Online Marketing Help: 2015-02-22

Evan Weber's Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Experience Advertising’s CEO Evan Weber’s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at Affiliate Summit West 2015.

Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

The Affiliate Summit West 2015 conference was the largest Affiliate Summit event to date, with approximately 6,000 attendees, which took place from January 18-20, 2015 in Las Vegas. The conference has compiled a list of the top 10 sessions from Affiliate Summit West 2015, based on the number of people in the audience at the midpoint of the session. Evan Weber’s session on the most effective digital marketing strategies was the most attended session of the entire conference.

These were the top attended sessions at Affiliate Summit West:

1. 20 of the Most Effective Strategies in Digital Marketing
2. Driving Massive Traffic for Sales & Lead Generation
3. A Step-by-Step Plan to Earn $100 a Day in Passive Income
4. Pro Email Marketing Tips (Non Bulk Email)
5. Full Review of a $2000/day Facebook Campaign
6. Finding a Perfect Fit: Selecting The Best Affiliate Program
7. How to Leverage Display Advertising Tactics for Success
8. Putting the Brand First, De-Coupling Services & Technology
9. 55 Must-Haves in Every Affiliate Manager’s Toolbox
10. Monetizaton is Not “Selling Out”: Bloggers & Affiliate Mktg

About Affiliate Summit: Affiliate Summit, the premier affiliate marketing conference, was founded by Missy Ward and Shawn Collins in 2003 for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest industry issues and fostering a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. The conference has grown into a huge show, packed with great speakers and excellent networking opportunities.

About Evan Weber: Evan is a season digital marketing entrepreneur with over 15 years of online marketing and ecommerce background. He has been part of several successful Internet marketing companies, and currently runs his agency Experience Advertising, helping companies of all sizes grow their traffic, sales, and profits through digital marketing, social media, and affiliate marketing.

If you missed the Affiliate Summit West 2015, you can purchase a virtual pass here.

Evan Weber"s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

#TheDress meme of a different color becomes a marketing tool near and far

Javascript must be enabled to view the Burlington Hawkeye online content.

Please enable your javascript and click the link below to return.

If you are unsure how to enable JavaScript in your web browser, please view these

instructions.

Back

#TheDress meme of a different color becomes a marketing tool near and far

Evan Weber's Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Experience Advertising’s CEO Evan Weber’s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at Affiliate Summit West 2015.

Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

These were the top attended sessions at Affiliate Summit West:

If you missed the Affiliate Summit West 2015, you can purchase a virtual pass here.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/03/prweb12550808.htm PRWeb logo

Evan Weber"s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Must-See Marketing: Buick courts younger customers

A weekly digest of the most important stories and ideas in advertising and media, from our colleagues at Marketing.

This week in Ads You Must See:

Other items of note from Marketing:

Buick is hoping for a comeback by courting young customers. Its new campaign and tagline “That’s not a Buick” is intended to change consumers’ perception that the brand is only for those just around the corner from retirement.

The four-spot television ad campaign is changing the way people view the brand because it replaces the outdated image of stodgy, boring cars, Tony DiSalle, the brand’s vice-president of marketing, said. “It all goes after the same message, which is really challenging the dateness perception that’s in the minds of the consumer,” he said.

New Xero President Fujioka: US Market Will Be "Biggest"

With the recent news of Xero raising more than $110 million came the announcement of the online accounting software provider hiring a new U.S. president, Russell Fujioka.

Russell Fujioka

In taking over the responsibilities of Xero’s previous North America CEO Peter Karpas, who departed the company in September, Fujioka will be implementing a new direction in growing the company’s U.S. share. The U.S. has lagged behind Xero’s success in native New Zealand and Australia—according to the company’s fiscal year 2015 report, Xero had 119,000 paying customers in New Zealand, 158,000 in Australia and 22,000 in North America as of September 2014.

Xero’s stateside business strategy will be crucial as it moves toward an initial public offering that, while on the horizon, the company declines to assign a more specific timeline.

Instead, Fujioka said, his focus will be on a U.S.-tailored model for growth. Fujioka most recently worked as a consultant for Xero with global venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing with him four years of experience running Dell’s various global marketing operations and its entire go-to market for the business-to-business group that drove $52 billion in revenue. Despite this background and helping Xero hire its new vice president of marketing and VP of sales in his last nine months with the company, Fujioka said his relatively fresh eyes will be an asset to this role.

“I have the opportunity to come in and look at things from a non-historical bent as we go forward,” Fujioka shared. “I’ve had the realization of a couple of things. The business Xero was able to grow, to thrive in New Zealand and Australia, is not a model that is going to work in the U.S. That was primarily through accountants, bookkeepers and CPAs. There is a different way to convert people under the Xero platform.”

To “accelerate adoption,” Xero will directly target small businesses. Because while its many accountant, CPA and bookkeeper customers overseas typically switch their entire customer base to the platform, their U.S. equivalents are less likely to make that recommendation. The nuances of 50 states and the U.S.’s lagging cloud adoption also factor into the market differentiation.

U.S. finance professionals will remain a vital part of the Xero ecosystem, Fujioka explained. The accounting channel, which is “going to be longer tail but still very much a priority,” will continue to be driven by Jamie Sutherland, previously president of Xero U.S. and now general manager of U.S. products and solutions.

“The central mission of the company is to strive to create a platform that helps small businesses thrive,” Fujioka said. “Accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers are a very important part of that. A financial platform like Xero, and particularly Xero, ties into the professional services of a CPA or accountant and the businesses have a higher predisposition to succeed.”

Also giving these businesses a leg up, according to Fujioka, is the foundational community of more than 29 million fellow small businesses.

“Any archetype for the heart of small businesses, the U.S. is the fabric of it,” he said, stressing the company mission “to help small businesses and be material, in the global view, to get the U.S. healthy on Xero and for small businesses.”

The loftiness of that view is not inconsequential for Fujioka, who is drawn to working with visionaries, ranging from Michael Dell’s drive to democratize data to Rod Drury’s “change the world mentality.”

“Any percentage of small businesses you can make better business people and more financially literate, they fundamentally change the economy,” Fujioka elaborated. “What brought me to Xero was the founder, the mission, and the founder built around the mission. I will help drive the parts we need to get him there.”

As for the $110 million that accompanies his entrance, Fujioka said Xero’s fiscal year 2016 plans have not changed with more money in the bank. What the investments do provide is an assuredness to help Xero go to market organically and eye future acquisitions, he explained. And given the source of those funds in Accel Partners, “an incredible partner in the technology community with a lot of connections and experience dealing with high growth companies,” and current shareholder Matrix Capital Management, Fujioka said he is looking forward to working with “smart money” and “smart guys.”

Both those firms, as well as Xero’s board (which recently welcomed former Salesforce CFO Graham Smith), and Fujioka himself have “no lack of experience on filing, accelerating and understanding what it means to bring a company public in the U.S.”

In the meantime, Fujioka is predicting big things.

“The U.S. market will be the biggest market for Xero over time.”

New Xero President Fujioka: US Market Will Be "Biggest"

The Facebook Guide To Small Business Marketing

Helps small-business owners leverage the power of Facebook to market to a large base of potential customers. Original.
Title The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing
Author Ramon Ray
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
Publication Date 2013/02/04
Number of Pages 260
Binding Type PAPERBACK
Library of Congress

Click Here For More Information

The Facebook Guide To Small Business Marketing

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer and Google Adsense Profits

Summary:

With affiliate marketing, you may get a lot of cash pouring into your bank account easily. And if your website is rich in great contents and you want to earn more profit, why not get into the Google Adsense program as well?

This article from The Online Master is about: work at home,internet home business,internet marketing,make money online,start a home business,easy home business,blog,affiliate,affiliate marketing,Adsense,Google AdSense,bicycle,shopping

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant’s products by linking to the merchant’s website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Are you a webmaster who needs funds to keep your website running? Or is your website the only way for you to earn income? Whichever you are, for as long as you are a webmaster or a web publisher and you need cash, affiliate marketing may work well for you. With affiliate marketing, you may get a lot of cash pouring into your bank account easily. And if your website is rich in great contents and you want to earn more profit, why not get into the Google Adsense program as well?

Why Affiliate Marketing?

Well, simply because affiliate marketing is the easiest and probably the best way to earn profits online, unless otherwise you are a businessman and would rather sell your own products online than advertise other businessman’s products on your site. But even online retailers can benefit from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates.

Affiliate marketing, simply said, is a relationship or agreement made between two websites, with one site being the merchant’s website and the other being the affiliate’s site. In the relationship, the affiliate agrees to let the merchant advertise his products on the affiliate’s site. The merchant, on the other hand, would agree to pay the affiliate in whatever method they have agreed into. This would generally mean easy income for the affiliate, as he would do nothing but place the retailer’s ad on his site. This would also be very beneficial for the merchant, as getting affiliates to advertise their products would be a lot more affordable than hiring an advertising firm to promote their products.

There are a variety of methods on how the merchant would compensate the affiliate for his services, and for the webmaster, these methods simply translates to the method by which he would earn easy cash. Among the more common methods of compensation are the pay-per-click method, the pay-per-lead method, and the pay-per-sale method. The pay-per-click method is the method most preferred by affiliates, for their site’s visitor would only have to visit the advertiser’s site for them to gain money. The other two methods, on the other hand, are better preferred by merchants, as they would only have to compensate you if your visitor becomes one of their registrants or if the visitor would actually buy their products.

Getting much profit on affiliate marketing programs, however, does not depend so much on the compensation method is it does on the traffic generated by your site. A website that can attract more visitors would generally have the greater chance of profiting in affiliate marketing programs.

What about Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is actually some sort of an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products. These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser’s website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.

While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences. In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.

The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows you to monitor the earnings you actually get from a certain ad.

So, where do all of these lead us to?

Where else but to profits, profits and even more profits! Affiliate marketing programs and the Google Adsense program simply work, whether you are the merchant or the affiliate. For the merchant’s side, a lot of money can be saved if advertising effort is concentrated on affiliate marketing rather than on dealing with advertising firms. For the webmaster, you can easily gain a lot of profits just by doing what you do best, and that is by creating websites. And if you combine all your profits from both the Google Adsense program and other affiliate marketing programs, it would surely convert to a large amount of cash.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer and Google Adsense Profits

From Affordable Phones to Bull Market – Xiaomi's Success Run

A phone that is widely known as the Apple (AAPL) of China, Xiaomi, is likely to make its debut on Wall Street soon. In a cluttered electronics and communication market in China, Xiaomi has managed to create a place for itself in only a few years. The firm which is valued at $45 billion is touted to be the hottest initial public offering.

Source: By Xiaomi (www.mi.com) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Smart Marketing = Billion Dollar Company

The company which launched its first smart phone in 2011 has zoomed past many established organisations to become the third-largest smart phone vendor, only behind Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (SSNLF) and Apple. Xiaomi currently has a record 16% market share. The success of the company can only be labeled as stupendous and unprecedented.

The company’s astounding success is the reason why so many expect an IPO soon. In January, the company announced that their 2014 profit had doubled since last year. It went up from $5.2 billion to $11.97 billion, which is 150% higher than the 2012 profit of $2 billion.

The sale of phones, in general, has risen from 7.19 million units in 2012 to just over 61 million in 2014. Xiaomi expects to sell about 100 million phones in 2015.

Yuri Milner, Russian billionaire who has been investing in Xiaomi since 2012, thinks that the smartphone firm’s valuation could go up to $100 million. He told Bloomberg, “I was attracted by the size of the opportunity ahead of them. I don’t think there’s any company that has reached $1 billion in revenue as fast as Xiaomi. In every conceivable benchmark, it’s almost unprecedented in terms of its speed of growth.”

According to research firm IDC, Xiaomi is likely to sell 500 million smartphones in China this year. The USP of the company is the price of the smartphone and smart online marketing. An average Xiaomi device retails at around $150.

The golden Chinese touch

The firm’s latest round of funding took place in 2014, where it closed a $1 billion deal with a syndicate of 29 banks.

Although the firm is yet to make a formal IPO announcement, it is widely expected that the firm, which is studying its options, seems to be more upbeat about Wall Street debut after the affirming success of Alibaba (BABA) in September 2014. Considering the opening of Alibaba in the stock market, it is not difficult to predict a fellow Chinese company’s success.

The firm, which began the sale of its smartphones in the Indian market recently, faced some issues from the patent complaint filed by Ericsson (ERIC), the Swedish maker of telecommunications equipment.

Although the firm currently seems to have the upper hand at marketing, other competitors in China are trying to ape and follow suit in order to succeed in the market.

Apple, which is compared with Xiaomi, made instant history after it got listed on Wall Street in 1980. The firm sold 4.6 million shares at $22 per share. Although at the time of the IPO the firm catered mainly to personal computer requirements, it slowly enlarged its scope and entered into the consumer electronics sector. After a major dip in prices in 2008, the firm bounced back in 2012. The stock is currently being traded at $127.94.

By the looks of it, Xiaomi which has spiralled to success in a short span of time is likely to have a warm welcome at the Wall Street.

About the author:

reports.droy

We are a group of analysts exploring and analyzing different domains of business and writing reviews based on information available in public domain web portals. We do not hold any stock or investment position in any of the companies that we write for.

From Affordable Phones to Bull Market – Xiaomi"s Success Run

The Next Big Innovation In Marketing Is Already On Your Team

If you’re an email marketing manager, you have to learn to sell yourself to the CMO. Here’s some ammunition.

Conversely, if you’re a CMO or other marketing exec, keep reading for ways to leverage a phenomenal resource that you’re likely underutilizing: the email marketing manager.

Here are three skills email marketers have that CMOs can leverage today for strategic-level marketing planning:

1. They know your customer really well. Email marketers have long been the gatekeeper and primary users of first-party data. They know exactly which customers have acted on recent messages, what they purchased last, etc. Even more valuable, they know how to react with appropriate messaging based on those behaviors. They also are very creative in thinking about the customer lifecycle journey, pinpointing when a customer needs to hear from you. They have tested what works and can automate that full journey end to end.

2. They understand where integrations need to take place and how to make all technologies work together. Making automations and triggers work requires real-time and batch-automated data feeds. I often say that if email is a car, then data is the fuel. You need data to make email function. There’s no better person on your marketing team who knows what systems need to be integrated than the email marketer. Not only are they feeding data to power multi-channel communications, they understand the importance of bringing back data into the enterprise to get a full 360-degree view of your customers.

3. They converge analytical thought process with creativity to create top-notch customer experiences. Email marketers are required to think with both sides of the brain to have a successful career. On the logical side, they’re experts in setting up a clean A/B or multivariate test and pulling the data needed to drive campaigns. As creative thinkers, they know what designs work and often have to educate creative teams (specifically those that have never designed for email) on how to produce an elegant email while keeping the design simple and clean for an optimal mobile experience. They’re experts on writing grabby subject lines, headlines, content and creating visual hierarchy to make communications appealing to recipients.

And that’s just the beginning.

There are many other reasons that the email marketing manager is a valuable resource. They understand branding, process, resource management, IT speak, omnichannel marketing — specifically SMS, push notifications, display retargeting, social retargeting and even alternative channels such as connected devices like wearables and in-dash car screens.

Many companies are looking for digital cognoscenti to bring sophistication to marketing. Go ahead and revise the email marketing manager’s job description and grab the in-house opportunity.

The Next Big Innovation In Marketing Is Already On Your Team

Info Concerning A Different Kind of Affiliate Program

Advertising songs relevant websites with an affiliate program is an exceptional method of gaining some additional money online. There are many web sites providing good commissions on different songs related products.The music market is substantial, making the variety of product equally huge. This makes for a wide variety of associate programs possibly right for your web site. You need to find out just what to advertise, along with the best ways to promote the items. Usually the material of your website will give you a smart idea of just what member program to advertise.

If you are assessing records in any way, an apparent method of making member payment would be to have a direct link to every document reviewed. Despite the fact that lots of net users download their music, adequate folks still acquires their records. There are numerous affiliate programs offering items such as; downloadable songs, songs gamers, tool courses or tools available for sale, look around to view if you can discover a good match.

Posters can also be an excellent product to promote on non-art related web sites with the right type of site visitors. The selection of posters makes it a very fascinating when utilizing member programs. Unlike the majority of fine art, posters are not expensive whatsoever. This is possibly the best art relevant item to advertise yet the commission earned on every sale will certainly be significantly reduced. Marketing paintings online isn’t really very easy, yet still some take care of to prosper.

If you could find a successful internet site– offering spray paintings – with a decent affiliate program, you could have a great chance of making some nice compensations. Most paintings are very pricey, making just a couple of sales go a long way. Searching for excellent online internet shops with a just as great associate program is hard in any type of tiny niche, paintings are no exemption. But, as member programs obtain simpler and much easier to sign up with and carry out, signing up with a brand-new program is much easier than ever. So, if you are not transforming well enough, just discover a brand-new spray paintings associate program to try.

Fine art member programs – or any imaginative program – can make a very nice addition to sites of lots of niches outside the obvious; Art. The factor for this is easy; the majority of people like art. – Wait a min, you believe, that cannot correct. Yet it is, the only issue you are encountering is to find out a means to intrigue as many of your visitors you perhaps can. All sorts of associate programs are incredible and also can produce fantastic success to lots of people.

This is something that can lastly offer you the ability to make that quantity of cash that you have always wanted to make for on your own as well as you will certainly have so much to feel happy with. Being figured out can get you a long way in this type of endeavor and a large amount of job is visiting have to be completed too.

A member program could come in numerous various kinds but the most effective thing about all them is that they are the reason for many people lastly having the possibility to do just what it is they have been intending to provide for so long.

Info Concerning A Different Kind of Affiliate Program

YC-Backed Answerbook Helps Retailers Automate Personalized Email Campaigns

A team of e-commerce vets is today launching a new service aimed at online retailers called Answerbook which allows companies to better target shoppers with highly personalized emails based on those customers’ website and email interactions as well as their purchase history. The solution today is largely aimed at smaller retailers, like those hosting their sites on e-commerce platforms like Shopify, where they have somewhere between half a million to a million in sales.

However, the company is already talking to larger businesses in an effort to develop an enterprise tier to its service, we’re told.

Answerbook was founded last year by Chris Nguyen and Lee Liu, both of whom have backgrounds in e-commerce and using data for targeting purposes. The two had previously built and sold their recruiting site JobLoft to onTargetjobs in 2007, and then sold dating site Cupid.com to EasyDate. They also founded a social commerce site called TeamSave in 2010.

While in all their prior efforts, the founders had learned the value of leveraging data in order to attract and re-engage users, it was with TeamSave that they began building an internal personalized marketing solution, using things like website preferences, clicks and purchase history to better reach their customers.

answerbook

Explains Nguyen, smaller companies don’t have the tools to do advanced targeting the way that the bigger guys, like Amazon, eBay and Walmart do. And the solutions for email personalization that are out there today often only look at customer purchase history, not other factors.

“We started talking to e-commerce companies, and they said, ‘we have this problem – we’re sending blast emails everyday but we don’t know how to personalize this information,’” says Nguyen. The companies have internal teams who could pull data to personalize their emails, but by the time they did, it would be too late for that data to still be actionable. “Can you help us automate that?,” these businesses said.

“I love the fact that companies like Shopify allow you to make a fast and efficient online store in days, but they lack the resources to truly understand the marketing aspects,” Nguyen adds, explaining the hole in the market he hopes Answerbook can fill.

To use Answerbook, retailers place a single line of JavaScript code on their website, similar to setting up something like Google Analytics. Afterwards, they’re then able to track things like what pages and products a customer is viewing, what they’re placing in their cart, their purchase history and more. Combined with email interaction behavior, this data can then be used to create a series of personalized emails for each customer.

Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 1.14.05 PM

Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 1.16.17 PM

Included in Answerbook’s service are a half-dozen “triggers” a retailer can kick off, which help them to configure emails related to things like price drops, cart abandonment, items that have returned to stock, website abandonment, or they can send emails that simply recommend products or showcase what’s new and trending this week on the retailer’s site. Businesses can also choose to create their own custom triggers, or combine the ones provided to more narrowly target their customers. And Answerbook today works with other email services the company may already be using, like MailChimp, for example.

The company has been in private testing with a small handful of retailers ahead of its public launch. One online phone case company saw a 40% lift in sales after setting up Answerbook to email reminders to customers which included a 15% promotion to complete their orders. However, because of each business’s potential needs, and because of the newness of the service itself, a sales lift of that much may not be typical. Nguyen admits that the lift can range anywhere form 15% to 40%, depending on the given situation.

Answerbook is currently priced beginning at $50 per month for 500 customers analyzed and then increases in tiers that go from $150/month to $199/month, with an enterprise option in the works.

The company has also raised $700,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Tamares (a Palantir backer), and a group of San Francisco Bay area angels.

Longer-term, Nguyen says that Answerbook’s goal is to do more than personalize emails, but to personalize the targeted messages customers receive elsewhere, too. In the future, the service will include support for mobile commerce as well, allowing retailers to personalize their in-app push notifications and even SMS texts.

Featured Image: Shutterstock

YC-Backed Answerbook Helps Retailers Automate Personalized Email Campaigns

ViralMint to launch publisher-focused ViralMint Xchange

The on-site marketing platform will be launching a new platform called ViralMint Xchange (VMX) on March 1, 2015 with the aim of bring publishers and advertisers on the same platform.

ViralMint founder Rohan Dighe, said VMX would connect advertisers and publishers in a more open way then is currently seen with affiliate marketing solutions. “Advertisers have no control over publishers. Publishers are unhappy because they are not getting payouts at the right time. Right now, publishers lack tools to monetize apart from backlinks and banner ads,” said Dighe. He claims that VMX will fill this void.

VMX allows publishers to advertise relevant products through either widgets or a customized storefront within their blog or website. Advertisers can use VMX to reach out to the right publisher to promote their products or services. Dighe said on an average the clickthroughs (CTR) for affiliate storefront were around 10-13 per cent and for widgets, the CTR was about 1 per cent.

ViralMint hopes to get the top 50 advertisers (mainly e-commerce players) on board before the launch date of March 1, though Dighe said the platform could be used by brands directly. It is looking to tie up with companies such as redBus, Urban Ladder, ShopClues.com, MyDentist and Lenskart, among others and has already been carrying out beta testing over the past few months with price comparison website Pricebaba.com, which used it to launch a store front for mobile accessories by Daily Objects. It also plans to have over 1000 publishers on board by March.

Dighe said that publishers won’t be charged for the service though advertisers will have to pay 3 per cent on GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) sold through the platform. Currently, Viral Mint’s primary product is a customer engagement tool, which has around 2000 clients. Dighe said the company hopes to spin off VMX as a separate revenue stream by end of year.

The company was founded in 2011 and has already had initial funding by Seed Fund. Dighe said there are no immediate plans to raise more funding but depending on the success of VMX, could look at raising more money in the next 2 quarters.

Affiliate marketing accounts for 25 per cent of online revenues in the US, though it accounts for only 3-5 per cent of e-commerce net sales in India. “We expect affiliate marketing to only grow stronger in the coming years. For example, by next year, it could account for 8-10 per cent of e-commerce sales,” said Dighe.

ViralMint to launch publisher-focused ViralMint Xchange

Now With 2 Million Advertisers, Facebook Gains a Foothold With Small Businesses

Facebook now has 2 million advertisers, a milestone CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today in a video post on the social network. Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg thanked small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and entrepreneurs for jumping on board with the platform, helping it attract 500,000 new advertisers in the last year.

“Millions of businesses like yours are using Facebook to connect with their customers and reach the world,” Sandberg remarked in the clip.

Just a few years ago, Facebook was an unknown quantity when it came to local advertising for SMBs—the platform was perceived to be more for direct e-commerce players and big brands. That small-business challenge appears to have been met.

“What does stand out here is that Facebook is making it easier to advertise, particularly for small- and medium-sized businesses,” said Rebecca Lieb, a Facebook analyst. “Much like search engines developed tools 10 years ago to serve targeted ads, Facebook is doing the same and removing a lot of friction for these businesses.”

Reaching 2 million advertisers is yet another indication of Facebook’s growing dominance in digital, getting more businesses to market to its 1.4 billion users. The social network is changing the face of digital advertising much the way search redefined the marketplace more than 10 years ago, according to Lieb and other industry watchers.

Today, Facebook also launched a mobile app to help businesses manage marketing campaigns. And it’s these types of “turn-key” products for small businesses, which are often less socially savvy, that are making it possible to advertise on Facebook, Lieb said.

“Targeting, segmenting, day-parting—this is not their core competency,” she said, referring to the thousands of small businesses that have to learn a whole new marketing language for the social network. “Facebook has to go into local markets and show them this is how you as local advertisers leverage the platform.”

The fact is that to reach fans on Facebook, big brands and small businesses have to pay for promoted posts. There is no such thing as free reach, according to Jordan Kretchmer, CEO of social marketing software firm Livefyre.

“Facebook has become one of the best paid media channels out there,” Kretchmer said. The social network is developing the ads, the networks, the tools and data collection capabilities that hold promise for marketers to reach consumers in the most targeted way possible, online and via mobile devices.

However, its total control also creates the risk that businesses will become overly reliant on Facebook to reach audiences.

Big brands have already reacted to Facebook’s dominance by investing in their own data and audiences, like Taco Bell building an app last year to own access to its user base, Kretchmer said. “If Facebook changes something tomorrow, these brands can jump away from it and not miss a beat,” he said. “Small businesses are at a disadvantage. They are beholden to pay Facebook to drive traffic.”

Last quarter, Facebook ad revenue was $3.6 billion, an increase of almost 60 percent year over year. It is the No. 2 digital ad business, still far behind Google, but comfortably ahead of companies like Twitter and Yahoo.

Of course, it also has rivals like Snapchat, coming up today much like Facebook was 10 years ago. That’s why Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp, which have more than a billion users combined.

“Marketers flock to media that collects the most users, that’s just how it is,” said Nate Elliott, a Forrester researcher. So Facebook’s size is drawing the biggest brands, which are having the most success at the moment marketing there, he said.

The large companies have the advantage because they have their own data, and Facebook can be stingy when it comes to sharing its data.

“It’s perverse. Facebook knows more about customers than anyone ever, yet marketers are forced to bring their own data to the party,” Elliott said.

Marketing experts said the data question is the next one Facebook has to address with small businesses. Kretchmer said companies like his Livefyre are developing ad-targeting and data tools that have only been accessible to large brands so far.

“Getting to relevancy is more difficult for smaller businesses than larger ones,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer’s principal analyst. “For one thing, they don’t tend to come into Facebook with their own large data sets, as do many of the larger companies that advertise on Facebook. This presents an opportunity for Facebook to educate small businesses about the best way to create and target ads to achieve relevancy.”

Now With 2 Million Advertisers, Facebook Gains a Foothold With Small Businesses

Google Acquires Toro, an Innovative Facebook Marketing Startup

The king of search engine Google has acquired Toro, a Facebook Mobile Marketing Startup based on San Francisco, California. Toro is developed by Red Hot Labs in March 2012, and its founders Amitt Mahajan, Joel Poloney and Dave Pekar worked really hard in last three years to make this startup a huge success in its niche. Toro helps app developers to market and promote their apps by offering best-in-class mobile marketing solution. Toro’s app marketing plans of setting up and optimizing the campaigns run only on the Facebook advertising platform. In short, Toro is a Facebook Marketing company exclusively for the app developers to help them promote their apps in Facebook in best possible way.

The parent company of Toro is Red Hot Labs, and its prime founders Amitt Mahajan and Joel Poloney previously joined hands in setting up MyMiniLife, and you may know that this is the company which played a very crucial role in the development of popular Facebook game Farmville, and this startup was later acquired by Zynga.

Google acquires Toro, Facebook App Marketing Startup

Toro helps its clients to optimize their respective Facebook Ad campaigns by creating and testing hundreds of different variants for each and every campaign seamlessly. Mobile App developers can run and manage their Facebook promotional ad campaign in a very easy way with the help of the service provided by Toro. Now, as Google acquired Toro, we may be able to see a much better version of Toro in upcoming days.

CEO and Founder of Toro Mr. Amitt Mahajan announced this Google acquisition via a blog post. He wrote,

“With greater resources and distribution now available at our disposal, we’re excited to join Google and continue our mission of making the lives of app developers easier.”

Toro has already raised $1.5 million fund from various investors like SV Angel, Andreesen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Greylock Partners, IT-Farm, Keith Rabois, Chris Dixon, Bill Tai, Matt Ocko and a few more. However, the financial terms of this Google-Toro acquisition is yet to be disclosed, and we’ll update this post if we get this information in coming days.

In that blog post Amitt Mahajan added,

“For our existing marketing customers, we will continue to optimize your campaigns and update your dashboards, though campaign creation has been suspended for the time being. We recommend working with an alternative Facebook PMD for new campaigns going forward.”

It means Toro might be shifting its prime focus away from Facebook. Rather it wants to work on creating many new products while staying under the big umbrella of Google Inc. What’s your view point on this Google’s new acquisition of Toro? Let us in the comments section below.

Source: TechCrunch

Google Acquires Toro, an Innovative Facebook Marketing Startup

Marketing Pro Acquires Central Alabama Valpak Territory

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Valpak, a leader in local print and digital coupons, announced today that Daniel and Ann Gallegly have acquired the existing Valpak of Central Alabama territory. With this territory, Valpak’s signature blue envelope will now mail to nearly 130,000 households in Birmingham, Jefferson and Shelby counties starting Feb. 16.

“Ann and I are thrilled to join the Valpak team, using our sales and marketing experience to bring savings to the members of our community,” said Daniel Gallegly, Valpak of Central Alabama franchisee. “The extensive support we receive from the Valpak network is truly amazing, and the brand’s business model is one we believe in. We look forward to growing our business and offering our consumers great ways to save through Valpak.”

Daniel and Ann were drawn to Valpak’s print and digital products and long track record of success in attracting a new generation of consumers while helping businesses grow. Prior to joining Valpak, Daniel was director of marketing for a regional home improvement company.

“The Gallegly’s bring nearly a decade of experience and knowledge in sales and marketing to Valpak,” said Greg Courchane, director of franchise sales for Valpak. “Their belief in the brand and desire to provide savings to their community positions them to succeed, and we look forward to watching their territory grow in the coming years.”

A leader in cooperative direct mail, Valpak mails over 20 billion coupons to nearly 40 million demographically targeted households per month in more than 100 markets in 45 states and four Canadian provinces. Today, in addition to its flagship blue envelope, the brand offers its business customers an impressive portfolio of digital advertising products including Smartphone apps, which are also integrated into the Samsung Wallet, iOS Passbook, Google Wallet and Windows Phone Wallet, as well as QR codes and online coupons to reach consumers at home, and on-the-go. Cox Target Media, providers of Valpak, also owns Savings.com, a leading online source for savings and personalized deals. Working together, Valpak and Savings.com offer consumers a more extensive selection of offers and a rewarding shopping experience as content is shared across platforms.

Ideal candidates for Valpak franchise ownership should possess a desire to join a trusted, industry-leading brand, work within a proven franchise system, develop relationships with local businesses and have a comfort level with selling new, digital technologies. Franchisees should also possess a minimum liquidity of $75,000, and a minimum net worth of $150,000.

For more information on advertising with Valpak of Central Alabama, please contact Daniel Gallegly at Daniel_Gallegly@valpak.com or (205) 405-0618.

For more information on Valpak franchise opportunities, please contact Greg Courchane at greg_courchane@valpak.com or (800) 678-2743 or visit www.valpakfranchising.com.

Discover more about Valpak®
Valpak is at the heart of communities across North America, helping people save, businesses grow and neighborhoods thrive through a network of local franchises in the U.S. and Canada. Our marketing consultants live and work in your neighborhood, and we can help you take the guesswork out of advertising with real-world marketing solutions that drive measurable results. From the mailbox to online to mobile devices, Valpak continues to find innovative ways to connect businesses with consumers. Monthly, close to 40 million homes receive The Blue Envelope® of savings and nearly 70 million shoppers visit valpak.com for coupon codes and offers. Backed by the muscle of Cox Target Media, Inc., your local Valpak office has the means and know-how to custom build a marketing campaign that meets your needs and budget. Let us introduce you to the neighborhood. Call Valpak at 1-800-676-6878.

About Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps. Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings. The company’s operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 59 radio stations, seven daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 31 million TV viewers, more than 3.5 million print and online newspaper readers, and more than 14 million radio listeners. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.

CONTACT:
Andie Biederman
Fish Consulting
954-893-9150
abiederman@fish-consulting.com

Logo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150212/175295LOGO

SOURCE Valpak

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

It is the cheapest business on the internet that can make you the highest profit.

Lets us discuss some important benefits of affiliate marketing to affiliate marketers and merchants.

Benefits to affiliate marketer

1. No Need to create a product!

One important benefit of affiliate marketing is that you are not required create or produce any products. It is the duty of merchants to create the products. So you are only required to select the products to sell, get the affiliate links and start your business in ten minutes. You can focus on selling the product as you don’t need to do anything with the production or delivery of the products.

2. You Can Start with No Money, or with as little as $100

Another important feature of affiliate marketing is that you can start your business with little or no out of pocket expense. This is the lowest possible investment in today’s world to start a business which has a great scope in the market. If you simply don’t have any money to invest, you can always use free tools to start your business.

3. The Easiest Online Business

It is the easiest online business due to the fact that the merchants do all the hard work like making products, delivering products to consumers, handling money transactions etc. Affiliate marketers are not responsible for any of these tasks. They just need to focus on promoting their affiliate links.

4. Make Money While You Sleep

As you have your affiliate links on the website which is available on the internet all the time, you are not required to remain online to keep in touch with your customers. People can visit your site whenever they want and can visit your affiliate links. If they like the product they can easily buy it by just by clicking the given links.

Your only concern will be checking your email to see how many sales you have made from your links.

5. Penetrate Hot Markets Fast!

You can select any hot market at any time to choose the products you wish to sell. If you observe that other marketers are making money with pet care related products for instance, just register with an affiliate program to get some hot pet related products, set up an adwords campaign, and in 10 minutes, you can start to make money!

Benefits to Merchants

1) More Sales in Less Time

The products of different merchants are advertised by many affiliate marketers at the same time. The main website of the merchant is also advertising the products. If the page rank of the merchant website and his affiliate marketers are high, tons of traffic, which are your buyers, will visit the product pages. The website of every affiliate marketer will send the people to merchant websites. This results in more sales in less time.

2) Broader Market to Sell Products

Having new affiliates just expands the market of merchants. Don’t select the affiliates blindly. Do the research to check if the affiliate’s website is related to your business or not. If the affiliate marketer’s website is matching your products theme, then there are more chances of sales. The affiliate’s website will receive hits for the people who need to know about your products and they are more likely to visit your website to make a purchase.

3) Less Efforts Required

Affiliates are doing the hard work of advertising for your products. If your affiliates are doing good work then you don’t need to spend extra time and money for advertising. Just concentrate on improving the quality of your products and launching new products.

Affiliate marketing can provide the easy, fast and reliable money to affiliate marketers. At the same time it gives more sales in less time and money to the merchants.

Times this article was viewed: 679

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Archey to lead UK Sports and Campus Marketing

LEXINGTON Greenup native Paul J. Archey, the influential Major League Baseball (MLB) executive who oversaw MLB’s international growth and led the initiative to create the World Baseball Classic while the head of MLB, International, is coming home to his roots to lead an innovative new marketing effort at the University of Kentucky with its partner JMI Sports.

The university and JMI Sports recently announced a 15-year, $210 million multimedia rights agreement that extends beyond athletics to incorporate the entire university.

“It feels wonderful to be coming home,” said Archey, who graduated from Greenup County High School and Georgetown College. “I had a terrific experience at Major League Baseball. I will greatly miss the relationships I developed during my time there. I’m very proud of what we accomplished and I know I’m leaving it in good hands.

“Now, I’m looking forward to putting that global experience to work for the benefit of UK and all my fellow Kentuckians for whom the university is so important.”

Mitch Barnhart, UK’s Director of Athletics, said, “We are thrilled to have someone of Paul Archey’s caliber at the very highest levels of the sports world bring his sophistication and talents to Kentucky. Paul’s decision to come here reflects his commitment to Big Blue Nation, and it illustrates the high-level commitment JMI Sports has made as our long-term partner.”

Under the agreement, JMI Sports established UK Sports & Campus Marketing, of which Archey will become president. This team will work as an extension of the university to maximize the value of UK’s assets, while developing relationships with sponsors, fans, alumni, and students through activities ranging from broadcasts to sponsorships and more. JMI Sports is also putting in place a groundbreaking “Total Campus Marketing” program to capitalize on the immense value the entire university has as a nationally recognized brand.

Erik Judson, CEO of JMI Sports, said, “We have known and admired Paul for many years and we witnessed his exceptional work first hand when the Padres and Petco Park hosted the first World Baseball Classic Championship in 2006. His vision in expanding Major League Baseball into international markets is exactly the kind of creative thinking and focus on opportunity we know he will bring to Kentucky. Paul will be instrumental in delivering great results to our valued partner, the University of Kentucky.”

“Paul is a worldwide industry leader, an innovator and entrepreneur with many significant and lasting successes, and an excellent marketing executive,” said Tom Stultz, president of JMI Sports. “His unique combination of experience and passion for UK athletics and his home state make him the perfect leader for UK Sports and Campus Marketing. It also helps that he bleeds Kentucky Blue.”

Archey took over MLB’s international operations in 1999, opening offices in Beijing, London, Sydney and Tokyo while expanding MLB’s global broadcast exposure to more than 200 countries. He has also served as the president of World Baseball Classic, Inc., chairman of the Australian Baseball League and head of MLB’s owners International Committee. His signature initiative has been creation of the enormously successful World Baseball Classic, which in 2013 alone attracted more than 800,000 spectators and drew 200 million TV viewers worldwide. He also was responsible for developing the MLB’s International Play Plan that has led to games being played in China, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela and elsewhere.

“On behalf of all his colleagues at Major League Baseball, I want to thank Paul for his many contributions to our game during a time of extraordinary global growth,” said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. “Paul was integral to the World Baseball Classic and many other events that have allowed Baseball to flourish as a truly international game. While it is difficult to see Paul move on, I am happy for my friend and congratulate him on a dream position in his home state. I wish Paul and his family all the best.”

Archey has won numerous awards, including Sports Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,” Baseball America’s “10 to Watch,” and the Harold J. VanderZwaag Distinguished Alumnus award from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, from which he earned his M.S. in sports management.

Archey earned his B.S. in marketing and finance from Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. He currently resides in Darien, Connecticut with his wife, Deena, and their three children, Jake age 22 (Bucknell University), Megan age 20 (Wake Forest University) and Peter age 18 (Darien High School).

Archey to lead UK Sports and Campus Marketing

GetUWired Releases Educational Blog "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Actually Convert"

(PRWEB) February 23, 2015

GetUWired, a small business Internet marketing firm that specializes in Infusionsoft, has just released an educational blog titled “How to Write Email Subject Lines that Actually Convert.” The blog discusses six different ways to increase conversion rates for email marketing. The blog can be seen here.

6 Tips on How to Write Email Subject Lines That Actually Convert

1. Keep copy concise

When writing email subject lines, shorter is better. The thing to do is to try to catch the eye, so writing a short email subject lines that is readable in a glance can help increase the open rate of emails. Long email subject lines take too long to read, and busy readers are less likely to take the time to do so.

2. Use the recipient’s name

Everyone likes to see their own name. Even though today’s savvy consumers realize their name is just being autopopulated into the subject line, it’s more likely to attract their eyes and persuade them to open the email.

3. Add a deadline

Inboxes are so clogged with information now that readers will put off reading email marketing messages if they think they have time to “deal with it later,” which usually ends up meaning “never.” Adding a deadline to an email lets readers know they must read this email immediately if they want to take advantage of the limited-time offer included within.

4. Offer high-value content

The very best way to get customers to open emails is to offer them something they want. Give them a coupon, a free gift, or information they can actually use, and then announce it in the subject line.

5. Don’t be vague

People are busy. They don’t have extra time to check out emails that may or may not include something interesting. Give customers something they want in their emails, and tell them about it in the subject line. Don’t be coy when writing subject lines.

6. Avoid spam flags

Certain words can land emails in the junk folder even if they aren’t junk. Avoid terms like “as seen on,” “work from home,” and “$$$.” Check the blog for a more in-depth list of spam-flag words to avoid.

For more information, call GetUWired at http://www.GetUWired.com or call 877-236-9094 today.

GetUWired Releases Educational Blog "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Actually Convert"

The Small Win Email: A New Way To Think About Conversions

I’ve been hearing a lot about conversion optimization lately. It’s mostly good stuff – writing clear copy, focusing on clean designs, creating a strong value proposition, etc.

Those are all conversion best practices but the truth is that most businesses are powered by small wins. It’s all the things that happen between the top of the funnel and the bottom that ultimately result in conversions.

The reason this is frustrating is because it’s hard to keep track of (and create) small wins. Imagine someone discovers your product or service through your content or social media. That often serendipitously – these people are nowhere near ready to buy from you. Once they are aware, however, small wins make them like you, trust you and, ultimately, need you.

vero conversion optimization

There are lots of ways to create small wins, with email chief among them. In this post, I’ll show you some email examples from companies who are blocking and tackling in hopes of one day scoring a touchdown.

Recommended for YouWebcast: How to Build a Passionate Culture of Team Engagement and Growth

These emails could be considered onboarding emails, lifecycle emails, behavioral emails or promotional emails. It doesn’t matter what you call them – they are being sent to people somewhere between the “initial interest” stage and the actual conversion. They are designed to net small wins like:

Introduce people to features or products

Build trusting relationships with content

Start a real, genuine conversation

Build momentum towards a bigger goal

Here are a few great examples of Small Win Emails from some really smart companies and people. Let’s get to it.

Backlinko: The Conversation Starter Email

There are a number of ways you can subscribe to Brian Dean’s Backlinko email list. You can signup right on the homepage or you can opt-in via one of the many content upgrades in his posts.

Regardless of how you do it, you’ll immediately receive an email like the one below.

Reply to this email right now and tell me one thing that you’re struggling with.

Even if it’s teeny tiny…I want to hear about it.

The conversion isn’t signing up for his paid SEO course or even clicking a link. It’s simply replying.

This accomplishes two key goals. First, it cements Brian as a real human being in the eyes of the recipient. This is not some corporate blog – Brian actually wants to hear and learn from you. Second, it builds trust. People that respond are making themselves vulnerable by sharing their challenges, struggles and failures. And when Brian responds, he becomes a friend, not just a blogger.

Brian Dean Backlinko

Dropbox: The “Just Because We Like You” Email

How many of your users are one small win away from becoming a great customer?

Well, no one really knows which is why it’s so important to keep people informed about updates to your product. Say, for example, you’re a Dropbox user that travels a lot. This feature – Microsoft Office integration – is huge. It could easily be the difference in using Dropbox instead of a competitor like Google Docs.

This email works because it’s so matter-of-fact. There’s no flashy headline or overstated subject line. The information is important enough that it’s not necessary. The copy is straightforward and leads the reader to a practical call to action.

dropbox new feature email-1

Shopify: The “Over the Hump” Email

This is a perfect example of a Small Win Email.

There’s an onboarding problem that a lot of SaaS businesses face: their free trial users feel overwhelmed, so they do nothing.

Shopify is tackling this issue.

This email looks and feels a lot like a newsletter but it’s actually a very smart retention email. I signed up for a free trial but let it lapse without setting up my store. Instead of encouraging me to create a store or add a product, they are starting very small. Just create a logo. See how it feels. Dip your toes back in the water.

It could be just the thing users need to get back in the game.

shopify email marketing-1

Evernote: The “Did You Know?” Email

We’ve talked a lot about “Did you know” emails on the blog before but this one from Evernote really nails it.

It’s as practical as it could possibly be. Notice that it doesn’t ask users to upgrade to a paid account and it avoids the flashy subject lines that have jaded most email users. It’s simple, clear, personalized and actionable … the perfect Small Win Email.

evernote email marketing small win-1

Automotive Specialists: The Replenishment Email

This email isn’t pretty, but it sure is smart.

We talk a lot about startups, e-commerce, and SaaS business, but here’s a great example of Small Win Email from a locally owned, family business. It’s behavioral in nature – the same type of email I might expect from a SaaS service if I’ve been inactive or a while or from an e-commerce store if I purchased something that needs to be replenished.

It works because it makes my life easier. Of course I know I should change the oil regularly, but I always forget to look at the windshield sticker. Even if I do, I have to set a reminder on my phone and call when I have time. This is so much easier. It’s personalized with my name, my car, the mileage and it lets me book an appointment right away.

It’s exactly this kind of email that is often overlooked by tech companies. Keep it simple – your customers will appreciate it.

automotive specialists-1

Do you send Small Win Emails? If you’d like to share an idea or ask a question, just drop a note in the comments.