New FTC Mandated Disclosure Rules

This past Monday, the Federal Trade Commission made some big changes to its rules on endorsements and testimonials in advertising. It’s the 1st time in 29 years that the FTC has changed them, but it’s a project they’ve been cooking up for a while now. The reason? The Social Media landscape. The agency, charged with protecting consumer interests, has decided to update its policy on endorsements because the Internet has become a compelling medium in shaping consumer decisions. “In 1980 most of all advertising was disseminated by the advertisers themselves; today a good part of that advertising is being disseminated by users,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director- division of advertising practices at the FTC.

The main takeaway is that commercial relationships need to be disclosed, although they did not say how. For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of free-flow giveaways may be over. Gadget bloggers and reviewers on Amazon and such now must disclose freebies and financial interests or face fines up to $11,000 per incident.

What does this mean for affiliates? Affiliate-created blogs, review sites and other pages have proliferated, filled with claims that drive traffic to merchants. However, when this content contains exaggerated claims or fails to disclose connections with sellers, there may be liability for deceptive advertising.

Still, the new rules are fairly ambiguous, but what’s exciting about this is that the social media marketing company I work for (full disclosure, I am not being compensated for this post ) IZEA Inc., has been advocating disclosure for years, and to quote Ted Murphy, CEO of IZEA, the company has “spent thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars building the marketplaces and tools to make social media marketing easy, effective and FTC compliant.”

Go us!!!

The Power Of "F" (face-to-face :)

As affiliate marketers, our focus is on generating online sales for the businesses we represent. Henceforth, most (if not all) of our business dealings are done through the interwebs (i.e.: we research and choose a niche, register a domain with hosting, build a site, develop content and drive targeted traffic to generate conversations). But we can’t (and shouldn’t) underestimate the power of face-to-face meetings.

I encourage you to maximize your networking opportunities at affiliate conferences, such as Affiliate Summit. Many affiliate managers want to talk to affiliates face to face. It’s crucial they know who and what methods are being used to promote their programs. And they want to know what proven marketing methods you are using. Sure, this can be explained via email, but face-to-face adds another element to your business dealings, the human element and consequently, solidifies your relationships. And just think of the possibilities of meeting and learning from affiliate gurus – in person!

With the recent economic downturn, however, it’s no secret that many businesses are cutting back on expenses, which includes travel for f2f’s. In a recent CFO Research Services/American Express global study, a solid majority of survey respondents (87%) say their companies plan to spend less on business travel this year compared with last year. The same report mentioned “that companies seek to control travel spending without compromising sales activities, client relationships, and critical business operations.” Conflicting, isn’t it? What are business to do?

Well British Airways has one solution. The airline and its partners are giving away FREE travel “grants” to 100 small-to-medium size U.S. businesses to anywhere in the world British Airways flies. The campaign, entitled “Business Opportunities Grants”, is part of a multi-phased initiative to help business get ahead by focusing on tangible, human connections as a crucial driver of business growth. As part of the program, British Airways will award each grant winner 10 roundtrip transatlantic Club World business class tickets, Courtyard by Marriott will provide each winner $1000 toward accommodations and Canon will give them a Wireless Office all-in-one printer, specifically designed for small businesses. Pretty cool, eh? How do win your own grant, you ask? Compete to get one here: Business Opportunity Grant. In doing so, you will continue to value the power of “F”.

Happy travels……

Three Simple Steps to Write Headlines That Sell

In a previous super affiliate training post, we went over some techniques on creating headlines. But how do you begin to write those powerful headlines? Here are 3 simple steps:

Step One: Get to know your audience intimately. What are their hopes, dreams, desires, and problems? Understanding your audience will help you create an emotional and powerful headline directed specifically at your audience.

Step Two: Determine how your products or services are going to make your prospect’s lives better or solve their problems. For example if you sell fitness equipment and your audience struggles with feeling attractive then you can create a headline that highlights a specific benefit your fitness equipment offers to solve that problem.

Step Three: Write ten to twenty, yes twenty, possible headlines. Not only will this give you practice writing compelling headlines, it’ll help you hone in on that perfect headline. And if you think you have a few winners you can always test them for conversion rates to find out which headline is more effective.

Marketing and copywriting experts consider your headline to be the most import element of any effective marketing piece. Take the time to craft a compelling headline and you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

The Social Media Revolution

Here’s a cool video on the social media “revolution” by Erick Qualman. You can disagree on the specific stats or it’s intent, but the video is enlightening as it is entertaining:

Affiliate Marketing Terms

Here are a few terms that you might want to know as you dig deeper into the Affiliate Marketing business:

A

Above the Fold – Describes the part of an email message or web page that is visible without scrolling down the page. This term is important because all content above the fold is assumed to be more valuable to the reader as they see it first.

Adsense – Google Text and image ads that are precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertsier.

Adwords – Google’s Pay Per Click advertising program

Affiliate – A web site owner that promotes a merchant’s products and/or services, earns a commission for referring clicks, leads, or sales.

Affiliate Agreement – Terms that govern the relationship between a merchant and an affiliate.

Affiliate Marketing: – A revenue sharing arrangement between online merchants and distributors (affiliates) in which the affiliate earns a commission for producing a sale, lead or click for the merchant’s site

Affiliate Network – A third party providing services to affiliate merchants and affiliates, including tracking technology, reporting tools, and payment processing.

Affiliate Program – Any arrangement through which a merchant pays a commission to an affiliate for generating clicks, leads, or sales from links located on the affiliate’s site. Also know as associate, partner, referral, and revenue sharing programs.

Affiliate Program Directory – Information about a collection of affiliate programs. May include information about commission rate, number of affiliates, and commission structure.

Affiliate Program Manager – The person responsible for administering an affiliate program. Duties should include maintaining regular contact with affiliates, program marketing and responding to queries about the program.

Affiliate Solution Provider – Company that provides the software and services to administer an affiliate program.

Affiliate URL or Link – Special code in a graphic or text link that identifies a visitor as having arrived from a specific affiliate site.

Associate – Synonym for ‘affiliate’.

Autoresponder – An email robot that automatically replies answers emails sent to it. They are often used as e-mail marketing tools, to immediately provide information to prospective customers and then follow-up with them at preset time intervals.

B

Banner Ad – Advertising in the form of a graphic image

Bridge Page - See Doorway Page

C

Chargeback - Incomplete sales resulting in commission reversals

Cookie-cutting - A cookie cutter page is one that’s made from a generic content template

Contextual Link: – Affiliate links placed within related text

Conversion Rate – Percentage of clicks that result in a commissionable activity (sale or lead)

CPA - ‘Cost Per Action’. The amount of cost for a conversion such as a sale or lead

CPC – ‘Cost Per Click’. Cost of an individual click when paying on a per click basis

CPM – ‘Cost Per Thousand’. The cost of 1000 banner impressions

CPO – ‘Cost Per Order’. Same as CPA but refers specifically to sales

Creative – The promotional tools advertisers use to draw in users (i.e.: text links, towers, buttons, badges, email copy, pop-ups, etc.)

Customer Bounty - Pays the affiliate partner for every new customer that they direct to a merchant

D

Doorway Page – Also known as bridge pages, gateway page, entry pages, portals or portal pages, these pages are used to improve search engine placement. Caution: some search engines will drop a site entirely if the existence of doorway/gateway pages is detected

E

EPC – Term used by the Commission Junction affiliate network for ‘average earnings per 100 clicks’. This number is calculated by taking commissions earned divided by the total number of clicks times 100

Exclusivity – The prohibition of the affiliate from promoting competing products on their site

eZine: ‘electronic magazine’

G

Gateway Page – See Doorway Page

I

Impression – How many times a banner advertisement was displayed or viewed

K

Keyword – The search term that a user may enter at a search engine. For example, someone who wants to find a site that sells printer paper might enter ‘printer paper’ at a search engine

Keyword Density – The ratio between the keyword being searched for and the total number of words appearing on your web page. If your keyword only occurs, say, once, in a page that has twenty thousand words, then it has a density of 0.005 percent

L

Lifetime Commissions – An affiliate program that pays a commission on EVERY product or service that the customer buys from the merchant, once you’ve sent the referral, i.e. the customer is yours ‘for life’

Lifetime Value – The total amount that a customer will spend with a particular company during his or her lifetime

Link Popularity – The total number of qualified Web sites linking to your Web site

LVCLVC – Lifetime Value of a Customer. The estimated lifetime sales total for a particular customer

M

Manual Approval – Process in which all applicants for an affiliate program are reviewed individually and manually approved.

Merchant: A business that markets and sells goods or services.

N

Niche Marketing: Focused, targetable market segment

P

Parasite - Technology designed to alter the normal performance of click tracking and disrupt affiliate business

Pay-Per-Click - Rewards an affiliate for each unique click to the merchant’s web site

Pay-Per-Lead - Affiliate program that rewards affiliates for conversions to leads. A lead might include a signup form, software download, survey, contest or sweepstakes entry, signup for a trial, etc. Pay-per-lead generally offers midrange commissions and midrange to high conversion ratios

Pay-Per-Sale - An affiliate marketing program that rewards affiliates based on each conversion to a sale such as when purchasing a product or service from the merchant’s web site. Pay-per-sale programs usually offer the highest commissions but tend to have the lowest conversion rates

Performance-Based Marketing - Marketing in which the merchant only pays commissions for results such as conversions to sales or leads

R

Recurring Commissions – The process of rewarding an affiliate on a recurring basis whenever the merchant charges a customer a recurring fee. For example, a web host that charges customers on a monthly basis might reward the affiliate a percentage of each month’s payment from the customer

Return Days – Number of days after a click through that the affiliate still earns a commission

Residual Earnings – Programs that pay affiliates not just for the first sale a shopper form their sites makes, but all additional sales made at the merchant’s site over the life of the customer

ROAS - ‘Return on Advertising Spending’. This is the amount of revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. For instance, a ROAS of $1 means you’re generating $1 in sales for every $1 in advertising spend, and a ROAS of $5 means you generate $5 in sales for every $1 in spending

ROI - ‘Return on Investment’. This is what all marketing managers want to see from the money they spend on their marketing and advertising campaigns. The higher the sales, the large the number of shoppers and the greater the profit margin generated by sales – the better the ROI

S

Search Engine Optimization – The process of choosing keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your site or page on your site, and placing those keywords within pages so that the site ranks well when those keywords are searched upon.

Search Term Suggestion Tool: – Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Overture during a given month.

Snowballing – This system rewards a chain of hierarchical publishers who may or may not know of each others’ existence, yet generate income for the higher level signup

Spider Detection - The process of detecting and ignoring automated spiders or bots such as search engines like Google/Googlebot

Super Affiliates- The highest performing affiliates

T

Thin Affiliates sites - This refers to low-quality Affiliates sites, unpopular with the search engines

Tracking Method - The way that a program tracks referred sales, leads or clicks. The most common are by using a unique web address (URL) for each affiliate, or by embedding an affiliate ID number into the link that is processed by the merchant’s software. Some programs also use cookies for tracking

U

Unique User – A unique visitor to your Web site

W

Web Host – A business that provide storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve website pages and files

Create Powerful Headlines That Convert

You have mere seconds to capture a prospect’s attention. One of the most powerful tools you have to accomplish this task is your headline. There are several keys to a compelling, and converting headline:

Tap into Your Prospect’s Emotions

According to psychologists, our buying decisions are based first and foremost on our emotions. Use headlines which offer your readers a strong emotional benefit or reaction. Some possible emotionally compelling headlines are ones that make someone feel:

1. Attractive 2. Sexy 3. Assertive 4. Confident  5. Energetic 6. Pampered 7. A sense of belonging 8. In control of their own destiny 9. Wealthy 10. Proud 11. Respected 12. Safe

Make it Active

To move people to action, it’s important to use active language – language that shows movement and commands attention.

For example: Stop Your Sugar Cravings Today With This Simple Step is an OK headline, but it doesn’t command action nor does it really tap into any emotions. However, Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step empowers you, doesn’t it?   Conquer is an active and emotionally powerful word. Readers receive the benefit of feeling powerful and in control and it commands action.

Let Your Reader Know They’re Important

The word YOU is a very powerful word. It let’s your reader’s feel as if you’re talking to them specifically and interested in solving their problems, issues and helping them achieve their desires. Instead of using I, Me or We in your headlines, use You. Yes, it’s all about YOU (them )!  Using the headline example above compare these two options:

Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step

Conquer Sugar Cravings with Our System

People want to know what’s in it for them and when they can assess that information in the headline, they’re going to be compelled to continue reading your copy and making a purchase.

Here are three more ideas for powerful headlines:

Make a promise – Earn $1000 a day

Make it newsworthy – New program guarantees you’ll earn $1000 a day

Ask a question: Do you want to ensure your financial future?

So there you have it – techniques on powerful headlines. Gotta run.  But in a future post, I’ll share even more proven ideas on how to write your own powerful headlines that convert.

Wall Street Journal Going Social

Since the traditional newspaper industry is running out of readers, and thus money,  The Wall Street Journal is gunning for the LinkedIn crowd and all its monetization opportunities — jobs, ads, and, a marketing pool for WSJ subscriptions — with a new social network called WSJ Connect, according to TechCrunch. Apparently, they’re even calling it “LinkedIn Killer” internally.

Instead of building it internally, like they did with its existing WSJ Community, they’ve tapped another arm of parent company News Corp. — Slingshot Lab. WSJ Connect is still in the planning/conceptual stages, but if it moves forward, it would leverage the WSJ brand as a separate property with out a need for a paid subscription to the newspaper.

Just another example of a traditional brand embracing social media as an alternate revenue source, and of course, another nail in the traditional newspaper coffin.

Moms Rule the World

Many Super Affiliates are vying for a multi-billion dollar market: moms.

Why are moms so important? Moms are enterprising. According to BSM Media Inc., mom spending is already over the trillion dollar mark. That’s more than the budget of some third world countries.

Also according to BSM Media Inc., almost 90 percent of moms consider themselves the financial head of the home. Her husband may bring home most of the bacon but it is the moms who decide how to spend it. They shop for everything related to the household: kids clothing, appliances, electronics, outdoor furniture, accessories and home improvement items.

Any husband that shops for these things is going to consult their wives before buying them. Why? Wives do the research into these products to find the best on the market. Moms influence as much as 85 percent of the purchases for the home. That’s over 70 million women we are talking about here. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.

Think about all of the tasks that moms handle in a day. They take care of the housework, shuffle kids from school to sporting events to other activities, cook dinner and manage the finances. In order to keep everything straight, they employ a wide variety of technology. It’s not uncommon to see a mom sitting in the park watching her kids play while listening to an iPod or browsing the Internet on her iPhone.

Moms are also savvy on the Internet. The trend for many years has been moms coming out of the workplace and starting their own businesses at home to spend more time with their kids. To that end, moms have developed a network of blogs, websites and forums designed to teach moms everything from designing websites, starting Internet businesses, marketing to other moms and managing their homes all the while. Their buying power increased exponentially with their knowledge.

And here’s the good news for affiliate marketers: Traditionally the only products marketed towards women were household products and cooking items. This goes back to the archaic thought that a womanís place was in the home. That has been a huge detriment to many companies as they are beginning to see.

Moms are influenced by other moms. Several generations of moms are coming together to influence the spending habits of major corporations. In the future the trend will continue. As moms become more “connected’ in the world, their spending will increase. No product is off limits to mom advertising.

Moms do rule the world. Market and gain the approval of savvy moms with your products and your business will reap the benefits.

SEO vs. SMO

My main forte at work is SEO. Clients come to me asking for assistance in generating more organic, relevant search traffic which, hopefully, converts. But my company’s main offering is social media optimization. But does social media create conversions? What’s the difference between SEO and SMO?

I read in interesting article recently by Jeff Casmer, an IMer and consultant. Here are a few takeaways:

Humans, for the most part, have a need to feel connected, to relate and interact with others. Social media optimization thrives on that need. Social media is all about communication. Its about sharing opinions, and experiences with others via blogs, wikis, message boards (forums), and videos.

While SEO is still an effective means to gain traffic, the web is no longer two dimensional. It has evolved. It’s become increasingly interactive, taken on a three dimensional shape. One that caters to our visual and audio senses, and allows web browsers to have more control over what they see, hear, and, what is now.

Social media optimization, according to Wikipedia, is a way to optimize web sites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites, also called social media sites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a DiggThis button, and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flicker photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos.

The four characteristics of Social Media Optimization are:

Participation- Consumers are not afraid to participate in communities by generating content and engaging in conversations about topics that interest them. Web masters who know this are constantly encouraging user participation on their own sites and blogs.

Conversation- Consumers today do not want to be marketed to. Blatant advertisements are not as effective as they used to be. Instead, consumers wish to be communicated with through conversation that is being stirred up on blogs, wikis and forums. Consumers now have methods to express their thoughts, recommendations and complaints and they are doing so. Webmasters can now communicate with their target audience in real time, and can take these concerns, recommendations to better serve their audience.

Openess- To build trust with their target audience in order facilitate conversation, webmasters must first be open with them. They need to let them know who they are right off the bat. Pretending to be someone your not is the surest way to lose trust. And because any good business is first built on trust its crucial to be open and honest with your market.

Community- Social media conversation is not pulled out of thin air. Every form of social media is based on the fact that we all want to belong to something; they all have a community component to them. Social media sites are micro-communities that allow people with similar interest to share insight, advice, and recommendations about products and services. Before a webmaster can begin to monetize they must first become an accepted member of the community. This is why the first two characteristics are so important.

Many web sites are still static, meaning they are rarely updated and are used as a storefront. Setting up a blog or adding unique, interactive pieces to sites like Digg is a great way to increase linkage to your website. Site owners can encourage visitor participation by facilitating the conversation that is happening virtually everywhere. Consumers are already talking about products and services and buying them; brands need to help them get their attention on theirs. By not joining in, brands are silencing themselves. And that is pretty un-social…

Website Traffic Basics

One of the most significant keys to success is getting website traffic. The more visitors you have, the better your sales and profits. Presumably you have a niche and you know your keywords, and regularly conduct keyword research to stay on top of what’s popular. Based on those assumptions here are five quick and easy tips to get website traffic fast!

Tip #1 Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords

Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage? Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages. Here’s a quick brief on tags.

There are a number of tag types including,

• Title tags. Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords. Here’s what they look like – <title>Primary keyword phrase here. </title>. Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase. The sentence will describe your business in less than 90 characters.

• Header Tags. Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines. They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this – <h1>Primary and/or Secondary keywords here</h1>. The <H1 designates this header as the most important header on the page.

• Meta Tags. Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page. Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.

• Alt Tags. Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic. Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag.

Tip #2 Add content to your site regularly

Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking. Content is what search engine spiders look for and index – without it there’s nothing to index or rank. Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide daily, optimized content and your traffic will soar.

Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links

The more websites which link to your webpages the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal. Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic.

There are different types of links.

- A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com
- A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text. Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page.
- If the link is to an internal web page, for example an article published on a website, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link”.

You can encourage linking to your website by:

• Adding content to your site.
• Submitting to article directories.
• Publishing press releases.
• Blogging and participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites.

Tip #4 Be Social!

Now more than ever before, internet marketing is about building a community. Whether you offer a forum on your website or you participate in social networking sites, social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site ñ create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation.

Tip #5 Advertise for more exposure and traffic

Advertising, when handled strategically, can be used to promote your content and products or services. PPC advertising is often the tool of choice because you control the advertising budget on a daily basis and have the tools to test and track your advertising efforts. Once you’ve honed your PPC ads the return on investment can be phenomenal in terms of traffic and purchases.

For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy. Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action. Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.

« Previous Page — Next Page »