Instagram Power: Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures

Can you do “real” marketing on Instagram?
 
That was the question bestselling author Jason Miles wanted to answer. So he used his e-commerce company as a laboratory and he began to study what other successful marketers were doing.
 
While some marketers haven’t even heard of Instagram there is a growing group of smart marketers using highly successful Instagram monetization strategies to grow revenue.
 
If you’re not using Instagram to your advantage, this book will help you start now. Instagram is the hottest social media site today: Two years after its launch, the number of its daily mobile users surpassed that of Twitter. Then Facebook purchased it for a billion dollars–and it took the world by storm.
 
In Instagram Power Miles provides everything you need to start marketing on the world’s most popular photo-sharing App. You’ll get it all in a quick and easy to read format. Miles will take you from setting up an account, to implementing the ten proven monetization strategies, to integrating Instagram with your complete marketing strategy.

Whether you’re a kitchen table entrepreneur, or a corporate marketer, this book will become one of your most trusted resources.

Click Here For More Information

Instagram Power: Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures

Facebook partners up with media outlets for Anthology

With 4 billion views per day, clearly Facebook hasrecorded major success with video. It has shot up from January’s 1 billion. Now Facebook wants to publish original content – it has paired up with those publishers who are known to produce viral content, like Vox Media, Vice Media, Funny or Die, etc. The social networking company has joined forces with seven such media outlets including Electus Digital, Oh My Disney, The Onion and Tastemade to release customized videos. This is a step towards Facebook’s goal of a long time to make the site a place for original content.

This effort has been named Anthology and the media companies involved are going to be officially “Facebook Marketing Partners” as opposed to those brands that can advertise themselves on their individual brand pages. Facebook has revealed that these partners will be trained how to get the maximum business results out of the Facebook platform, apart from getting creative and production services. Thus the companies will get all the behind-the-scenes info and workings of Facebook.

All the involved companies will be turning in a certain amount of their profits to Facebook. The social media website is already the most powerful driver of content, advertisements etc. in the Web with the widest access across the world. Hence publishers and digital content companies are more than happy to partner up with this effort for the sheer exposure their brands are going to get through Facebook.

Right now there is no clear idea about the long-term goals of Anthology, but one thing is sure, if this effort is successful, more and more media companies will undoubtedly join forces with Facebook, making it into an even more formidable name in the market indeed. And of course, Facebook will be reaping huge benefits from the entire venture.

Facebook partners up with media outlets for Anthology

Is Facebook Advertising Losing Its Sheen?

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Decent amount of budgets allows marketers to optimise the CPC and … which were once a great medium to let the fans know about a new product and …

Is Facebook Advertising Losing Its Sheen?

Need Help to Convince Your Team to Adopt Inbound Marketing?

If you are a business owner, sales or marketing professional you know the struggle of generating new sales when growing a company. We have all been in a place where we need to sign new clients to keep the business growing. This means delivering more leads into the sales funnel and convert them into long lasting customers.

Throughout your research on how to achieve growth you found Inbound Marketing. It seems to be a technique which is no longer guess work, but data driven. You share it with your team, hoping everyone understands how it helps get more traction. And then, a simple reply kills the drive: “We have always sold like this, it works, it is hard work but it works.”

So how do you convince them that it is not only about hard work, but efficient work? How do you bring the message that marketing and sales have changed and that you could achieve more using Inbound Marketing? As with every sales pitch (because this is a sales pitch to them) the best approach is to be prepared with hard facts, data and a simple plan everyone understands.

Build up context

Review your business goals and results

Write down the business goals your company needs to achieve, and use them to make your case. Your management or team work hard to achieve the traction the company needs and they will favor strategic, documented facts and solutions. Lead generation, client conversion and new sales channels are a priority for business growth.

Recommended for YouWebcast: How to Create Content for Human Beings: A B2B Marketing Intervention

Use your sales targets and go back to calculate how sales is performing. The goal is to showcase the current situation and achieve agreement on it, not cast blame or point fingers.

You want to discuss about:

1. What tools do you use in your sales efforts? How about marketing efforts?


2. What are the business goals? Leads, customers, revenue?


3. How much does it cost you to acquire a customer?


4. What are your marketing and sales efforts currently focused on?


5. Divide your customers based on how they were acquired: cold calling, networking, online marketing.


6. How do you find top leads? What is the cost per lead?


7. What is the cost of qualifying a lead?


8. Do you reach your leads at the right time?


9. What is the lead-to-conversion rate?

You want to have numbers ready on: leads generated monthly, leads to customer conversion, time spent on generating new leads, cost of qualifying leads, lead nurturing costs, customer aquisition cost.

Transition to Inbound Numbers

Once you presented the current situation, transition to Inbound Marketing data. The numbers are by now widely available, and can provide a good reference against your current situation. Considering your sales targets and challenges, select the best statistics to make your case. A good way forward is to start with general data and move into specifics. Below a few important stats to consider.

Inbound works for B2B

B2B companies see the same return on investment as B2C companies when it comes to Inbound Marketing. In their annual report, Hubspot shows that the ROI is similar regardless of the type product or service you offer.

A quarter of all B2B Fortune 500 companies are already using marketing automation, along with 76% of the world’s largest SaaS companies, according to Pardot.

Content brings visibility

Creating targeted content supports generating visibility. Blogging is important as it can add up significant traffic advantages. Traffic growth is important especially if content addresses potential customers. According to Hubspot, an average company will see a 45% growth in traffic when increasing total blog articles from 11-20 to 21-50. Remember though that adding more visitors to the website is irrelevant if they are not close to your target market.

Blogs DO generate leads

We know that blogs can generate a high number of leads, but convincing your senior management or team will not be easy. Use Hubspot data that shows B2B companies that blog only 1-2x/month generate 70% more leads than those who don’t blog. Furthermore, companies that increase blogging from 3-5x/month to 6-8x/month almost double their leads.

Your company might already have a blog, but so far no sales results have been achieved by using it. The question you usually receive here is “We have a blog now, how many leads did we generate so far?” There are a few major points you need to consider when answering this question:

• Do we blog regularly? Blogging works if it is maintained frequently and refreshed with relevant topics that address the questions the sales team encounters in the sales process.


• Do we blog about what customers need? Publishing blogs that are not targeted to the Buyer Personas will probably increase traffic, but yield no results.


• Is our blog designed for conversion? Do we use Call-To-Actions? Do you offer content for each step of the Buyer Journey? The blog itself needs to be designed and structured for lead generation. Blog posts are mainly used to generate awareness, and without content for Consideration and Decision stage, the website will not convert visitors into leads.

B2B Decision makers research vendors online

The business world is shifting online, and instead of calling vendors for quotes, decision makers take time to research the possibilities and opportunities available on the market. B2B buyers are 57% through their buying research before first contacting the seller. (Source: Corporate Executive Board).

When looking for a partner or supplier, companies research solutions that could match their needs before connecting with potential suppliers. In large organizations this might be delegated to interns, or juniors, however the decision maker will reach your website if you answer the right questions online and help the researcher do his job thoroughly.

66% of buyers agreed that the winning vendor provided higher-quality content and 63% said the winning vendor’s content was more conducive to building a business case for the purchase. (DemandGen Reports’ 2014 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey)

Increasing lead generation is not only blogging. It requires your team to leverage your website structure as well as social media for improved results. Hubspot identified that companies see a 55% increase in leads from increasing landing pages from 10 to 15 and Demand Gen Report shows that 72% of B2B buyers said they used social media to research the purchase decision in 2014

Marketing Automation supports lead nurturing

Even if you have a healthy lead generation program, you most likely reach to the decision makers at times when it is not convenient for them. They might not be yet at the decision point of a purchase, or they may have just signed with the competition for the next year. Gleanster Research shows that even with a good marketing strategy 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy.

How do you turn these leads into assets? Lead nurturing is the best solution, and marketing automation is a perfect solution. A good automation strategy can reduce the stress of the marketing and sales team to nurture leads, while increasing efficiency. The Annuitas Group unveiled that businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.

Case studies

Once you set the context and proved the numbers are there, reinforce it with a case study. You can use the Hubspot case study page and filter for companies similar to yours. Providing a success story from your industry helps your team live the situation rather then see if from outside. Make it easy to relate and they will be more likely to support it. You can check case studies also on InfusionSoft, Act-On or Marketo.

Bring tangible benefits on the table

You presented all about lead generation and sales, so focus on small wins to get your team onboard. Results will convince even the most skeptical in your audience, so now focus on how the team can benefit NOW from adopting a marketing platform and using an Inbound Strategy.

Clear data for management

Senior management likes data and results. An Digital Marketing strategy and a marketing tool like Hubspot gives management clear information about the progress and results.

Educated and qualified sales leads

Lost time with unqualified leads is the main reason your sales team is not effective. You can easily spend all your time engaging with new leads without converting clients. This can happen due to many reasons: they are not ready to buy, cannot afford your service, need a separate feature set, require a different service but do not know it yet, etc. Inbound Marketing helps you qualify leads through offering specific value propositions that appeal to those who are able to become customers.

Insights for Sales people

Tracking emails and website activity will return valuable insights on your visitor and lead base. Using a combination of Sidekick for email tracking and Hubspot’s page view notifications you can build up a history of your visitors and understand their needs. Hubspot themselves are very efficient using this approach as they use it to know when you browse Decision Stage content and immediately call you. That is the perfect moment to make a sale.

Present a game plan

Last, present a simple game plan. If you need to convince your team, show them how to reach there step by step. Set a clear and realistic goal, and map out a plan to achieve it with minimum effort and investment.

Build personas & Map the Buyer Journey. Make sure you know who you address. Use people involved in sales and marketing to build up the persona and journey.

Optimize the website and signup for a marketing platform. You may not want to change the website again, but it will save time and money in the long run if you use a marketing platform. A SEO audit will also be needed to focus your website on your desired keywords and improve organic growth.

Commit to regular blogging of minimum 1x per week. This is really the minimum you can do if you want to achieve results within a 3 to 6 months time frame.

Create content for Consideration and Decision stage. Make sure you have a small Expert brief for example, for the consideration stage, and a case study for the decision phase. This will help you qualify prospects and have a complete digital buyer journey.

Use 1-2 social networks to engage with your audience.

Implement a basic subscriber to lead, lead to qualified lead email conversion program. Use a monthly automated newsletter to deliver updates to your email lists and showcase your Consideration and Decision offers.

When you achieve your goals, you have specific numbers to your business that showcase results and ROI. This will be better than any case study or statistics you can find to make the case for implementing a full Inbound approach for YOUR organization.

Commitment is key

Last but not least, remember it takes 3 to 6 months to produce results depending on your target market so commitment and patience is key.

We will shortly release a presentation that you can use as a launch pad for your internal Inboud Marketing sales pitch. Subscribe to our newsletter and we will let you know when it is available.

Need Help to Convince Your Team to Adopt Inbound Marketing?

Advice Points for Maintaining Communication with Advertisers

As a publisher it’s vital that you maintain strong communication with your advertisers – without them you’re unlikely to succeed long-term in affiliate marketing. Quite often, an ‘’inactive’’ publisher i.e. someone who doesn’t respond to various forms of communication, can be removed from an advertiser’s programme during an audit. With so many new publishers entering this industry on a daily basis (Affiliate Window sees 30 new publisher signups a day) you need to ensure that you’re not forgotten about and remain at the forefront of advertiser’s minds.

Here are some top tips to ensure you maintain communication with your advertisers:

Don’t have a relationship with a faceless programme

As a publisher you need to be proactive. Although this varies by advertiser, quite often they expect you to come to them with promotional opportunities and an interest in promoting their brand. Get to know the point of contact, perhaps have an introductory phone call or try and meet them at an industry event. Just being able to put a face to a name can really benefit your relationship in the long-term.

Make communication personal

As publisher teams get larger and larger, response time becomes more important from the advertiser’s perspective. They’re far more likely to communicate with a particular person they have regular dealings with on the publisher side rather than through an affiliates@ e-mail address so try and provide that personal point of contact, particularly for your bigger brands. Even if you’re a one man band, having your name included in your e-mail address comes across a lot friendlier and more approachable versus a generic address.

Allow your phone number to be displayed within your signature when contacting your advertisers so that they can get hold of you quickly if they need to. There is often a worry that you’ll be overwhelmed with phone calls but there are significant benefits to displaying this information. Firstly, it helps build credibility especially if you’re a new publisher and the advertiser hasn’t worked with you before. Secondly, it shows that you’re available and willing to answer any question the advertiser may have. Thirdly, if for some reason the information on your site is wrong, if the logo is out-of-date for example, they’ll be reassured to know that there is a quick form of communication to get it amended. If your site goes down or information is displayed incorrectly it’s also likely they’ll be the first to notice.  Fast feedback cuts down recovery time on your end and enables the advertiser to trust that if things do go wrong, someone is quickly on hand to fix them.

Maintain a 24 hour turnaround time

Always try and maintain a 24-hour response time. If an advertiser has a last-minute exclusive code, they’re far more likely to go to the publisher they know is proactive and will respond to say that they can provide extra promotional coverage at short notice in return.

Monthly calls and quarterly meetings to discuss performance

Whilst it’s not always practical to meet all of your advertisers as regularly as you would like to, it’s definitely worthwhile meeting your top ten on a quarterly basis whenever possible. A phone call is a good alternative method to keep in touch if a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible. Presenting to an advertiser on what has worked well over the last quarter and ways to continue this growth is really important information they’ll be keen for you to share. Additionally, providing them with insights on what has worked well with their competitors is invaluable. Case studies for both situations encourages communication as you’ll come up with ideas together on what to try next.

Send advertisers newsletters or summary e-mails

Ensure advertisers are kept up-to-date with any developments your end. As a publisher it’s likely that you’ll have regular new promotional opportunities, perhaps a themed newsletter around Mother’s Day or Christmas and without informing your advertisers its coming up they’re not going to be aware of this. This newsletter is your chance to maintain communication with your advertisers so add a bit of personality to it. Add in something that will encourage advertisers to respond in some way so it opens up two-way communication.

Within your newsletters you can also feature ‘success stories’ of a promotion that has worked in the past month. This will make that advertiser feel a sense of loyalty to you and should in turn encourage ‘competitors’ of theirs to get involved with you and replicate this for their own success story.

Keep advertisers up-to-date

Ensure your advertisers know if you’re going to change your site in any way which may affect them. Additions such as social codes to a site or installing a toolbar can have differing reactions from advertisers, so it’s best to negate this by giving plenty of advanced warning and allowing them to voice their opinions to you. Again, by allowing them to share their thoughts you’re forging a strong relationship for the long-term.

What are your advertisers key KPI’s

At a basic level you should be aware of what your advertisers key KPI’s are. Having this knowledge is vital for good communication as you can tailor your promotions around them and follow up with case studies focusing on these indicators. Did you increase AOV monthly and if so, by how much? Was it better than this time last year? And what can be done to further improve this next month?

Subsequently, if your advertisers are looking to trial multi-attribution for example or make a key change to one of their KPI’s, you need to make sure you’re on top of this as this will put you ahead of  competing publishers and further showcase your proactive attitude to the advertiser.

Keep up-to-date with Industry regulations

With the IAB as our governing body, there are always changes being made to the industry regulations. Over recent years changes such as how you display voucher codes on site has provoked a lot of debate therefore as a publisher it’s vital that you are open and communicative with your advertisers and abide by these guidelines. Remember that affiliate marketing only makes up a small proportion of an advertisers overall digital mix and you don’t want them putting more resource into other channels if they’re unsure guidelines are being adhered to by their publishers.

Hold advertiser days

Ask your network to host an advertiser day for you. Particularly if you’re based in an area outside of London or where few of your advertisers are, having a whole day where you can meet them for back-to-back meetings is a great way to improve and maintain communication with your advertisers. This setting is not only social but also creates learnings and key takeaways you can use to follow up with advertisers at a later stage.

Attend industry events

Industry events allow publishers to see a number of advertisers in one go. It enables you to communicate in a relaxed manner whilst in a working environment. Annual industry events or smaller, more frequent events hosted by networks are particularly beneficial for publishers who live a distance away from where their top advertisers are based. Perhaps you can take your largest brand out for dinner beforehand to build up the personal relationship. Whilst it’s important to form a professional relationship, getting to know what they enjoy doing away from the office can prove extremely valuable. After all, affiliate marketing is based on relationships and building these along the way is an added bonus.

Additionally, if your advertisers hold press days then it is worthwhile trying to attend these, as having the additional knowledge of their products and showing interest in their brand is likely to go down very well. It opens up further dialogue you can have with the retailer, as you can provide your feedback on the day and feature particular products you saw on your site.

Be transparent

If you’re new to the industry or are doing something slightly different from traditional publishers then being transparent is extremely important, particularly in the early days of forming relationships with advertisers. If they require referral URLs or what to know how you’re promoting them then it’s advisable to readily share this information with them. With so many publishers around you don’t want them deciding to work with your competitor simply because you provided inadequate information.

Ask for feedback on your performance

Finally, it’s always worth remembering that strong, constant communication between parties is integral to the success of any business and this is particularly important for a business whose success is built on relationships. However, this does need to be two-way so encourage this by asking advertisers for feedback. What do they think is/isn’t working? Can they provide you with a better discount, do their offers do well on particular days of the week or times of the year? This two-way insight is a great foundation on which to maintain communication with your advertisers through the affiliate channel.

Advice Points for Maintaining Communication with Advertisers

Casino Affiliate Marketing: Gambling Affiliate Industry Explained

Summary:

If you have always wanted to be a part of the hugely lucrative online casino industry, but lack the capital to invest in the exorbitant software or to track down a unique Website domain. There is a remarkably easy solution for anyone finding themselves in this position. Whilst some may question the likelihood of earning money from a marketing program the results suggest something very different.

All over the Internet and in all the major industries people are profiting fr…

This article from The Online Master is about: Casino Affiliate Marketing: Gambling Affiliate Industry Explained

If you have always wanted to be a part of the hugely lucrative online casino industry, but lack the capital to invest in the exorbitant software or to track down a unique Website domain. There is a remarkably easy solution for anyone finding themselves in this position. Whilst some may question the likelihood of earning money from a marketing program the results suggest something very different.

All over the Internet and in all the major industries people are profiting from joining online affiliate marketing programs. The larger the industry and it’s potential clientele the more likely the success of an affiliates marketing. Few industries can match the phenomenal growth and financial muscle of the online gaming industry. Online casinos are riding a wave that shows no sign of depleting, dispersed over dozens if not hundreds of sites the industry is a multi-billion dollar market. When there is so much money to be made and such a large potential audience, the industry inevitably becomes hugely competitive. Marketing individual products is the key way for sites to gain in stature or remain amongst the market leaders, therefore all sites no matter how large or how small dedicate considerable effort in creating their brand identity through advertising.

Marketing through television, billboards, publications and event sponsorship requires considerable up front investment. Whilst the largest companies may flex their financial muscle, smaller companies must try to explore other avenues. The cheapest, most widespread and arguably most successful way of reaching people is through the Internet. The World Wide Web is a huge forum for advertising and cross promotion, site owners know that reaching an audience just a click away from their site is one of the best ways to attract new clients.

Through affiliate marketing all casino sites can benefit from free advertising on the Internet. Free that is until somebody clicks on the link and signs up for their site. This is an ideal way for sites to reach potentially huge audiences without having to pay anything up front. From the affiliate point of view, there is the possibility to earn money just for hosting an advert on their site. It only takes a few clicks from new customers to get the ball rolling for an affiliate to earn a serious amount of money. Most affiliate programs are based on a percentage of a player’s lifetime revenue for the site. Meaning that the whole time a player remains on the site both the affiliate and the casino are earning a significant income. So in essence the casino affiliate program is a self-serving industry, in which both sides are equally happy with the arrangement. Due to the nature of the business structure it is also in the interests of both parties to attract more business for one another, which in turn keeps the industry strong and productive.

Casino Affiliate Marketing: Gambling Affiliate Industry Explained

New approaches to sport marketing

Sport is a crowd-puller but advertisers have realised they can’t rely only on traditional marketing, so they have learnt to adapt, writes Melina Meletakos. Brands that sponsor sport are looking for new ways to be noticed.

Sports advertising is no longer simply about buying large amounts of television airtime and bombarding viewers with adverts between coverage of sporting events. This is because the way consumers watch live TV is changing with new technology like personal video recorders (PVR), which allow viewers to record programmes and replay them with rewind and fast forward functions.

While sport may generally be considered PVR-resistant, the massive growth in sport programming means that viewers are spoilt for choice, says DStv sales and marketing director Fahmeeda Cassim-Surtee. Because of this, many therefore choose to record certain programmes or watch highlights of events through services like DStv’s Catch Up (a video-on-demand service that offers subscribers a selection of TV shows and sports highlights to view directly on their PVRs).

“We are already starting to include opportunities within Catch Up for sponsors by carrying over some of their elements from the linear broadcast into the Catch Up content in the form of pre-video rolls (a promotional video message that plays before the content the user has selected),” explains Cassim-Surtee.

Additionally, mobile technologies and the introduction of virtual fan gathering places through social media offer viewers more information, as well as a platform to share their opinions. (A virtual fan gathering is a digital gathering of people sharing a common virtual environment on the web, rather than meeting in a physical location. It can take various forms – a social media page or an email debate group.) This, says Cassim-Surtee, has led DStv to start including various social networks and mobile sites like SuperSport mobi into their sponsorship proposals. “Any content created for mobile or online by SuperSport is seen as an extension of what is shown on the TV broadcast. It should be the same for brands that are visible on TV and associated with various sport types. Their brands should extend onto other devices for that same content. In the social space, we are also investigating options with WeChat,” she says.

Social media has added a completely new dimension to sport marketing as it gives brands the opportunity to improve their engagement levels, says Cassim-Surtee, explaining that “brands need as much information as they can get from consumers and they need to keep talking to their customers”.

It has also given marketers a tool with which to adapt nimbly to what is happening at sporting events in real time. The oft-cited example of this kind of agile marketing is Oreo’s timely response when the lights went out at the 2013 SuperBowl. “Power out?” the brand tweeted. “No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Their immediate response was retweeted
15 000 times. Oreo’s Twitter following increased by 8 000, the post got 20 000 Facebook likes and the brand went from having 2 000 Instagram followers to 26 000.

Adidas has also reacted timeously to real time events. When tennis player Andy Murray won the BBC Sport Personality of the Year award in 2013, the British arm of the brand tweeted a congratulatory image with a strap line saying, “Not bad for a man with no personality”, playing on the fact fact that Murray is often criticised for being quite stern.

But as sport marketing crosses into these digital realms, marketers are presented with a whole new set of metrics with which to measure the value of sponsorships, says Cassim-Surtee. “The objectives for digital are also set on different criteria by marketers and the values associated with digital are still very different to TV,” she explains. “I do think that the lines will start blurring as video consumption across online and mobile increases.”

Alastair Hewitt, SABMiller (SAB) Africa general manager for regional brand equities, says the company has brand health reports that measure all brand activities, including sponsorships and how they influence reputation among consumers. “The introduction and expansion of digital marketing has improved the means of tracking, particularly direct engagements with consumers, making it easier to monitor and understand the value drivers in sponsorship. This improves the ability to make decisions when buying sponsorship against your brand objectives,” he explains.

Simon Franklin, chief operating officer at sports marketing company Megapro, says quantifying the value of sponsorships once they enter the digital space is tricky because there is no defined value on a tweet or a Facebook like or share, for example. “We show the sponsors the numbers and then allow them to ascertain the value because we are not a research business,” says Franklin.

All these dynamics mean that brands are now looking for better ways to measure return on investment (ROI), which has been amplified by the global economic downturn, adds Franklin. “Brands have definitely become wiser. It’s not just about putting their logo on a shirt or on a field. It’s become more strategic. Brands now have to stand for something,” he explains.

This has caused corporate social responsibility (CSR) to move to the heart of the sponsorship agenda with brands increasingly using their sponsorship leverage also to do some good.

Hewitt says SAB’s decision to choose new platforms or continue its long-term commitment in sport sponsorships is “less about cost and more about an opportunity to contribute to the development of our society”.

“Sport has played a powerful unifying role within the country, connecting people from every corner and transcending every barrier. We have also seen how soccer can help bring about socio-economic change in South Africa, through [bringing] hope to local communities and providing opportunities for talented individuals to improve their lives,” he adds.

SAB has been sponsoring Bafana Bafana since South Africa’s readmission to Fifa 22 years ago and was actively involved when South Africa hosted the 2010 Fifa World Cup after supporting each of the country’s bids. “The SAB League, for example, boasts impressive alumni who play for the top South African leagues, national teams, the national squad and international football clubs. Our support of football can help ensure the sport continues to drive positive change in South Africa,” says Hewitt.

One of the ways Momentum is giving back is through its sponsorship of One Day International (ODI) Cricket. For the last three years, the company has been involved in Pink Day, a breast cancer awareness initiative that supports breast cancer organisation, PinkDrive. The Proteas play the game clad in pink kits and encourage supporters to do the same on the day to show their support for and raise awareness of breast cancer. Momentum contributed additionally by donating R100 000 to PinkDrive when a player hit the red inflatable Momentum ‘M’, R10 000 for every six hit into the Momentum Family Area and R1 000 when the ball hit the perimeter boards.

“For us, our philosophy and approach is that it’s not just about getting the exposure that you want. It’s about a long-term contract and wanting to leave a legacy beyond the commercial benefits,” says Momentum head of brand Danie van den Bergh. “We don’t want to just sponsor with certain sports – we want to partner with them and leave a legacy through sport.”

Despite the scope of sport sponsorships broadening, Franklin says South Africa’s sport marketing industry is still healthy. “Sport is a big business in South Africa. People love the game so we’ll see the industry continuing to grow,” he says.

This post was first published in the March 2015 issue of The Media magazine. 

New approaches to sport marketing

6 Pieces of Advice for Driving Video Traffic With Email Marketing

If you have room for one more goal this year, here it is: Make more marketing videos. And not just because videos are packed with SEO value or because (sadly) people don’t take the time to read anymore.

As a medium, video affects us on intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional levels, which is difficult to do with other media. And when video is done well (i.e., tells a story instead of just selling a product), you can draw in new audiences and build trust in your brand.

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But I’m an email marketing guy, so I’m always thinking instead about how to use email to drive traffic to all that great video content you’re about to create. Here are six pieces of advice to set you on your way:

1. Before you go viral, go local.

I don’t mean screen your marketing videos at your neighborhood cineplex, although it’s not the worst idea I’ve had this week. My first piece of advice is to use email to put your video content in front of the people who are most familiar with your brand—the folks on your email list. These are the people who have already opted in to hear from you, so reward them with an early look at your latest content and invite them to share your video with others.

2. Know your surroundings.

Before you promote a video in your marketing email, think about where you’ve hosted that video. I always recommend linking out to the video with a thumbnail play image rather than embedding it in the email itself. It avoids running into the delivery and rendering problems in some email clients.

Whether you link to a YouTube video or something you’ve hosted on your own website is up to you, and it might depend on what you want to happen next. If you want viewers to share the video, YouTube makes it ridiculously easy. But the downside is they also serve up lots of other videos on the page, so your competitor might be listed there, or there might be an irresistible kitten video that steals your viewer’s attention. If your goal is to move people down your marketing funnel, a landing page on your own site gives you total control on what else you want a viewer to be able to see and do.

3. Use a little brain science.

Like I said in my advice above, use a video thumbnail in your email, but don’t *just* use any old video thumbnail. Be intentional about what image you use to entice the click, and remember that humans pay particular attention to images that convey danger, sex, and food. We’re also hard-wired to connect on an emotional level with images of faces. Which reminds me of a tactical tip: If you use an image of person in your thumbnail, don’t cover up his or her face with the play button. Not only does it look like you’re censoring the person in your video, but you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with your viewers’ primal brain.

4. Set (great) expectations

Every video needs a little context in order to convince potential viewers it’s worth watching in the first place. When you’re including video in marketing emails, your context-setting toolbox includes subject line, headline, thumb nail imagery, and caption text. Use these places to explain the value of the video content and to play up how short the video is, which is a big factor in whether people will take the time to watch. Don’t veer into click bait territory, though over-promising can damage your brand’s integrity.

5. Capture even more clicks with captions.

No matter how enticing your thumbnail image is, add some copy right below it that reinforces the content and has a linked word or phrase that also plays the video. That way, if people have images blocked, your video content is still accessible. Plus, at Emma, we’ve found that captions under images get a lot of action, and that’s supported by the latest eye-tracking research.

6. Let your video shine.

Above all, if you’re going to include a video in your marketing email, make that the whole point of the email. Don’t stick a small thumbnail in a side column or tack it on the end of a long newsletter. Give your video top billing, and it’ll show up in preview panes and display nicely on mobile devices. And since these days people’s fingers move faster than their brains, you might get the click before a word of your email even gets read.

Video creation is on rise among B2B marketers, increasing by as much as 58 percent in 2014. While using email to drive traffic to video content is a no-brainer, these tips can help you get more of your audience watching and clicking. 

6 Pieces of Advice for Driving Video Traffic With Email Marketing

5 Simple Earth Day Tips for Making Greener Marketing Decisions

Going green is more than just a fad; it’s a big issue that a lot of people care about. In honor of Earth Day, here are some simple tips to help you incorporate environmentally responsible practices in your marketing initiatives.

Think Green, Even for Digital

Marketing is very digital these days which is great news for the environment. However, there are still ways to promote green practices in your digital marketing efforts. For example, when sending an email campaign, adding a line in the footer drawing attention to needless printing can make an impact. The commonly used phrase, “Please consider the environment prior to printing this e-mail,” is a simple way to encourage greener thinking and save some trees while also showing your customers you care.

Lead by Example

Recommended for YouWebcast: Zero to Millions: The Secrets Behind Building a Business and Growing a Digital Audience

According to a study from RetailMeNot.com, “a vast majority (89%) of the nation is willing to purchase at least one kind of product that has a positive impact on the environment.” If you have any green initiatives at your company, promote those to help your brand lead by example. Alternatively, if you’re looking for ways to create green initiatives, a great place to start is by ordering supplies from a local business vendor to reduce carbon emissions. Little things each of us do can collectively have a big impact.

Pick Eco-Friendly Giveaways

When choosing promotional products, select giveaways that support waste reduction. For example, instead of giving away bottled water with your company logo on it, choose a reusable mug or thermos. Instead of handing out traditional phone chargers, hand out solar-powered phone chargers. There are numerous eco-friendly choices.

Green Up at Events

Events and trade shows can be major culprits of paper waste. Simple things like creating online press kits instead of handing out paper marketing collateral could save wasted time, money and paper.

Click to view the full infographic

Use Recycled Paper

Sometimes printing paper is unavoidable. For those times where you have to print, use recycled paper and print on both sides.

This Earth Day, think about how your everyday choices as a marketer can help make a positive impact on our planet.

5 Simple Earth Day Tips for Making Greener Marketing Decisions

The Mythical Affiliate Manager: Why An Agency Is A Better Fit For An Online Merchant

When a brand decides it wants to properly attack its marketing, it seeks out experts to help them do so. Sure, they may have a marketing manager in-house to oversee the marketing process but when they need heavy lifting in the form of an integrated advertising strategy that plays out across multiple media in multiple markets, they turn to an advertising agency.

It’s no different when a brand decides to enter the affiliate marketing channel.
Many merchants entering the affiliate channel believe a workable solution is to delegate all affiliate marketing responsibilities to an in-house affiliate manager and/or hook up with an affiliate network’s managed services offering. But an affiliate manager is just one person and an affiliate network is just a platform, a technology provider and not a marketing expert. Much in the same way Google Search is a platform for search engine marketing and does not offer search marketing expertise.

Neither solution is the best solution for a merchant who truly wants to maximize returns through the affiliate channel. Let’s take a look at several reasons why a merchant should consider an affiliate marketing agency for its affiliate marketing program.

Turnover – An affiliate marketing agency is stable in the sense that it is a corporation that consists of many people who work as a team to accomplish effective affiliate channel management for merchants. Yes, people come and people go but the team stays in place. While a great affiliate manager aims to do the same great things as an agency, they are just one person, not a team. And when they leave, and they will, the merchant, effectively, has to go back to square one.

On average, affiliate managers — like any one in any marketing professions — last about 14 months before they move on to their next gig. And when they do, most of the processes, procedures, practices and amassed knowledge disappear with the exiting affiliate manager.

Continuity — Akin to the aforementioned turnover, continuity, as it relates to merchant revenue, can be lost. When an affiliate manager leaves a merchant, it’s a dramatic revenue disruption. Processes, procedures, practices and knowledge leave when the affiliate manager leaves and a new affiliate manager must get up to speed of be trained.
While that is happening, the merchant’s affiliate program is not running at 100% and that can lead to a disruption in revenue. Existing relationships with affiliate networks that have been built up over time with the in-house affiliate manager walk out the door along with the exiting affiliate manager and the merchant has to build those relationships all over again.

Expertise — With an affiliate manager, you get a warm body in a chair who is lucky if they can keep up with anything more than the very mechanical aspects of managing a merchant’s affiliate channel. This is not meant as a disrespectful jab, simply an observation that an affiliate manager is one person, not a team. An agency gives you a team of experts who are adept at optimizing campaigns, customizing creative, building and maintaining relationships with affiliates and networks.

Clout — If an affiliate can have a phone call with an agency and bang out a program with 200 retailers at the same time versus have a phone call with one affiliate manager at one retailer, who do you think that affiliate is most likely to answer the call from. This is a serious stumbling block with the in-house affiliate manager model.

Agencies have clout. Just like any large entity in any segment of marketing or the broader business world, they can get stuff done because they have a much bigger reach and a larger command of the affiliate channel. An in-house affiliate manager simply lacks the bandwidth to do everything necessary to run a full blown affiliate program.

Cost Effectiveness — When a merchant hires an individual affiliate manager, they are taking a risk in that they don’t always know what they are getting. When an agency is hired, it’s a simple fee. With an in-house employee, there’s benefits, vacation, sick days, bonuses, training costs and other unforeseen costs.

In addition, agencies are on 24/7. Certainly an individual affiliate manager can work their ass off but, again, they are just one person, not a team like an agency.

And then there’s cost-related risks. Is the affiliate manager exceptional? Are they just OK? Or are they terrible and will need to be replaced in 6 months? With an agency the proof is in the portfolio and tenure of clients. Sure, an agency can suck too but there are more solid metrics on which to judge that agency.

Experience — A single affiliate manager has a limited set of experience. That just comes with being a single person. An agency brings to the table a stable of experience, an overlapping army of expertise spanning many years working with many different merchants, networks and affiliates. Yes, people can come and go from an agency just like affiliate managers come and go from merchants but an agency team can retain the collective knowledge much more effectively than an individual person. With an agency, a merchant gets continuity of experience.

What about Network Managed Services? — Yes, networks can bring scale to a merchant’s affiliate program but there are limitations. Chiefly, the merchant only has access to the affiliates in its network. That’s limiting if the merchant wants to explore all options.

And then there’s the question of strategy. If a network offers strategic advice to a merchant, it’s questionable at best. Why? Because any advice that network gives is going to involve pointing the merchants money right back at the network whether or not the network’s solution is best for the merchant. The network has no motivation to seek out and discover options outside its network that might be a better strategic direction for the merchant.

As a merchant, you want the best possible return for the affiliate channel. To get the best possible return, a merchant has to be able to get an unbiased, 50,000 foot view of the affiliate channel and, in addition, reliable, consistent expertise that will never walk out the door and sap affiliate channel revenue.

This guest article was written by Greg Shepard, CEO of affiliate agency AffiliateTraction.

The Mythical Affiliate Manager: Why An Agency Is A Better Fit For An Online Merchant

Can a New LinkedIn Tool Accelerate Your Social Media Marketing?

Earlier this year, LinkedIn announced the launch of a new, full suite of tools to improve social media marketing efforts on its platform. Highlighting a particular tool within this portfolio called “Lead Accelerator,” LinkedIn claims it had found a way to turn its platform into a whole-funnel solution for marketers looking to promote their companies, start new conversations, and land new business.

To demonstrate the efficacy of Lead Accelerator, the company launched a pilot program with around 100 brands—including heavy hitters such as Lenovo, Samsung, and Salesforce—to see how they could benefit from using their new tools. The results were wildly successful, with brands such as eCornell reporting two times as many landing page conversions and a cost per lead three times lower than normal.

So how does it work, and what does it mean for other marketers now being given access to these tools? The simple answer: data.

Prior to this launch, the primary means of promoting a brand on LinkedIn was through sponsored updates and sponsored content. These tools work much like Facebook’s content marketing promotion model, where marketers can pay to have their pages and articles appear in the news feeds of targeted audiences. In fact, Facebook also launched its own tools to provide new data for content marketers. While useful, this method isn’t without its limitations: Promotions were limited to LinkedIn, data on interactions and efficacy was sparse, and targeting was largely left up to individual marketers to determine (usually based on data gathered from other platforms).

Lead Accelerator fixes most of these issues. Now, marketers who opt into the service receive detailed analytics about audiences who interact with their content and similar content, both on and off the LinkedIn platform. Promotions are no longer confined to news feeds, but can also appear over large networks of “display” sites that return data regarding audience interactions. But perhaps the most attractive social media marketing tool comes into play after running promotions, when Lead Accelerator will make suggestions about how to turn your new, promoted reach into actionable conversions.

Currently, the service is available for quarterly and annual subscriptions purchased through a conversation with a LinkedIn sales rep. This means the cost may be scaled nicely to fit your business, but for some marketers this may only mean that the price tag for these tools is subject to change. Only time will tell how LinkedIn manages this, but in the meantime, this is a huge step for empowering marketers to reach professional audiences.

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Can a New LinkedIn Tool Accelerate Your Social Media Marketing?

Facebook News Feed Reprioritizes Your Real Friends Above Pages

No one likes brands more than their friends, and there are plenty of ways to get their marketing updates. Facebook’s unique value is keeping you up to date on your real-life friends. So to “get this balance right” Facebook today announced it’s reconfiguring News Feed to show content from close friends higher up, which may push posts from business Pages further down.

A few other tweaks include relaxing the limit on posts shown from a single friend to people with little content in the feed, and showing fewer stories about when a friend Liked or commented on a post so it can give more room to what you’re interested in.

Combined, these updates, like several previous rounds of News Feed changes, could reduce visibility in the feed for Pages. While show more from friends might make the Facebook experience healthier in the long-run, it’s a tough pill to swallow for businesses who’ve built themselves up on Facebook referral traffic.

As competition for limited attention grows, brands have to either work harder to make truly entertaining content people want to see in their feed, or be forced to buy ads to boost their reach.

You’ll see fewer of these stories now

The Free Ride Comes To An End

Once upon a time around 2009, Facebook needed brand content. It was trying to become the most interesting place on the web, so it let bands, fashion lines, sports teams, and news sites create Pages that could publish to the News Feed. Users could subscribe to the ones they wanted, and get news on all of them aggregated in the feed, augmenting the posts from friends.

But since then, Facebook has bashed face first into an inevitable math problem.

According to Zuckerberg’s Law, people share more online every year. Both people and Pages are posting more status updates, photos, videos, and links. Meanwhile, people are accumulating more Facebook friendships and Page subscriptions. But they’re not increasing the amount of time on the News Feed nearly fast enough to keep up with the increase in volume of content they might see.

More competition for limited attention equals a decrease in reach. For people, that’s not too big of a deal. If they get fewer Likes on their selfie, nothing that bad will happen. But the decrease in reach has been brutal for some businesses who overextended on the assumption that the referral traffic and sales they got from the Facebook Page’s News Feed posts would sustain or grow, not shrink.

But Facebook has little choice. If it prioritizes brands over friends, people won’t keep coming back to the News Feed, and soon there won’t be an audience for anyone. It had to give friends more weight in the News Feed to keep the social network strong for years to come.

Get Down Or Lay Down

Many have suspected the reason Facebook decreased Page Reach was to con Pages into buying ads, but really, the drop in reach was unavoidable. Still, Facebook could use the lens of “We’re trying to make the experience better for end users” to pressure publishers to keep feeding it content in new ways.

In late 2012, I heard rumors of this plan, but it seemed far-fetched as Page reach was at its peak and Facebook was sending gobs of referral traffic to publishers and brands. But supposedly, Facebook was considering the idea of hosting publishers’ actual content, not just teaser previews and links to it, inside its News Feed. This way users wouldn’t have to click away from their friends and wait for sites to load to consume them.

Now the New York Times reports Facebook plans to test a way to host content from publishers like the New York Times in the coming months, with a potential ad revenue split. Users could read a whole article within Facebook. And thanks to Facebook’s massive scale and ad targeting prowess, it could show more relevant ads alongside the articles than the publishers could.

Since Facebook would consider avoiding extra clicks offsite as a better experience, it might be more willing to show this hosted content than links from publishers it doesn’t partner with. Depending on how aggressive Facebook gets with the plan, eventually, if you don’t partner with it, you could see your referral traffic dry up. For now, you either make non-spammy content that people actually want to see and that makes Facebook more fun, or you see your reach drop.

As they say in gangland, “Get down or lay down”.

Facebook News Feed Reprioritizes Your Real Friends Above Pages

The Secret Sauce For Ecommerce Firms To Motivate Affiliates To Sell More!

Affiliate marketing has been rapidly spreading its wings in the Indian e-commerce sector. Several online businesses like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon.in, Jabong have started their own Affiliate Programs or have partnered with Affiliate Networks to drive traffic and boost sales. However, 90% of online businesses have failed to achieve affiliate traffic and sales as expected through affiliate marketing. So what is it that you can do to inspire affiliate loyalty and maximize affiliate sales?

You must remember that winning affiliate loyalty isn’t really easy. At present, there are over thousands of merchant affiliate programmes in existence and your affiliates are spoilt for choice. To build loyalty among your affiliates and to keep them motivated throughout, you have to do something exemplary that will make you stand out from the crowd and bring new affiliates on board.

To make this easier, here’s my secret list of what I think you should be doing to pump up your affiliates and make them promote and sell your products faster than ever! Some of these techniques may require considerable amount of time and effort. However, it’s a wise investment because once you succeed in creating loyal affiliates; they will not only stick with your affiliate program but also promote it enthusiastically and recommend it to other top affiliates.

Attractive commissions: The biggest factor which drives affiliate motivation and loyalty is MONEY! Offer them the best commission vis-à-vis competitors and affiliates will insistently start promoting your products. However, you must also be intuitive and cognizant of their business model. Start giving increased commissions during predictably low shopping periods to keep them motivated and will encourage them to promote your brand more during that timeframe, ideally offsetting the sales dip.

You could also keep a standard commission rate for all and provide an increased commission to affiliates performing exceptionally well! This will get them eager to perform better and drive maximum sales!

Give-aways, vouchers and exclusive coupons: Turn up the excitement for your affiliates by providing them with attractive vouchers, give-aways and exclusive coupons. This will encourage them to initiate engaging activities like fun contests, photo caption challenges, quizzes & trivias and reward winners with these give-aways and voucher coupons. This will help them build engagement and increase traffic on their platform and subsequently direct more traffic to your brand, with at least 30% first time/unique customers.

Innovative branding strategies: Your affiliates are the ones who will be writing about you hence, ensure that they know your products really well, especially the significant ones. Share a consolidated Marketing Kit of these products listing down their benefits, positioning ideas, and the commission rate for selling them. This approach will make affiliates (especially content bloggers) understand your products and review it appropriately.

For example, if you are a travel website, then you can carefully select a handful of tier I blogger affiliates and ask them their top five favorite destinations. Then you can pick one of these five destinations and sponsor their entire trip to this place! This initiative will not only help you win affiliate loyalty for life but will simultaneously amplify content marketing and brand visibility.

Advanced payouts: What if nobody buys this product? What if my audience doesn’t like what I’m promoting and does not click on my affiliate link? I don’t want to wait for long to receive my commission.

Every affiliate goes through these thoughts. A great way to drive away negativity and build motivation to sell more is by facilitating affiliates with advanced payouts. You can always collaborate with third-party frameworks like Escrow and create individual affiliate accounts to provide express payments every time an order is placed.  

Storefronts: Yes, you love your website. How about letting your affiliates have a mini version of your store? One of the best ways to motivate your affiliates and effectively reach out to their audience is by promoting storefronts. Through a storefront they can earn by showcasing your products without having to worry about creating them/managing inventory/shipping/tracking sales. Sounds like a win-win situation for both right?

For example, if you are a fashion blogger, you can dedicate a corner of your website to a personally curated compilation of your favourite clothes, accessories and footwear from all your favourite brands! Believe me, your audience will love it and start shopping instantly!

(Image Source: http://akanksharedhu.com/)

Let them know you care!!: Personally connect with them and turn your top affiliates into loyal friends. Always remember, having a bunch of affiliates will take you nowhere but a group of enthusiastic supporters will!

If you can’t make calls, reach out to them over live chats, through surveys, conduct quarterly get-togethers and networking sessions for them. In these meetings, talk about whSeveral online businesses like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon.in, Jabong have started their own Affiliate Programs or have partnered with Affiliate Networks to drive traffic and boost sales. at’s new with your company, update them with your new range of products, company vision and immediate and long-term marketing & sales objectives. This will help them gain insights and make them feel like an integral part of your brand.

Fashion brands for instance can host fashion shows to give affiliates a sneak peek of their new collection, Home decor brands can set up concept stores for affiliates to visit and personally experience the products that they will be selling.

Innovative Referral Programs: Another cool way to get your Affiliates charged up is through Innovative Referral Programs. This will save you the trouble of finding new affiliates and also keep your existing affiliates extremely happy.

Sample Affiliate Program:

We love having you as a part of our Affiliate Network;

But wait, here’s your chance to make more money with us!

Invite 10 more people and win 5% spike in your bounty!

Link Exchange: Lastly, build SEO and help your top affiliates attract more organic and editorial traffic by giving them back links. How do you do it? Promote them in your blogs, republish their articles on your website, and help them get more traffic through your page.

Motivating Affiliates is an on-going process and you have to constantly keep coming up with newer and innovative ideas to keep their spirits high and souls engaged! If you think that there’s anything that I’ve missed out on or if there’s anything that you’d like to add to my list feel free to comment below.

The Secret Sauce For Ecommerce Firms To Motivate Affiliates To Sell More!

Partners+Simons CEO takes helm at parent company Myelin Health

April 21, 2015

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Myelin Health CEO Rich Levy

Myelin Health today announced the appointment of a new CEO and plans for the healthcare communications network, which is focused on payers, healthcare providers and medical device and diagnostic manufacturers, to acquire up to nine other marketing services firms.

The network, which was created in 2012 by Baird Capital, is looking for firms that offer services such as public relations, CRM and data analytics that complement the three other deals that have been completed. The private-equity firm’s first stake was in Partners+Simons, a Boston-based brand communications firm that works with healthcare and financial services clients such as AIG, Medtronic, Genzyme and some pharma clients. It employs about 100 people.

The network’s growth strategy calls for making a total of eight to 12 acquisitions, including the three completed deals, within the next year, said Rich Levy, who was recently named CEO of Myelin Health and will continue to serve as president and CEO of Partners+Simons. He declined to say how much money Baird Capital plans to spend to fulfill the strategy.

Levy said Myelin Health won’t look like a WPP or Omnicom Group, two of the world’s largest advertising holding companies. Instead, it will continue to focus on payer and provider clients, which have become much more aggressive in their marketing in the US since the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

Insurers, in particular, have “never had to aggressively market and spend marketing dollars,” Levy added.

Along with the investment in Partners+Simons, Myelin Health has acquired Avid Design, which provides online marketing and services to healthcare providers, and Duet Health, a mobile healthcare communications firm.

Partners+Simons CEO takes helm at parent company Myelin Health

Can You Really Make Money Online?

Summary:

Learn how to quickly and easily begin generating an online income!

This article from The Online Master is about:

There are many people from all walks of life searching for ways to make more money, and the internet seems to be full of opportunities. Usually when you start searching for jobs or work at home possibilities, you get bombarded with a lot of hype! You know the old saying, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!” Remember that when you start looking for opportunities to help you make money online! If everything were as easy as it seems to be, then we could all quit our full time day jobs and just work online from the comfort of our home! Okay-maybe not, but I have been doing this online working thing for awhile now, and I want to share with you some advice about how to do it the right way!

1. Start Slow! When you first start out trying to make money online, the internet is going to seem like a huge place with tons of information everywhere. You’ll probably feel overwhelmed with an information overload! Don’t let that happen. You need to take it a little bit everyday and learn as much as you can bit by bit. One of the best ways to do this is to keep paper by your computer and take notes. Write down any good websites you find that you may want to refer back to. Print out information that you will need in the future. Read as much as you can and go back and read it again. You need to really let it soak in, and you need to absorb as much as possible. Generally, if you allow yourself enough time to do some research before you try to get started, you will arm yourself with a lot of important necessary knowledge. Of course, most of you will still be working your day job, so maybe try to allow some time in the evenings or on the weekends to do your research. Also, stay organized! Nothing is worse than sifting through a huge pile of papers looking for a specific site or web address. If you can go into this venture from a learning perspective, it will make everything easier down the road. Whenever you are working to make money online, research, learning, studying, and keeping up-to-date are going to be some of the most important things you can do. Remember that a lot of your competition will probably try to go in blindly, so then you’ll be one step ahead.

2. Find Good Products and Test Them. When you are ready to take the step into making money online, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest ways beginners can make money. Not only can you have the potential to start generating sales, but you will get exposed to a lot of people who know what they are doing, who have already had success, and who are actually willing to help you. Once you find a good product that you want to try to sell, test the waters. Place some ads in various areas and keep track of whether or not you’re making any sales. When first starting out, only promote one or two products at a time! It seems like you will do better if you start promoting 100 things at once, but when you have so many campaigns going at the same time, it’s easy to lose focus and concentration. You want to be able to put forth your full effort and really see whether or not this product is going to pay off for you. Keep in mind that a lot of products end up not being successful money makers, so if you find that is the case, go back to the drawing board and pick something else. Don’t spend a lot of money until you find a profitable product! Most of us just starting out don’t have much extra money to spend on advertising anyway, but keeping costs down is important. Your ultimate goal is making a profit, right?

3.Get Excited and Don’t Give Up! Start promoting yourself and your products as much as you can. Many well established and successful sites have opt-in email lists where you can sign up to get their daily or weekly newsletters. Get your email address on all of the ones that look helpful to you or your product. Many times, these emails are full of valuable information, and you’re getting it for free! These companies are reputable and are not going to sell or give away your email address, so it’s completely safe to go ahead and sign up! This is a continuation of your learning process, as well, because they will send you up to the minute information, and may even introduce you to new products! The more you can learn, the better! Speaking of email, send out some emails to family members and close friends and let them know about your new online adventure! No, you don’t have to try to sell them anything, but this is an easy way to start getting yourself out there. Please don’t spam anyone, though. Just send it out to those people who you know will be accepting of your emails. Also, when you send them out, ask your friends and family to let you know their personal opinions about your products, website, or any other feedback they can give. If you can get some open and honest feedback from those you trust, you can begin to get an idea of how you will be able to relate to the general public. You’re ultimately hoping a lot of these people will be your customers someday! This whole experience working online can be a lot of fun, but there are definitely going to be some very frustrating days. There may even be some frustrating weeks. Keep going, keep working, keep learning, and stay in the game! There are no people who succeed in making money online if they give up within the first couple of months! The longer you stick with it, the more chance you have to improve your skills, and eventually you’ll get where you want to be. Keep your perspective, and if you need a break, take one. Sometimes, when you’re taking a break, you do your best thinking and get some of your best ideas.

Hopefully I’ve provided you with some basic information for getting started making money online. It really is a learning experience, but at least you can do it from the comfort of your own home! Lots of moms and stay at home caregivers have options for generating online incomes that weren’t there even a few years ago. This market is open to anyone and everyone. Take it step by step, don’t jump in head first, and learn, learn, learn! Here’s to your success!

Can You Really Make Money Online?

ChannelAdvisor plans to discontinue an eBay management tool

The vendor’s MarketplaceAdvisor Standard mainly served merchants who only sell on eBay.

Online marketplaces are like stocks, which means retailers should diversify the channels they sell on, says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which helps retailers sell via web marketplaces like those operated by eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

“Today eBay is lagging and Amazon is doing well,” he says. “But chances are that won’t last, so you need to broaden your portfolio to reduce your risk.”

The vendor has adopted that approach over the last few years, which is why it plans to eliminate one of its older products, MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, which was mainly used by merchants who only sell on eBay.

ChannelAdvisor acquired MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, then known as Marketworks, in 2007. Even at the time of the acquisition, Wingo emphasized the difference between the two companies—Marketworks’ business was primarily serving eBay sellers, while ChannelAdvisor focused on helping larger retailers sell across a number of channels. Roughly eight years later, ChannelAdvisor decided it no longer made sense to support sellers who just focus on eBay, says a ChannelAdvisor spokesman. “This single-channel solution is no longer a fit for our platform,” he says.

The move comes amid growing evidence that eBay consistently is trailing the growth rate in online retailing.

ChannelAdvisor Corp. last week reported that e-commerce sales for its clients via eBay’s marketplace grew 7.3% in March, up from February’s 5.1% growth rate. That growth was far below Amazon’s 24.6% growth rate for ChannelAdvisor clients selling on the Amazon Marketplace, which jumped from 22.7% in February. EBay’s growth rate was also just over half of e-commerce’s roughly 15% growth rate during the past year. And another report, by Robert W. Baird and Co., found that eBay’s marketplace sales grew 2% to 3% in March, slightly below its February growth levels.

ChannelAdvisor says that as of July 15, eBay sellers will be unable to list items via MarketplaceAdvisor and that it plans to disable storefronts on Aug. 17. It will shutter all access to data on Sept. 14.

ChannelAdvisor plans to discontinue an eBay management tool

How Would An Email Tax Change Email Marketing?

On April Fools’ Day, Forbes ran a story about how Congress was considering a tax on email by amending the Internet Tax Freedom Act the next time it comes up for renewal. It was a great gag, and while I think there’s zero chance of any kind of email tax coming into being, it’s interesting to think about how the email marketing industry would change if some kind of tax were levied.

Possible Tax Schemes

About 10 years ago, I thought the email industry might actually benefit from having additional costs associated with sending. At that time, malicious spam was still a significant problem. Since then, ISPs have done such a stellar job of eliminating traditional spam from inboxes that the definition of the word “spam” now means something entirely different: email consumers no longer want, even if they opted in to receive it.

That said, illegitimate email still represents 95% of all email volume. That’s a lot of email for ISPs to filter through to get down to the 5% that’s legit. Even a tiny tax on each email sent would collapse any centralized sending of spam; however, it might be less effective in tackling the bot networks that are responsible for much of the spam that’s sent today.

Of course, part of the trick is how to actually implement a “tax” on email. One way would be through a bonded sender program, which would allow a few different schemes. For instance, each sender would post a bond, and every time recipient complaints exceeded an established threshold, money would be taken from the bond. When your bond runs out, all your emails get blocked until you replenish it. So essentially this would be a tax on spam and unwanted or irrelevant email.

Another way of using a bonded sender program would be to charge a tiny amount for each email delivered. That would instantly change our tolerance levels of inactive subscribers.

A twist on these ideas would be for the U.S. Postal System to start a white label email system. Just like with snail mail, you’d pay for postage –and through a revenue-sharing program with ISPs, you’d get guaranteed 100% deliverability.

In all of these cases, you pay money upfront to avoid potential deliverability problems that would otherwise directly cost money to fix through remediation, and indirectly cost money through the revenue lost from blocked messages to your subscribers.

The Current Tax on Email

The central tension in email marketing is that our subscribers’ time is far more valuable than the pittance it costs us to send them email. In my book, “Email Marketing Rules,” I refer to this as email marketing’s cost-value gap. Marketers fill this gap by sending relevant emails to subscribers who want those emails.

When marketers don’t fill that gap, they invariably suffer deliverability problems from high complaints and low engagement. This is essentially a tax that subscribers impose on marketers for wasting their time. And it’s a tax that marketers can largely avoid by (1) putting in place sensible permission practices and sound collection processes across all their email acquisition sources and (2) using personalization, segmentation, triggered emails, and other tools to consistently send individually relevant emails.

It’s this ever-rising tax imposed by subscribers that’s the reason email marketing is no longer cheap. If you focus on making your emails smarter and more relevant, you not only reap the benefits of higher returns and higher customer satisfaction, but also minimize deliverability taxes.

How Would An Email Tax Change Email Marketing?

"I Am Groot." What's Your Email Marketing Really Saying?

“I am Groot.” Those are the only three words Groot says through most of the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy film. Rocket’s the only character who “gets” Groot. While it certainly makes for an element of humor in the film, it’s not the way you want to operate your email marketing campaigns.

Point is, simply repeating your message over and over “at” your audience won’t get you anywhere. You’ll get lost in the noise on the Internet, and if your customers even find you in the first place, they probably won’t stick around for long.

Make Your Email Marketing Campaigns Work for You

Nearly three-quarters of adults prefer email communication from businesses, compared to just 17% who prefer social media and in-person communication.

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Make the most of your email marketing with these tips:

● Write all your emails as if you were speaking to one person, rather than your entire list. This instantly creates a more personal message.

● Make sure your emails are useful, offering something of value to your customers. Don’t waste their time.

● Keep messages short and sweet.

● Write engaging subject lines with power words to pique curiosity.

● When selling, highlight product/service benefits and what the customer will be missing if they choose not to buy.

● Use clear and concise calls to action. Tell your readers exactly what you want them to do.

Integrate Your CRM and Email Marketing

Your CRM puts tons of information at your fingertips that will make it easier to customize your email marketing campaigns. Using the same message for all your customers isn’t an ideal approach because it won’t “speak” to everyone the same way. The more personalized your messages are, the better your results will be. Emails with personalized subject lines have an average of 17% higher click-through rates, and 81% of consumers say they are “at least somewhat likely” to purchase from businesses that send personalized emails based on their previous shopping experiences.

With an integrated CRM and email marketing approach, you can see customers in each stage of the funnel to tailor your email marketing to customers in each segment. You’ll see who’s opening your emails, who’s clicking through from the emails to your website, and who’s ignoring you. Then you can fine-tune your marketing strategy to make the most of customers who are responding and do more to capture those who aren’t.

Insightly integrates with MailChimp to make it easy for you to manage your contacts. Insightly contacts can be exported to MailChimp, and MailChimp contacts can be imported to Insightly to ensure all customers and prospects are in the same place.

Your sales and marketing teams will be working with a single database, meaning there’s no lag time while the marketing team waits for the sales reports to gauge the effectiveness of their latest campaign. As soon as marketing messages go out, the sales team can focus on qualified leads coming in.

Recent data shows clients who communicate with your brand are twice as likely to do so via email, rather than via Facebook. Considering Facebook’s organic reach is now down to about 2%, and your email will always be delivered, it’s a good time to invest in email marketing campaigns. Remember, about ⅔ of email is opened on a mobile device. Concentrate efforts on delivering mobile-friendly, personalized, and timely email marketing messages, and you’re on your way to increased sales and brand loyalty. Leave Groot behind to spread his poorly understood message while you deliver the goods.

Image via Shutterstock

"I Am Groot." What"s Your Email Marketing Really Saying?