How to Attract Top Affiliates

I don't have a ton of experience with affiliate marketing. When I launched the Funny Employee Awards affiliate program earlier this year, I wasn't sure what to expect. Luckily, I've received some excellent advice from Jeremy Schoemaker:

"For affiliates its pretty simple… they either make money or they don’t. If I were you I would blow it out of the water by offering a MUCH higher payout. I think its as important for you to get brand recognition as it is to get sales $$$ at this time.

Here is the scoop when it comes to affiliates. They are SO adverse to change but once they try it they will probably keep going. So your goal is just getting them to try it. Maybe offer a 100% payout for their first month? Sure you break even for their first month but the brand recognition and buzz might be worth it.""

Offering 100% payout for the first month is such a great idea, and I never would have thought of it. It's definitely something I'm going to try for my next project.
In the meantime, if you have some great ideas for promoting my eBook "Funny Employee Awards," join my affiliate program and drop me an email. I can offer a much higher payout listed on the site if you can deliver the traffic.

Million Dollar eBook Marketing Plan

Lots of people have made a million dollars and then told you how they did it. But how many people tell you how they're going to make a million dollars and then show you? That's what I will to attempt to do.
My product will be an eBook that is tentatively scheduled to go on sale October 1, 2008. I don't know if you can make a million dollars selling an eBook, but I believe in aiming high. For the purposes of this experiment, we will also include any income from speaking fees, consulting fees, or other ancillary income that results from the sale and promotion of the eBook.
Let's explore some potential avenues for marketing the eBook:

Television Advertising and Promotion

I'm not an expert on infomercials or TV spots, so I'm not likely to go that route initially. If were going to run commercials, though, I would definitely explore the options offered through Spotrunner and Google TV Ads. I will, however, be pursuing guest appearances on TV talk shows, either directly or through a publicist.

Radio Advertising and Promotion

Radio advertising is not in my current plans, but radio promotion will be one of the key components of my marketing plan. I have retained the services of the top morning radio show promoter in the country. In the past, I have gone the do-it-yourself route. It worked well, but I just don't have the time to handle of the scheduling and logistics myself. The cost for the radio promotion will be around $3,000.

Print Advertising

I'm considering running display ads in industry-targeted magazines, but there are no plans for newspaper ads at this point. The display ads under consideration run $1,000-2,000 for 1/4 page slots, in addition to the design costs for the ads.

Press Releases

I do plan to send press releases through either PRNewswire or Business Wire. My goal with press releases is to land articles in newspapers and magazines. A release sent over the "features wire" with PRNewswire costs $680 plus a $200 membership fee.

Search Engine Optimization

What kind of search engine optimization trainer would I be if I didn't practice what I preach? I've done my keyword research, built a content rich site, and am pursuing inbound links and reputable directory listings. I have or will buy directory listings at Yahoo! ($299), Business.com ($199), and Best of the Web ($79). DMOZ remains elusive. A blog is under consideration.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

I'm definitely going to pursue PPC advertising through Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. My early tests haven't shown great results for my  niche, but I'll keep making refinements to hopefully hit on the winning formula. If I can produce a positive ROI, I'll spend an unlimited amount.

Viral Internet Marketing

I've got plans to write and produce some funny videos that should have the potential to spread around the Net. I'm building up my social networks and using bookmarking tools like Del.icio.us. I will leverage my networks of friends and colleagues to help spread the word.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is pretty new to me, but I'm learning as much as I can. The idea behind affiliate marketing is to have others promote and sell your eBook for a percentage of the revenue. I like the idea a lot, and would appreciate any advice.

Email Marketing

Over the years I've amassed a pretty large email list through my comedy performances and professional contacts. I'm currently using Constant Contact, and will send at least one good email to everyone. I don't plan to acquire any email lists, but I haven't ruled it out.

Direct Mail

Yep, I'll be using good old, fashioned direct mail. I'm particularly a big fan of postcard mailers, and use PrintingForLess for all my printing needs. I've acquired mailing lists for potential targets and am considering how large of a mailing to send. I may do a small test mailing of 250-500 contacts, with the option of quickly sending out a larger mailing if the test is successful.

International Marketing

Why stop in the U.S.? I may use elance.com to help find people who can promote the eBook overseas. In particular, I'll be seeking someone to help with SEO and viral marketing in the United Kingdom.

Publicist

If you know a good publicist, I will definitely consider hiring them.

Other...

This eBook marketing plan is still under development, so what am I forgetting?

Trust Guard Review - Is It Worth the Money?

This is a sponsored post that contains affiliate links.

"In the two weeks following installing the Trust Guard seals on my site, sales increased 116% over the prior two week period! Clearly, I've been losing sales for months by not having a third-party site verification like Trust Guard. On the Internet, Trust is everything. Thank you Trust Guard! I'm glad I found you." - Larry Weaver, FunAwards.com

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This bold testimonial appears on the website of Trust Guard, a site that sells third-part website verification seals. As the author of the quote, I can tell you that it is 100% true.

I installed the seals on Sunday, April 6, 2008. Comparing a 30-day period before and after installing the seals, sales were up 72.5%.
The reason is simple - people need to feel confident making a transaction on your website. No matter how professional your site looks, people will always (rightfully so) be leery of entering their credit card information.

With Trust Guard, customers can click on the seals to instantly verify your site's credentials without leaving your site, giving them confidence to complete their purchase.

Before discovering Trust Guard, I had investigated BBB, HackerSafe, Truste and Verisign. These verifications can easily cost you $1,000+ each. Trust Guard gives you multiple types of website verification for a much lower price. I chose the multi-seal package for the yearly rate or $397. It paid for itself very quickly.

The bottom line is this: If you need an economical way to create trust on your website, you can't go wrong with Trust Guard.

Although this post contains affiliate links, all opinions are my own.

Local Search: Optimizing Your Page Titles

I taught two lively SEO Training Classes in Atlanta, GA this week for the Association of Video Professionals. One of the more interesting revelations from the student case studies was that while all of the video service companies were trying to attract clients from their local area, few understood the importance of including their City and State in their page titles.
I may soon write a new case study that looks just at Search Engine Marketing for Video Professionals. For now, I'm going to repost an article from last year that discusses effective page titles for local search. While this case study is about landscaping, you can easily translate it to video services, neighborhood florists, or any business using their website to attract local customers.
Local Search Case Study: Landscaping Marketing
It has come to my attention that search engine optimization has not exactly caught on fire in the landscaping world. I know this because I’ve been searching for a local residential landscaper for my home in North Carolina. My search frustrations stem from landscaper’s lack of understanding local search.

Residential landscaping is local or regional by nature. A landscaper in Raleigh, NC may find parts of Durham (15-20 minutes away) out of their area. It is imperative for landscapers to include your service areas in the text of your web sites. Not just for SEO purposes, but to save you from having to follow up on out-of-area inquiries that will never convert to sales. Remember, sometimes you want to exclude potential customers.

Local search rule #1 is to include your service area in your page title. SEO experts agree that the title is the most important factor in determining you search engine ranking. Consider the following example page title:
AAA Landscapes – Homepage
Based on this title alone, this page isn’t likely to rank well for anything other than the company name – AAA Landscapes. If this page was lucky enough to rank well in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for my search on “residential landscaping in durham”, it is still missing three key elements: service area, keywords, and compelling marketing language. Now consider this revision:
AAA Landscapes – Award-winning Durham, NC Residential Landscaping since 1981

Look at what a difference a few words make:

• Service Area: By looking at the title, I can see this company is located in my area, Durham, NC (and not Durham, England – a very prominent other “Durham” in search results.)
• Keywords: Now our keywords “residential landscaping” and “durham” are right in the title. This company now has a better chance at ranking higher in the search engine results pages for their target customer base.
• Marketing Language: We can quickly see that this company has won some awards and has been in business for 25 years. Sounds like a reputable company.

Landscapers of the World, you have some work to do:

1. Get a web site (if you don’t already have one).
2. Perform keyword research to uncover the most popular search terms for your business.
3. Include those keywords – along with your service area – in your page titles and content.
4. Include clear contact information on every single page of your web site.
5. Consider pay-per-click advertising on Google, Yahoo! or MSN.

That should keep you busy for now. Contact me if I can be of service…

The Actual Monetary Value of Internet Video Fame: A Case Study

On Friday, April 20 I awoke to find two of my comedy shorts on the front page of MySpace. To put things into perspective, MySpace is consistently one of the Top 5 most visited web sites in the World. They have 4 featured videos on the home page. And there I was in two of them. If we were to believe mainstream media’s coverage of “Internet fame”, then by all accounts I should be sipping Mojitos at the Casa Del Mar with Brent Weinstein from United Talent Agency. But instead of discussing my next film project, I’m writing this blog to reveal the real stats behind Internet video fame.

Key Internet Video Benchmarks
Summary from Day 1:87,032 - video views
2,474 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.8%)
110 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

After Day 1, MySpace no longer displayed the two videos on the home page. However, one of the videos remained in homepage rotation for 7 days, and both remained “featured” videos on the main MySpace video tab for 7 days.

Full 7 day effect:
165,793 – video views
4,803 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.9%)
198 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

On Day 8 with no promotion from MySpace, video views plummeted 721%.

*A note on the $0 revenue: To be fair, I wasn’t selling anything. But let’s suppose I was offering a DVD of my best comedy shorts. With less than 3% of people clicking through to my page, and only .1% of people being interested enough to add me as a friend, how much could I have possibly made? The answer is likely not very much.

What is the Value of Internet Video Fame?
What I’m trying to determine is the actual monetary value of Internet video fame. Perhaps this isn’t a good case study. Maybe people hated the videos, and hated what they saw when they clicked through to the page. (And if you read the hilarious video comments, it’s certain that a very vocal percentage fits that description).

Using web analytics, “Internet Video Fame” can be measured, tested, and quantified. In this case study, the fame brought lots of eyeballs, but no money. So was it a waste? Or will the fame indirectly lead to other business opportunities down the road? I’ll definitely keep you posted.

What is the Value of a Reality TV Show Appearance?
Be sure to bookmark this blog and check back. I’ll soon have actual statistical data on the value of Reality TV show appearances for bands. Using web analytics, I’ll show you exactly how many website visits you can expect from your 15 minutes of fame, and how many CDs you can expect to sell. You won’t want to miss it!