Conferences, Chats, Mentions, and a New Job, too!

: Affiliate Summit 2011 Speaker

I’ve been VERY busy since my Blogiversaryday – here’s what I’ve been up to:

Conferences

Blue Sky Factory User Conference – Blue Sky Factory COO and Managing Partner, Doug Broujos, and I presented a session on Getting People to Open Your Email. We spoke about Subject Lines, “From” Names, Pre-Header, and other factors that impact people receiving and opening email. I’ll add a link to the recording/slides once it’s posted. I was thrilled by the audience interaction and the thoughtful questions they asked. I am convinced that Blue Sky Factory hires some of the best and brightest people in email marketing – let me know if you need a referral and you and I can both get 3 months of landing page services for free!

Affiliate Summit West 2011 – Did I mention I was speaking at #ASW11? You can find more info about my speaking engagements on the About page of my site! See more about my top 15 speaking status in the Mentions section below.

Chats

#ProfsChat Guest of Honor – I was just coming off the high of speaking at an email marketing conference when I got an email from Megan Leap at MarketingProfs asking if I would be the special guest on #ProfsChat so of course I said YES! Our topic was email marketing and social media – two of my favorite topics! You can find the complete transcript, including some great links, here: #ProfsChat email marketing and social media transcript.

#SMchat moderator – although I missed my usual “2nd Wednesday of the month” Marketing moderator slot on #SMchat because I was speaking at the Blue Sky Factory User Conference, I was able to view the transcript of the great job done by Guest Moderator Joe Ruiz (better known as @SMSJoe on Twitter). I look forward to moderating today’s #SMchat – once again we’re discussing email marketing and social media, but this time specifically as it relates to Facebook’s venture into email marketing, formerly know as Facebook’s “Project Titan” and now officially released as Facebook Messages. There are no scripted questions this week, but the conversation should be lively on this hot topic! Don’t have Facebook Messages yet? You can request an invite here: http://www.facebook.com/about/messages/

Mentions

Mention in Chris Penn’s Newsletter – I love the way Chris emphasizes the action items in his email – especially subscribe and unsubscribe – and breaks the content into easy-to-digest sections. As an extra-added bonus, I got a mention in this month’s newsletter for sharing last month’s newsletter with my social media network – how’s that for an incentive to SWYN/FTAF?

Mention in Geno Prussakov’s blog – You can see from my Tweet how excited I am:
I’m #14!!! RT @eprussakov Most Influential Affiliate Summit West 2011 Speakers – Top 40 http://bit.ly/bFMnRi

New Job

With a fond farewell, I announced my resignation from MEDEX Global Solutions although I’ll continue to be an affiliate and will never leave the country without MEDEX international travel medical insurance after all of the scary travel stories I’ve heard while working there.

I start my new job as Assistant Vice President, Ecommerce at 1st Mariner Bank after Thanksgiving! As you can see from the image, 1st Mariner is just as excited as I am. Wish me luck!

: 1st Mariner Announcement

Please note: These are affiliate links to MEDEX and Affiliate Summit, but I’d link to them even without an affiliate relationship because I’ve become a true believer in travel medical insurance and I’m thankful that Affiliate Summit has asked me to speak at their event.

Talking SEO for our 1st Blog Birthday-Anniversary-Blogiversaryday

: No Matter What The Holiday Is, Flowers Always Work

One year ago today, I wrote my first post on Motherhood, Marketing, and Medical Mayhem. I was inspired by the marketing insights gained at MarketingProfs Digital Mixer. I was especially excited because I won the conference pass and I couldn’t wait to share what I learned with the world. Now, a year later, I don’t know whether to consider this my blog’s birthday, anniversary, or what? Blogiversaryday?

No matter what you call it, I’ve learned a lot — and shared a lot — over the past year, not only on my blog, but via Twitter, guest posts, and comments on the blogs of others. All of the above are great ways to increase your search engine ranking. Generally, the more links you have coming in to your website from other reputable sites, the higher your natural search ranking. This is also known as off-page SEO (search engine optimization) or link building techniques. According to SEOMOZ, the quantity and quality of external links is the #2 top search engine ranking factor barely beaten out by keyword focused anchor text from external links.

As you might be able to guess, the flip side of off-page SEO is on-page SEO. On-page SEO includes things like keyword-rich URLs, installing 301 permanent redirects, ensuring unique URLs for specific webpages, and keyword optimization. With the exception of keyword content optimization, the other on-page SEO topics are fairly technical in nature but are explained nicely by Rand Fishkin in his post on Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization.

As noted above, the final, and perhaps most important part of search engine optimization is keywords. Keywords are what a website wants the search engines to associate with their site. The idea is to find the most popular keywords for your audience with the least competition. To help you find keywords and traffic estimates you can use the Google keyword tool. Keywords are used both on-page in content, URLs, alt text, and meta descriptions, and off-page in anchor text.

In reading the details behind the SEOMOZ rankings, I found it interesting that Conferences, Events, and In-Person Networking was the 7th most effective link building tactic for SEO since that’s why I started my blog a year ago. So what do you think – is it a blog birthday, anniversary, blogiversary, or something else? Please leave a comment below or send some “Congratulations” flowers from my affiliate link to let me know!

5 Questions About Building Brands Via Social Media

: Social Media for Brand Building?

At the suggestion of Chris Jones, aka @SourcePOV, I’ve been reading a lot recently on how brands are using social media. Here are some links I’ve come up with – examples from around the globe on how companies like Starbucks, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Dell, Kenya Airways, Cadbury, Vodafone, Volkswagen, and K-SWISS are using social media to increase brand recognition and positive brand interactions:
Building Brands Through Twitter
Starbucks’ Schultz: Social Media Is Key to Building Brand Trust
Building Brands via Social Media
Building European Brands Through Social Media
Digital Media Law: Building Brands In a Digital World

For the October 13, 2010 #SMchat, we will be discussing the following 5 questions:

Is social media the best way to build a brand online? Why or why not?
Do B2B and B2C brands need different social media brand-building strategies?
Which social media channel is the best for brand building and why?
Is there a best channel for brand engagement? Does it depend on the product?
What about brand loyalty? Is one channel better than another?

Did I miss any good branding and social media articles? Please feel free to post links in the comments below and don’t forget to join us for #SMchat on Wednesday, 10/13/10, at 1PM ET! We look forward to chatting with you.

Every Child Wants A Pony, Does Every Marketer Want A Pony Movie?

: Is Sharon riding Secretariat? No, that horse is Pepperoni Pizza!

The film Secretariat opens up around the country this weekend. I have always loved horses and I remember when Secretariat won the Triple Crown of horse racing. Although I didn’t own my own pony when I was younger, I was fortunate enough at the time to be able to ride Peperoni Pizza, aka Pete, several times a week. I was even lucky enough to be the barn manager for a highly-ranked team at the Ochlockonee River Pony Club event where the photo on the left was taken (several years ago).

Online and Offline Movie Marketing

Secretariat, like all movies, is an opportunity waiting to happen for all kinds of media. Traditionally, film publicity included newspaper and magazine ads; billboards; bus and subway ads; in-theater trailers and previews; TV and radio ads; and other offline campaigns. The addition of online media into the movie marketing mix adds another dimension of audience engagement. It allows people to “like” the movie on Facebook and share info and trailers with their friends via social media. On the movie’s website audiences can watch film clips and download pictures from the movie to view on their computer or even post as their avatar on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media forums. Some movies even have games based on the movie that people can play and share. Film marketers do an amazing job of encouraging online influencers to share their love of a movie’s brand among their connections.

Brand Advocacy Via Social Media

This “brand advocacy” or implied endorsement of a movie’s brand by sharing among a person’s friends and followers is even easier to do when the movie’s subject is connected to something they are passionate about. Like the small child who desperately wanted a pony being more likely to write a blog post about the movie Secretariat than any other movie when it comes time to write about a different form of marketing. (Hmmm…sound familiar? LOL) I eventually got the horse – at one point we had two ponies and a horse between my daughter and I – and although I was never tiny enough to be a Triple-Crown-winning jockey, there IS a perpetual trophy awarded by the Harford Horse Show Association with my name on it.

Affiliate Movie Tie-Ins

Smart affiliate marketers are taking new cinematic releases like Secretariat and creating banner ads and product offers that emphasize the movie tie-in. An example of a merchant who is capotalizing on the movie by emphasizing the horse-themed items in their banner creative is Leanin’ Tree:

Some marketers are even modifying their product lines to add horse-related items. An great example is how Andrea Levine Designs added horse charms to their dog and cat jewelry can be found here:

Wild Horses Couldn’t Keep Me From Seeing Secretariat!

Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, once wrote, “You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people’s maps will be the same.” Between the combination of horses and a strong-willed working mom, I believe Secretariat will be a movie that will be included in the map of my life. What are you favorite movies and how do they map your life? Please leave me a comment below to let me know.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

An Exciting Week for Conferences and Webinars

: Great Conference Conversation at Affiliate Summit East 2010

In an earlier post, I told you about my fascination with webinars and some tips for making them better. Last week I had an opportunity to participate in a webinar from the other side of the microphone. I was asked to be part of a panel for Social Media in Action: The Marketer’s Perspective, a webinar from WhatTheyThink – the printing and publishing industry’s leading media organization. It was a great experience and one I hope to repeat soon.

I was pleased by the adept way that Cary Sherburne moderated the panel, although my recent experience with a live panel moderator, Jen Goode, set a standard so high I wasn’t sure anyone could match it. Jen moderated an Ask The Experts roundtable at Affiliate Summit East 2010 and the discussion at her roundtable was informative and lively (and not just because of the brownies she brought for attendees). I learned so much at past Affiliate Summits I have attended that I was inspired to put in my own proposal to speak at Affiliate Summit West 2011. If you have any interest in using web analytics and online marketing best practices to assist in website redesign, please vote for my session: WEB REDESIGN BY THE NUMBERS. You have until Friday, October 8, 2010 to help select sessions for Affiliate Summit West 2011.

I was lucky enough to attend the last Affiliate Summit West on a free pass, and last week I was surprised with a free ticket to attend another conference! Eloqua is a marketing automation company that I spent nearly a year working with in order to supplement email automation and segmentation processes. I attended the Eloqua Experience in 2008 and took copious notes on lead scoring and lead nurturing in order to implement best practices and procedures for a former employer. Eloqua’s combination of automating targeting, measurement and sales intelligence impressed me enough to make a complimentary comment in a Twitter chat more than a month ago. Impressively, Eloqua not only responded to my Tweet to thank me, but they remembered what an Eloqua fan I was when they surprised me with the conference ticket in a blog post. Unfortunately, the combination of lack of a corporate travel budget combined with last-minute timing made attending a conference on the other side of the country virtually impossible, but I’m hoping the invitation will be extended for next year’s conference!

What conferences are you looking forward to attending next year? Please let me know in the comments section below! I’m working on putting together a list of interesting marketing conferences and webinars for 2011 and I’ll be happy to give you credit for finding the best marketing conference ever if you post a comment about it below!

Photo courtesy of Shawn Collins and Affiliate Summit.

The ER is for Special Occasions

: St. Joe’s, ER of choice for Mostyn family chest pain

I apologize to my friends, both online and in real life, if I’ve been distracted this week. Normally, I’d blame it on excitement about my birthday, but those that have known me a long time realize that special occasions frequently require a trip to the Emergency Room (ER) so it may not be the type of excitement that you expect. Our family has been to the ER/hospital for my high school graduation, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Halloween, the day of our Christmas party, several family members’ birthdays and anniversaries, and even vacations are considered special occasions as far as ER visits are concerned! My first date with my husband, T2, was delayed due to an ER visit, so you would think that I wouldn’t be surprised by this.

Usually, Mostyn Medical Mayhem can be handled by a trip to Patient First, a local urgent care center. They’ve handled stitches, broken bones, allergic reactions, foreign objects in the eye, walking pneumonia, fevers of unknown origins, last-minute pre-operative testing, and even severe cases of the flu for the Mostyn clan. Friends jokingly ask if we’ve got a special room there, to which I respond politely that we do have special front row parking. (At the location we visit, almost all of the parking could be considered front row…) We’ve been there so often that one day when there was no one else waiting to be seen when we arrived, a nurse felt comfortable enough to tease me that if we had brought her coffee ice cream she would make sure we were first to be helped. They’re good people. They can treat routine medical problems, including taking x-rays, performing lab tests and blood work, writing and filling prescriptions, etc. and they get you in and out pretty quickly, but sometimes you just have to go to the Emergency Room.

One of the times when the ER is required is when chest pain is involved. My father-in-law (aka T1) had the family visiting him at St. Joseph Medical Center one Mother’s Day when he had his heart attack. They did a great job with him and so that is where T2 went earlier this week when he was having chest pains, even though he thought he knew it wasn’t his heart. You see, about 3 years ago, T2 had a hiatal hernia about the size of a lemon that was pushing up into his chest and making it difficult for him to breathe. He was having chest pains so bad that he was physically sweating from the pain. T2 gives that kind of pain an “8” on a scale of 1 to 10.

So when he called me earlier this week with a “6” pain level, I called his Gastroenterologist who told him to go to the ER and have them rule out heart problems. T2 got checked out at the ER, and his heart is healthy, so they’ll be doing an endoscopy and unless they find something unexpected he’ll be having surgery to repair it soon. (If you’re keeping count, this will be the 3rd time he’s had a hiatal hernia repaired…and this time they won’t be able to do it laproscopically so he’ll have a much bigger incision.)

So what does this have to do with Marketing? Well, other than the Medical Mayhem portion of my blog, the cool Marketing tool that I’ve gotten from this experience is a mobile ER Wait Time app that St. Joseph Medical Center has for determining how long you can expect to be in the waiting room before they are able to see you. Check it out here: http://shortererwait.com/what-is-er-wait-time/ St. Joe’s has shortened total time in the ER by 25% – and the average wait time to be seen is only 14 minutes! Good to know, but even better is knowing that if you’re having chest pains they’ll see you even faster than that!

How Do You Know Who To Interact With On Social Media?

: The inspiration – thanks Autom Tagsa!

A comment I made during last week’s #SMchat was one of the most re-Tweeted and commented upon Tweets I’ve posted recently. My Tweet (on the left) was to point out that you can spend a lot of time on social media without seeing any benefits. Just like in real life, if you’re interacting with the wrong people, you won’t get much out of the conversation.

There’s an article in the Guardian that says Twitter is changing how we interact with the world. The way I see it, social media isn’t changing the way we interact with the world, it’s giving us a new way to network with people that we may not have had access to without Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/etc.

Heidi Cool, a #SMchat regular, wrote a post in September 2009 asking, “How are you interacting with your target audience?”, and although it’s important to interact with your target audience, it’s also important to connect with people who aren’t your target audience right now, because they could be in the future.

My friend Renee Lemley from Gray Matter Marketing came up with some great names for Twitter follow strategies like: THE UNEQUIVOCALLY UNRECIPROCATED FOLLOW STRATEGY and THE EVEN-STEVEN FOLLOW STRATEGY in her post, “Why, How and Who Do You Follow?” Which social media interaction strategy is right for you? Or do you use a different technique?

The main question in this week’s #SMchat conversation is: How do you know who to interact with on Social Media?

My short answer: Everyone!

Want to find out the longer version? (We’re limited to 140 characters because it’s a Twitter chat, but I can guarantee there will be more than 9 characters of conversation going on!) Join us on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 1PM ET on the hashtag #SMchat for answers to the question above and these questions as well:

Julian Loren wants to know, How do you gracefully disengage when needed? Hopefully, Sherry Lowry will join us to expand on her suggestion to “build in graceful exits to agreements.”

Jeunesse Yvonne wants to know if it’s appropriate to follow your boss/manager. A Mashable survey says it’s wrong to friend your boss on Facebook in their article, “Facebook Friends With Your Boss? Right or Wrong?” I’m not sure that I agree with that, but let’s hear what you have to say!

Jeunesse Yvonne also asks should you interact with people you’d like to be employed by? I think DJ Waldow would emphatically say that’s a good idea…emphatically mainly because DJ’s enthusiastic about everything, but also because social media helped him get his job at Blue Sky Factory!

Got questions on who to interact with on social media? Even better, bring an opinion or some real-life examples of your own to our Twitter chat on Wednesday, 9/8/10 at 1P ET – we look forward to chatting with you there! Can’t make it, or have a burning question that you don’t want to forget? Leave a comment below and I’ll make sure we discuss it during the chat. I’ll also post a link to the transcript for your review.

Why Didn’t I Ask “How Did You Hear About Us?” I Already Know.

: Please don’t ask, “How did you hear about us?”

Today I participated in #CROchat, a Twitter Chat on conversion rate optimization that has become a favorite, and a discussion started about the length of qualification forms. Ion Interactive said no matter what length the form is please don’t ask, “How did you hear about us?” Several of the #CROchat participants agreed, but Carlos Del Rio wanted an explanation. Ion Interactive shared a blog post by Anna Talerico on banishing self-serving questions from your conversion process, and although I agree, I feel that’s only part of the answer.

Yes, you should definitely limit or remove questions that don’t have any value for the customer from your conversion path, especially the “How did you hear about us?” question. During my DRTV (direct response television) days, clients often wanted to have the call center ask it and we would get free-form answers like “my wife/mother/friend/boss told me to call” or “I saw it in the newspaper” (tough to do when it was a TV-only campaign). People lie, or they tell you what they think you want to hear, or they simply say, “I don’t remember” which is true more often than not.

Here’s what to do instead: Set up campaign tracking.

Track by medium – Online (SEO, PPC, Affiliate, Email, Social Media), TV, Radio, Print (Newspaper, Magazine), Billboard, etc.
Track by source – Google, Yahoo/Bing, Email Newsletter, WJZ-TV, WWMX-FM, USA Today, etc. – Be as specific as you can: is there a specific webpage, newspaper section, radio or television show?
Track by content – Make sure you test ads against one another. Continuous testing will optimize your media spend.
Track by keyword term – This is especially helpful for PPC ads, but you can also track any special phrases in your other ads.

Joe Teixeira from MoreVisibility wrote a great blog post on how to set up tracking in Google Analytics. His post’s emphasis is on paid search campaigns, but with a little ingenuity you can make it work for any other media.

There will be times, especially when dealing with offline media, when people don’t cooperate and just use the “base URL” instead of your customized version with tracking in place. Watch your analytics to see spikes in traffic where many of the users are coming from the custom URL and use your best judgment on attributing some or all of the “base” traffic to that source. If you’ve got a sophisticated analytics program like Coremetrics, you can even track your viewers by first click, last click, or distributed click attribution. Eric T. Peterson did a great white paper on appropriate attribution that might be helpful for a better understanding of that concept.

How did you hear about this blog post? Since I don’t advertise I can tell you without asking, someone saw my Tweet and either directly or through a combination of events (your mother saw my Tweet and told you to check out my post) you made it here. I can look at my analytics and tell you for sure or you can leave a comment below to let me know!

Haiku for Sarah Evans

: Haikus relax you and Journchat gets you wound up! from Crestock Creative Photos

Perhaps we should rename this portion of my blog, “Contests From The Woman Who Can’t Turn Down A Dare.”

I mentioned #journchat in my favorite Twitter chats post several months ago and along with it #journchat founder Sarah Evans. I’ve chatted online with Sarah a few times both during #journchat and at other non-#journchat times and I’ve always been amazed at how knowledgeable and genuinely nice she is. But this isn’t a post about Sarah. I got an email from Liz Pope, Media and Research Manager at Sevans Strategy, who read my blog and double dared me to enter the contest to join Sarah during a special edition of #journchat live from the NBC News Studios in NYC on August 9, 2010. The contest and #journchat are sponsored by Cision who makes public relations software – you’ll see why you need to know what Cision is in just a few lines.

I enjoy #journchat because PR is not something I learned in school or something I’ve done often in my 22+ years of advertising and marketing experience. I’ve only worked on the edges of doing public relations activities, but I think that with social media becoming more important in many companies’ marketing strategy, public relations lessons go a long way toward teaching the right things to do in social media. Companies need to treat everyone as if they were a journalist, because with social media they are!

Soooo…since I can’t seem to be able to turn down a double dare, here’s my Haiku for Liz Pope and Sarah Evans:

Smart Sarah Evans
Journchat NBC Thrilling
Cision software too?

I’ll be in NYC for Affiliate Summit East 2010 the following week, so I’m not sure that either my boss or my family would appreciate me heading up there twice in the same week! With that said, I did think the contest was a great idea and hopefully if Sarah is still around from the 14th to the 18th when I’m in New York, I’d love to connect!

I’m looking forward to meeting with so many of my affiliate friends during #ASE10 – will you be there? Drop me a note, or post a comment below letting me know when you’re there and let’s set something up! Want to attend #ASE10 but don’t have a pass? I have ONE Gold Pass that I’m happy to give (at no charge) to the first person who asks for it – either via a comment below, or by sending me an @ or DM on Twitter, but don’t wait too late because I hear #ASE10 will be sold out soon and then my Gold Pass offer expires.

Affiliates & Social Media: #SMchat Topic July 2010

: #SMchat Global communication from Crestock Creative Photos

In November 2008, Dr. Ralph Wilson interviewed Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins and the video of that interview contains several great ideas that are still relevant and able to be implemented successfully today! Shawn talked about being a part of the community on Twitter (and all social media) and since it’s the last #SMchat I’m moderating before Affiliate Summit East 2010 so I wanted to find out the prevailing attitude of my community about affiliates in the social media sphere.

Are you an affiliate, merchant, network, in-house or outsourced program manager? Don’t know anything about affiliate programs, but want to learn more? Please share your opinion and your insights on affiliates and social media during #SMchat, Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 from 1-2P ET, and/or meet me at Affiliate Summit East 2010 (an affiliate link in honor of my affiliate friends) and let’s chat in person!

After introducing yourself and letting everyone know what your interest is in affiliate marketing (“just curious” is definitely an option here…), I’d love to know how you feel about affiliates using social media marketing. Here’s what I’m wondering:

1 ) Should affiliates be able to promote using social media? Why or why not?

2 ) Is there a social media channel that is better for affiliates to use? Which one(s)?

3 ) Can a merchant’s Terms and Conditions exclude affiliates advertising via certain social media activities? (How does that impact affiliate sign-ups, etc.?)

4 ) How should affiliates disclaim the FTC Revised Endorsement Rules in social media? Do they need to do it at all?

5 ) How do you monitor use/abuse of social media by affiliates? Are they allowed to link directly to your site similar to direct-to-merchant pay per click (DTM PPC)?

What other questions do you have? Please feel free to leave them in the comments below or ask them when you join us on 7/14/10 from 1-2P ET on the Twitter chat #SMchat – see you then!