Newspapergrl: The news on Internet Marketing

My New Blog Home

2006-01-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

I like WordPress better. See my new blog at www.newspapergrl.wordpress.com

Reason #5 I'm enamoured with affiliate marketing

2006-01-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

It's ok (even encouraged) to click on your own links.

Rocky Mountain Affiliate Manager Association

2006-01-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.rmama.com/
The Rocky Mountain Affiliate Manager Association meets monthly. The location changes, but it's in Salt Lake somewhere, from 1-5pm. Companies like Overstock.com and Backcountry.com attend.

If you don't have an organization like this, start one. It can be very valuable to your affiliate program.

I'm writing about setting up an affiliate program for your small business. I hope to do a follow-up article on how to supplement or replace your day job with affiliate marketing. I also want to do it myself so I understand it from both ends.

I just added an affiliate ad for 3 free audiobooks. When you click this we both win. You get free books (or a good deal on Commcast or web hosting, etc) and I get a small commission for referring you. Win-win.

Co-registration for email newsletters

2006-01-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

I want to learn more about co-registration...so when someone signs up for a newsletter they can sign up for yours too. It's a way to leverage each other's lists.

How I got back on Adsense

2006-01-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

I hear I'm one of few people EVER who got back on adsense after getting kicked off. I hear this method is not working for others, but it's worth a try.

I'm not a fan of the way this is handled but thankful to be back on. First off, I had someone back me who makes Google a lot of money. He wrote first, vouching for me.

Often you get kicked off because of click fraud and its often out of your control (I'll blog about a tool that can help you detect when it happens though).

After my friend wrote a letter, I wrote a letter with the information requested, and was back on the next day.

I emailed adsense-adclicks-appeal@google.com with the details below:

- My name

- My company's name (if applicable)

- My publisher ID number (located in the AdSense code on your website
with the format, pub-################)

- My website's URL

I also explained how I didn't knowingly break any rules. I gave them a little about why I wanted back on. I make so little I have no incentive to commit fraud. Once I accidently clicked on my own ad (I clicked my mouse & it was near the ad space) and it scared me! It seems too arbitrary. I hope this changes. It's not fair that someone else (even well-meaning) could permanently shut you out of this great revenue stream.

Best Affiliate Summit speakers

2006-01-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

I dug (remember to put google alerts on these names) the presentation by Fredrick Marckini of iprospect.com. He collected business cards at the end of his talk so he could send us a white paper (smart) of his presentation. He shook everyone's hand and greeted most by name. Impressed.

He spoke about the end of search. Next stop: intelligent agents that tell you what to look at based on your preferences.

Another one that blew me away is Jeff Barr from Amazon.com. Mechanical Turk has to have other applications and could spon additional business models in the non-techie world.

I was impressed by what some of Amazon's affiliates were doing with one-page niche sites. I'll put a link to some of them once I have more time.

Declan Dunn from Dunn Direct Group was dynamic and insane. I loved it! Think aging hippie. He talked about podcasting. You learn most when you hear it. Most people don't read text and the retention rate is tiny.

Good to be back to 24/7 internet access. More later...

Affiliate Summit 2006 report 1

2006-01-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

The Affiliate Summit conference is amazing so far. Will blog more when I get home. Amazon.com web services guy blew me away. He challenged my thinking.

Avon does co-branded emails with MyPoints and others traditional marketers (should've written the whole list...Clubmom was on there...bingo sites).

Can't wait for tomorrow's class on how adult industry marketers work. They invented it and are cutting edge, along with the Christian Coalition. While I'm in sin city I may as well learn from the pros...

Definately my crowd here. This is my passion. Starting to see the same faces as at the Ad-tech show. Found an affiliate marketer in Draper to interview for Connect. Found Pete and guys from Paul Allen's class. Idea to start job site modeled after Amazon's model, push and pull jobs. Want to podcast....mmmmmmmm....eat this stuff up.

Dream jobs: affiliate marketer or buzz marketer. Love to create buzz...

This entry was blogged from the Apple store on the strip...hope I find my cell phone.

Glory Days

2006-01-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

When I first started at my day job as a web marketer I applied what had worked in the past and didn't pull it off so well. I'd dreamed about what our site could do for over a year beforehand.

When you first get a new position you have the glory days. You ask to go to conferences, you try to get budget, you try to rally people to get things done. The company wasn't as web saavy overall as I'm used to. Now we had a new VP who is totally committed to it.

This honeymoon brought a lot of focus and enthusiasm about the web site when before it was under the radar (at least to marketing). I find this is a good time to get things done. You act quickly. We hired a web programmer and graphic designer. I thought it was our chance to really rock. I was enthusiastic. I was estatic. Then reality hit and a lot of frustration.

I better read The Likeability Factor that's on my shelf, lol.

I still think we kicked trash. We met a very aggressive timeline. The positive feedback continues to come in. I've got a lot of goals ahead but I realize that my approach and timelines may need some adjusting. That's alright though. Like I said I'd still say overall there were a lot of successes...I just got 3 more positive emails this morning.

Rant #2: Linkhogs

2006-01-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

There are web sites out there that think we don't know the internet. Every single link on their site, links to a page in their site. They never link to anything outside their site. They highjack you, as if staying on their site means you are loyal to them or they can force you to purchase from them. As if we don't know we can pull up another browser or leave their site at will anyway.

Why not make give us high quality links (there is so much junk out there, thanks Jonas et al)? So we know we can trust you to lead us straight for more information or even more objective information. It's good web customer service to help us get what we're looking for and not try to sabatoge us.

Old thinking. The web is all about connection. It's networking. We're not grocery stores who arrange things as roadblocks so we will buy more. We don't have to walk through the entire store to find the staples we came for. We can go straight to the page we want and leave again. We don't force we entice someone to stay. Apple stores aren't arranging things so people will stay (neither is Barnes & Noble). They make it inviting or compelling and you don't want to leave.

I prefer transparency. Where it makes sense, why not link to better information, more information, other sources? Why not become the authority in your niche and direct people to complementary information or products? (do it with affiliate marketing and you'll get a kickback)

Adsense: how it's hurt. With contextual searching you have to worry more about ads which might appear on a page you link to. There could be illegal claims or competitors or misinformation. The legal department doesn't like it at all. Better not to link.

JetBlue's David Neeleman

2005-12-20T09:54:00.000-08:00

Article in City Weekly about JetBlue founder David Neeleman. I'm always interested in what he does. He's king of CRM and serving the customer. I didn't know he was LDS (I'm probably the last person to know). I haven't finished reading it.

Passion and Success

2005-12-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

How being passionate about what you do drives your success. Radical careering blog talks about how you propel yourself by believeing in what you do. If you put your all into something that keeps sucking life from you, move on out.

Reminds me of a blind date I had this year. Good guy, but his career bugged me. He operates a Burger King, which pays well but he doesn't like it, for over 10 years. He's now a single dad. He's getting up at 4am on Sunday mornings and dealing with high school and college kids all day. It pays too well to change.

I respect bringing home the bacon, but the other part of me, is WHY put up with something you don't like for that long? It's not a divorce for heaven's sake. I took major pay cuts to do what I'm doing now. But do I regret it? No way.

Work takes a lot of energy. I love what I do. Of course there are up/downs. But I love working on something so dynamic and interesting. Why people do what they do, how the internet helps them do what they do, and what I can do to influence their choices or help them. I can't imagine doing anything that I hated that long. We live in a free country, a blessed condition, may as well take full advantage.

starting a business

2005-12-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

37 signals blogs about how when you're starting a business, most muddle through it. They have no idea their company will one day be big. They essentially wing it.

"No one actually knows what they’re doing"

Pretty much how I feel about my life. I have plans and ideas and some things I do know, but otherwise, winging it. Sometimes, like the past few years it has taken me to VERY UNEXPECTED places, 360 degree turns, etc. If you don't get it, don't worry, neither do I! I'm learning to accept that and not feel obligated to try to explain until there's a more finished plan. It's all a process and can change at any time. I used to think that means instability, but now I'm thinking more of it is courage.

----------------------------------------

Great article yesterday about Back to Basics. When their management reached their capacity, they didn't get more cash by going public, they hired people more experienced in running larger companies. I respect that. I've worked for startups and they've all hit this stage. Some of them got outside help and stayed around. Most didn't and are out of business. It's always a pain point... success can kill you just as much as failure if you don't manage it well.

Jonas - on Google

2005-12-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Check out what Jonas writes about Google today. I hope people comment. Bill Gates announced that MSN paid search wants to find a way for the end user to share the ad profits. I just want them all to give us all the information, so we know the exact rules of the game. Google does have an unfair advantage by controlling access to vital information. I just wonder how MSN will pull this off.

Vblogs and Change

2005-12-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

We had blogs, then podcasts, now vlogs (video blogs). New vocabulary all the time. Changing the media stronghold. I saw the movie "Good Night and Good Luck". It addressed the power of the networks & bemoaned the dumbing down of the medium. The networks got stale with too much power. They started entertaining more than informing. But in this case I see a bright future.

Disperse the power and the result is more creativity (capitalism in a sense). We'll also have more control over what we see and hear. Those who want garbage can have it, but the rest of us can access a lot of history and experts in ways we haven't been able to before. Plus we can prevent our kids from seeing trash. We can block content we don't want. We can see the good stuff, produced by a broad range of people, on our own time.
Good news.

Writing for Connect Magazine

2005-12-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! I'm writing a piece on affiliate marketing for Connect magazine. I'll link to it when it publishes, probably in the Spring.

Affiliate marketing is a great way for smaller businesses to leverage their marketing. My friend Peter is going to co-author it with me. We'll attend the Affiliate Summit conference in Vegas in January.

If you know a Utah-based company (less than 50 employees) that runs a successful affilaite marketing program, please let me know.

Career Books to Read

2005-12-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

I got this from Joyce Lain Kennedy:

Radical Careering: 100 Truths to Jumpstart your Job, your Career, and Your Life.
(Says it's good for tech people with short attention spans)

Knock 'Em Dead 2006: The Ultimate Job Seeker's Guide (classic on job searches)

Whoops! I'm in Business: A Crash Course in Business Basics (maybe my brother should get this, he seems to be suddenly in the treadmill selling business).

Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer's Guide to Making More Money (sounds enticing doesn't it?!)

To Be of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work. (working for the common good and making money doing it)

The World's Greatest Resumes (published by Ten Speed Press, a good quality thinking sort of book publisher).

And I still haven't finished, Never Eat Alone! I'm reading the great dating book called, How to Get a Date Worth Keeping. My friend has dramatically improved her dating life after applying the priniciples. I like the approach. If you're not dating and are ready/want to, it's time to do something about it. They say it guarantees you'll date more or your money back. I'm not dating but someday I will.

Any book recommendations from readers out there? Put it in the comments section.

Welcome to blogging

2005-12-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

My friend John just started an entrepreneur blog. Welcome to the blog world!

I need to update my links and add him to my bloglog.

Affiliate Marketing Summit

2005-11-30T15:20:00.000-08:00

It's funny I was thinking today, this is what I want to do in the company...be an affiliate marketing manager and manage relationships with affiliates. I don't know if it will work for our business model but I want to see if I can find others doing it.

Then my boss asks me, what would you most like to do here? I had a ready answer. My second choice is to run an email marketing program. I like affiliate marketing better because of the personal relationships you can build with your affiliates. I love talking to people, not just my coworkers or at a computer all day.

I also got a press pass to an affiliate marketing conference in January in Vegas. I'm excited. I wish I could find $500 to go to the Google Adsense boot camp too. But still...great day.

You know these are my type of people when nothing starts until 10am. The last conference I attended started at 8:30. I don't like to converse or be cheery before 9am. Now for a hotel and ride.

Google - free web analytics tool

2005-11-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

They did it. Google bought Urchin for web stats and today announced they have refined it. Plus it's free. Another way google is taking over the world and remaking it.

Liz Ryan

2005-11-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

I heard Liz Ryan speak this week. Soooo refreshing. A great wit. She speaks about all the books about how women need to change to fit into the business world. How come there are no books telling men what they need to fix about themselves to succeed in business?

She rejects the notion that we need to change to fit in or be successful in our careers.

"What women bring to the table is what the business world desperately needs: passion, intuition, non-linear logic, insight, pluck."

Marketers know women often control how money is spent, esp. in families. My company mainly sells to women but our top salepeople are men. Something is disconnected here. Shouldn't women, allowed to be who they are in the workforce, be the best resource about marketing to other women?

Pret - great company

2005-11-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

When I'm in England next I'd like to visit this restaurant - Pret. That's how good their marketing is. Just read their recipes (well-written, well-presented, and weaved with great marketing). The jobs page is full of branding...they measure things, they're open about it. I dare other companies to follow. They have an internet mind (open with information). Love Cats. I want to work for a company that thinks like this.

From their web site:

"We have good jobs for good people making great food. Pret is a private company determined never to forget that our wonderful hardworking people make all the difference. They are our heart and soul. When they care, our business is sound. If they stop caring, our business goes down the drain.

We pay our hardworking, wonderful staff as much as we can afford rather than as little as we can get away with. We invest in, train and develop our people (75% of our managers were promoted from Team Leaders). The average hourly rate during 2004 for our Team Members (with 6 months' service) was £6.60 per hour. Many get over £7 an hour, it depends. The average salary (including bonus) for General Managers during 2004 was £26,000 pa. "

ethics in business

2005-11-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

"We have set our expectations so high that it's causing societal problems, such as a breakdown in ethics."

- Utah Business Magazine, "Industry Outlook"

Expectations. Raising the bar. Our barometer of what's important is messed up. Bottom line thinking.

One of my favorite quotes is:

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old time rail journey...delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed." –Gordon B. Hinckley

The beautiful vistas are what we live for. This reminds me of Nancy Griffith's line, "they never want the rain to come or the weather to get colder". We want clear sunny skies in life and yet we can't fully appreciate them unless we have other weather too.

search engine marketing

2005-11-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'm into search engine marketing. Example: my writeup.com blog (see last post) got over 80% click through rate yesterday. That is very high. Almost everyone who got to my blog entry clicked on a link. I love search engine marketing! Once you understand the way it works you can really increase your earnings. I still have a long way to go but I have made a lot of headway. I don't actually know how to tell exactly what link or blog entry was so popular. I need to check that out.

Work at Home

2005-11-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

I want to work at home, at least part of the time, eventually. I started this blog is to keep writing, to have a record of my life, and to connect with others. If I make any money on it, great. It's not my prime objective.

Work at Home
This isn't going to make enough to quit your job (at least not at first, lol). It's a good way to earn side income.

My friend Jonas is a great internet marketer. He makes loads of cash on his work at home efforts. He writes programs to automate search engine principles. He created a blogging site called Writingup.com. Since he's essentially a programmer, so the site design is nothing fancy.

It could take a long time to get enough traffic on your own blog. The advantage of going with the Jonas model is that you take advantage of his traffic and techniques (I guarantee he knows what he's talking about).

Research your subject on overture.com to see how to describe it as people search. Use the right words in your title, bold it as a headline, and mention it in the text. He also gives a bunch of suggestion of profitable terms to write about (like WORK AT HOME, lol).

Yesterday I made more than I've ever made in a day on adsense. I'm pumped about it. Blogging is great practice writing anyway, now if I make a little money, great.

Try it and tell me what you think.

networking tips

2005-11-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

I'm reading the book Never Eat Alone. It's about networking or actively getting to know and taking interest in other people (which sounds less corporate and self-centered). It talks about how the rich have a network of trusted people they can turn to at any time. The rules in life become more fluid for them because of relationships.

I have let my networks fade as I've focused too heavily on a few things in my life. I want to get myself back into networking mode.

How to From Buzzoodle:

Networking Tips (some business, some personal/both):

Help other people be successful (I think women are esp. gifted at doing this)
Superior Customer Service (a form of marketing/competitive advantage in a business and in relationships: following up, checking in, being aware of needs, etc)
Superior Product with unexpected benefits
Do the unexpected and make someone's day
Publicly recognize other people
Introduce people that you know that should know each other
Be open, honest and human (or in other words, be yourself)
Ask people what it would take to have them recommend you or introduce you to their friends (great tip...when you ask, you get more than if you never ask)
Constantly perfect your networking and communication efforts (read: Cruical Conversations)