Ecom Access » Vlog

Coffee With Nicky – Episode 7: Affiliates for Retention

Nicky — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:04:50 +0000

Although affiliates are often used primarily for acquistion, they also have a lot of potential for retaining customers. In this episode, I discuss how merchants can work with their affiliates for retention purposes and convert one-time buyers into repeat customers.

Coffee With Nicky – Episode 6: Affiliate Software and Relationships

Nicky — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:26:29 +0000

The software that powers a merchant’s affiliate program also reflects on their brand. The features and tracking offered through their chosen software tells affiliates how serious the merchant is about their affiliate program and the business relationships they build with affiliates. In this episode, I explore what those features are, and how merchants can better evaluate and choose an affiliate marketing platform.

iPhone Version

Coffee with Nicky – Episode 5: What Affiliates Need from Software

Nicky — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:03:59 +0000

Affiliates rely on the software that powers a program to track and calculate their revenue. In that respect, the software powering the programs they promote is their life-blood. In this episode, I discuss exactly what affiliates should look for in the software that powers the programs they promote — from overall transparency to the specific reports they need to optimize their online marketing efforts.

iPhone Version

Coffee with Nicky – Episode Four: Twitter and Affiliates

Nicky — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:34:15 +0000

With Twitter having exploded into the mainstream, just about everyone is discussing how to use it toward their marketing goals. But where brands are focused on simply building awareness or managing their PR, affiliates need to focus on actual conversions. Well, in this latest episode of Coffee with Nicky, I decided to discuss exactly what the potential of Twitter is for affiliate marketers, and how they should consider using it toward their affiliate marketing goals.

iPhone Version

Coffee with Nicky – Episode Three: Twitter Brands

Nicky — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:16:02 +0000

The more that I use my Twitter account, the more uses I see for the medium. As a social medium, Twitter can be used toward a variety of objectives. And this is no exception for brands. Twitter allows brands to reach out to a targeted market, connect and build relationships with it, and get out their message. In fact, it reminds me a lot of having a client- or journalist-list like so many of us did before the internet exploded into the world of marketing-communications.

iPhone Merchants

Coffee with Nicky – Episode Two

Nicky — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:48:19 +0000

I’ve been traveling quite a bit over the last month, so it’s been a while since the last episode of Coffee with Nicky. In this episode, I discuss my experience with social media, as well as my observations of how it pertains to my relationship with both friends and family. For instance, I recently signed up for a Twitter account, so I touch upon how that’s working for me. I also discuss my experience with Facebook, and how it affect my comfort level with the public/private/professional divide in my life. I hope you enjoy…

iPhone Version

Podcamp Toronto Presentation

Nicky — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:34:55 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I attended Podcamp Toronto and delivered a session titled Monetizing Communities: Ethics and Strategies. In fact, my experience at Podcamp was the inspiration behidn my last blog post. Well, the footage of that session has finally been posted, so I wanted to share it with everyone who could be there in the flesh. The organizers of Podcamp have also posted a media archive of all the sessions. With other presenters including the likes of Chris Brogan, Dave Fleet, Mark Blevis, Terry Fallis and Michelle Sullivan, it’s an archive that’s well worth checking out for anyone who’s interested in new media and online communitiy.

Online Communities & Business

Nicky — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:42:46 +0000

There is so much discussion in the world of marketing, these days, about the power of online communities. Well, I think that communities have always been this important. It just so happens that now that we have the internet, many of the communities have moved online or have an online component to them. Something that I once brought up in an article on Markets vs. Communities:

when members of any demographic (market or otherwise) are able to interact, they become a community, and when anyone interacts with that community (brand or otherwise), they become a member of it.

Well, here is the final installment of the five video series that the communications team Shanghaied me into doing, and it’s all about the importance of business communities. For me, business communities have been playing an important role for much longer than Web 2.0 has been around. It’s just that having community interaction archived online really adds value to community experience.

iPhone Version

Working Around Client Needs

Nicky — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:39:31 +0000

Understanding a client’s needs is paramount in building a successful, long-lasting relationship. Without that understanding, your efforts can become completely misguided, making it nearly impossible to find solutions.

This is the fourth of five clips that our team put together after bringing a video camera in to one of our discussions. Here I discuss client relationships and how their needs factor into that relationship. It comes on the heels of my last interview about merchant-affiliate relationships, and I think it makes a perfect follow up. I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to any comments or feedback that you might have.

iPhone Version

The Merchant-Affiliate Relationship

Nicky — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:17:09 +0000

For me, relationships are at the heart of all business. They make it possible to build trust, and without trust, business transactions wouldn’t be possible. After all, buyers need to trust that they will receive what they pay for, and sellers need to trust that they will receive payment.

This is the third of five installments of the video series that our team jostled me into doing. This clip is about affiliate marketing specifically, and in it, I discuss my thoughts on the merchant-affiliate relationship.

iPhone Version