July 27, 2009 Comment on this post
Almost every affiliate has the potential to make a full-time career out of their online marketing activities. In this episode, I explore what’s involved in taking that step from being a part-time to being a full-time affiliate, including experience, the leap of faith, and their passion.
July 20, 2009 Comment on this post
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.
July 13, 2009 1 Comment
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.
July 2, 2009 2 Comments
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.
May 8, 2009 3 Comments
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.
May 1, 2009 2 Comments
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.
April 22, 2009 1 Comment
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…
March 25, 2009 1 Comment
So this is a new video blogging format that I’m trying out. We will get into actual issues in future episodes, but this introductory episode simply explains the format, and my own coffee and tea preferences. Here we discuss coffee, tea, and of course, social media.
March 11, 2009 Comment on this post
When the economy slows down, marketing becomes an even more important investment. After all, with consumer dollars in circulation, capturing every dollar you can not only adds to your profitability, but to your competitive edge. Of course, with fewer consumer dollars in circulation, controlling your marketing expenditures and maximizing ROI is also more important than ever.
The performance-based model of affiliate marketing, then, makes it a particularly opportune online acquisition strategy. Because you pay only for results, you remain in complete control of your online marketing spend.
Well, recently, I attended the Bet Markets conference in Vienna where I delivered a session on leveraging affiliate marketing to gain both control over your online marketing spend and added intelligence into what strategies are working best. Although the presentation is geared specifically toward online sportsbook operators, the message is something that I would share with all kinds of ecommerce merchants.
In my presentation, I explained not only how an affiliate program can be particularly valuable during a recession, but what merchants should know about the affiliate marketplace if they want to get the most out of this acquisition channel. Specifically, I went over:
This is the Powerpoint from my presentation. It’s also available for download here; simply click through and you’ll find a download button on the landing page.
March 5, 2009 Comment on this post
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.
