise.

The aim of the session is to offer merchants running affiliate programmes a greater insight into the industry as well as discussing current trends and best practises. There will be presentations covering the main areas of affiliate marketing including agencies, affiliates, networks and merchants. Confirmed speakers for the day so far include Tina Judic from Artemis8 and Lina Patel from Lastminute.com

The event will be held at the IAB offices on Tuesday the 9th March 4 – 5.30pm. If you are interested in attending please email elle@iabuk.net or call 0207 050 6969. Alternatively click here to book online.

For more information about the IAB please click here.

Bookmark It