Archive for December, 2009

2009 Recap in Pictures from Shawn Collins

I am not going to make a bunch of ridiculous predictions about what’s going to happen in 2010. Really… why?

No, instead I’ll share a recap of what happened month by month from the lens of my camera.

The year started out with Affiliate Summit West 2009, and I stopped by CES the day I got to Las Vegas, and ran into Jackie the Jokeman.

Jackie the Jokeman and Shawn Collins

Then it was on to three days of Affiliate Summit, and what was the biggest Affiliate Summit to date with over 3,200 attendees.

Crowds at Affiliate Summit West 2009

Apparently I wasn’t doing much in February, according to my camera, because I just have pictures of me in a Snuggie.

Pointing at Something Snuggie

In March, I headed to Austin for SXSW, where I spent most of the time in the TechSet Blogger Lounge and checked out a live Diggnation.

Missy Ward Double-Fisted at TechSet Blogger Lounge - March 13, 2009

Alex Albrecht, some dude and Kevin Rose - Live Diggnation Austin

Later in March, I went to SES in NYC, where I saw Guy Kawasaki give a keynote about how he games Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki at SESNY 2009

The opening of the new Yankee Stadium was a big day in April.

Shawn Collins at the new Yankee Stadium

Then I went to San Francisco for ad:tech, where Affiliate Summit hosted a Beer Garden.

Affiliate Summit Beer Garden

During ad:tech, I caught a Giants game against the Padres.

Giants and Padres

I finished up April with a business trip in Maine.

Maine Sunset 3

Jim Kukral and Steve Rosenbaum

In May, I was off to Dallas for the Inbound Marketing Summit, and lucked into the Yankees being in town to play the Rangers.

Inbound Marketing Summit 1

Shawn Collins chomps a turkey leg at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington

And with June came the LinkShare Symposium in NYC. The hotel for the show was right at the start of the new High Line park.

LinkShare Golden Link Awards 2009

The High Line 020

I jumped on 95 South for a trip to Baltimore in July, where Affiliate Summit and buy.at held a meeting about the advertising tax, and then a crab feast.

Tax Talk and Crab Feast

advertising tax, baltimore 026

I also took up running in the summer to try and get in shape, and I completed my first 5k in July.

My First 5k 1

August was all about Affiliate Summit East 2009 for me. Before the conference kicked off, it was time for another Yankees game.

Scott Jangro in Enemy Territory

Affiliate Summit East 2009 050

Then in September, it was off to Santa Barbara for CJU.

CJU Crowd during Jackie Kuba Keynote

Time for another 5k.

Shawn Collins at the Berkeley Heights 5k 2009

And then back to the west coast for the Google Affiliate Network Summit in Mountain View.

Google Affiliate Network Summit 048

Early October meant another trip – this time down to Orlando for IZEAfest.

Michael Gray and Raw Hoffman at IZEAfest 2009

And then I turned around and went home to get to SMX East in NYC.

SMX East 2009 005

Then a third October trip out to California, where I caught game 5 of the ALCS before going to ShareASale ThinkTank (and watched the Yankees clinch on TV from the airport before my red eye home).

Yankees Angels ALCS Game 5 010

ShareASale ThinkTank Laughter and Applause

More sports started November with the Dolphins playing the Jets.

Dolphins at Jets Nov 1 005

Game 6 of the World Series. Best game ever.

New York Yankees World Series 2009 Game 6 006

More conference action with the Affiliate Summit booth at ad:tech NYC.

ad-tech NYC 2009 002

ad:tech was followed by the Audience Conference.

Brian Littleton, Shawn Collins, Missy Ward and Brian Clark

Finally, my last conference travel of the year was Pubcon in Las Vegas.

Michael Streko and Wil Reynolds

Another 5k, this time at Yankee Stadium, to round out November.

Shawn Collins after the race 2

I finished up the year with a December of no travel, and lots of prep for Affiliate Summit West 2010.

Updates to the Affiliate Summit laptops before shipping to Vegas

Shipping stuff off to Affiliate Summit West 2010

Finally, it was Christmas.

The Christmas Card picture

Good luck in 2010.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Susan Bratton just posted an interview with Dr. Robert Cialdini from her latest DishyMix show.

DishyMix with Susan BrattonDr. Cialdini is President of INFLUENCE AT WORK, an international consulting, strategic planning and training organization based on the Six Principles of Influence. He will be delivering a keynote address at Affiliate Summit West 2010 on Monday, January 18, 2010 in Las Vegas.

It was an interesting and enlightening show, and a nice preview to Dr. Cialdini’s keynote, where they discussed the six principles of persuasion, as well as how to amplify and activate them.

Dr. Robert CialdiniSusan Bratton and Robert Cialdini also talked about the most common mistakes marketers make when employing these principles, and which of the principles should be given the highest focus in times of uncertainty.

Also, if you haven’t read them already, be sure to pick up Cialdini’s “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” (my favorite business book) and his latest best-seller, “YES! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.”

Listen to the Dr. Robert Cialdini interview at http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/232-dishymix/episodes/70440-robert-cialdini-persuasive-marketing.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Download audio file (affiliatething-122809.mp3)

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talked about Kindle sales, affiliate marketing in 2010, rewards programs, and another Affiliate Summit sell out.

Photo of my blog on the Amazon Kindle

Also, three years of Affiliate Thing, bookmarks for affiliate marketers, Twitter parties, marketing with DailyBooth, and blippy.com.

Show Links

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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It was nine years ago this week that I was writing the final words of my book, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, which came out in April 2001.

Successful Affiliate Marketing for MerchantsSince then, I’ve often been asked if I was going to write up an update of the book, since it gets increasingly outdated as time goes by.

The book continues to sell, and it does have some timeless advice, as well as lots of stale stuff. If you don’t have it, don’t get it.

Why? Because I created short recap videos for all thirteen chapters of the book a couple years back. The video chapters summarize the original chapters and include some updates.

They’ve been on YouTube since then, but I didn’t push them too hard.

Anyhow, here it is… the video edition of Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants

Part I: What Affiliate Marketing Can Do for Your Business

Part II: Setting Up Your Affiliate Program

Part III: Managing Your Affiliate Program

Stay on top of affiliate manager issues at the Affiliate Tip blog.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Sell Out for Affiliate Summit West 2010

Affiliate Summit West 2010 is on schedule to sell out by Tuesday, January 5, 2010, based on sales patterns of past Affiliate Summits.

Affiliate SummitAs of this morning, there are 372 registration slots remaining.

The keynote speaker for Monday, January 18 will be Dr. Robert Cialdini (Twitter @RobertCialdini), President of INFLUENCE AT WORK, and the keynote for Tuesday, January 19 will be Brian Clark (Twitter @copyblogger), Co-Founder of DIY Themes.

This time around, Affiliate Summit will feature the largest exhibit hall and Meet Market of all of the Affiliate Summit shows, and a limited number of sponsorships are still available, though all exhibitor booths Meet Market tables are sold out.

Affiliate Meet Market at Affiliate Summit West 2009

More details at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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There are a couple new podcasts at GeekCast.fm for you to check out: Blogging ABCs and Merchant ABCs.

  • Blogging ABCs – Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare plan to take you through the world of blogging and help you not only create great blogs, but monetize them as well. Plans include case studies, blogger portraits and informational blogs that include a wide variety of guests.
  • Merchant ABCs – Merchant ABCs is hosted by Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare of Team Loxly internet marketing. In this first episode they talk to merchants that are considering setting up an affiliate program and outline what merchants need to know before making the jump into creating an affiliate program.

Listen to Blogging ABCs, Merchant ABCs and other GeekCasters at http://geekcast.fm/. Also, be sure to subscribe to the GeekCast RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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I Have Met the Enemy, and It’s My Gym

I’ve been noticing something disturbing when I go to my gym. No, not that it’s a place that sends me home in pain.

Yes, that happens, but I am thinking more about how they are my competitor.

They have a rewards program that features lots of companies that have popular affiliate programs.

Life Time Fitness Member Advantage

Now, I don’t run a rewards program myself, but it’s the fact that they are luring potential customers with their great deals. And the gym has a frequent reach to the attention of online shoppers.

When I go there, I see lots of TVs and banners pushing their rewards. I get their emails, and I’m exposed to their Member Advantage program. Same if I go to check something on their site or enroll in a class.

Sure, there are tons of member rewards programs out there for different facets of our lives, but I usually don’t pay attention. I can’t avoid it here.

So just think to yourself how there is a constant influx of competition for customer mindshare. Start brainstorming how you can do things better in 2010 to combat it.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Merry Christmas – Here are My Bookmarks

I’d like to extend my best wishes to you this Christmas. I get a lot of requests for my bookmarks, so I’m sharing them below as a little gift to you.

These are the various tools, resources, and services I use on a regular (or sometimes infrequent) basis.

Enjoy. Learn. Succeed. Have a great 2010.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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It’s Christmas Eve and you just realized you forgot that very special affiliate marketer in your life… what to do? Fortunately, I’m here to save the day with a last minute Christmas gift for affiliate marketers guide.

santa-affiliate-gifts-2009Below are all great gifts you can buy and give today:

It’s not too late – take care of this before you head out!

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Early Christmas Gift from Comcast

I was enjoying a dinner party at my house this past Sunday when I peeked in on my email shortly after a guy we use to plow the snow had cleared our driveway.

ComcastGmail was offline. Then I checked my blog – nothing. Same with Twitter and Facebook. So I looked at my cable modem and saw a single blinking light. Bad news.

My first thought was that the snowplow guy ran off the side of my driveway and took out my Internet cable, because he flew off the other side of my driveway earlier and nearly took out my lightpost and clipped my cars.

So, I went outside and my worst fears were confirmed. My cable was lying there dead in the snow.

Thank You, Comcast

Then I did what any Comcast customer on Twitter would do… I Tweeted a message to @comcastcares:

@comcastcares my snowplow guy severed my Internet and TV cables just now – help!

Just 2 minutes later (2 MINUTES!), Frank Eliason (@comcastcares), Senior Director of Comcast National Customer Service, responded and the ball was rolling. Did I mention this was a Sunday evening?

Help from Comcast on a Snowy Night

Long story short – my Internet was back up inside of 48 hours, thanks to Frank, @comcastbill, and some other folks at Comcast.

This was a big deal to me, since I have a lot of deadlines this week and work from home. The technician that came out had to deal with fixing the problem in sub-freezing temperatures in the dark. Afterwards, he came in and helped with an unrelated TV issue.

Anyhow, this prompt resolution comes as no surprise.

I had another great experience with Comcast on Twitter a year and a half ago. I had an issue that just wasn’t getting resolved when I’d call customer service, so I tried reaching out on Twitter.

Just like this time, they resolved things quickly, and after I blogged about it then, I was featured in a TV news segment that ran nationally on leveraging Twitter for customer service.

Thank you Frank, Bill, and Comcast – you guys are doing great stuff there.

Video: Customer service through online networking

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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