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Danny Brown

Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

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Marketing

Why Affiliate Marketers Piss Me Off

Stop hiding affiliate links

Stop hiding affiliate linksFirst, a caveat. Not all affiliate marketers piss me off.

I’m not against anyone making money through products they endorse.

Heck, I promote the Headway theme and BlogOnCloud9 web hosting services (both affiliate links) because I believe they offer the best combination for WordPress bloggers.

But you’ll notice there’s an affiliate disclosure there, and that’s the part that pisses me off about certain affiliate marketers.

I’m seeing a lot of blog posts where affiliation isn’t disclosed. That’s bad enough, but you can always check if it’s an affiliate link by hovering your mouse over the link (and if it’s not a direct link but one with numbers and ID’s, you can usually bet that it’s an affiliate link).

Where I’m getting really annoyed is on Twitter. I see a bunch of recommendations for products that you just know are affiliate links and, true enough, if you click on the link you’ll see the affiliate URL before the normal one kicks in.

But there’s no mention of the affiliation in the tweet. Instead, it just looks like someone’s had a great experience with a brand, or they really like something and want to share it with their followers.

Fine, go for it. But you can’t disclose? Seriously? It’d take six characters to show it’s an affiliate link – (aff.). Would that really eat into your 140-character tweet limit? You have space for a ten-letter hashtag, but not the space to disclose the affiliation?

To me, that’s false advertising. You’re not disclosing your ties to the company, and that’s something the FTC was meant to be cracking down on in social media. Seems they still have a way to go.

Marketers get a bad rep from a ton of people, saying we’re only out to make a quick buck. Marketers in social media get much more stick, and we’re akin to the bubonic plague in some quarters.

But it’s no surprise when you see crap like this hidden affiliation happening.

Does $20 a sale really mean that much to you that you give up the decency to be honest?

  • Update Sept 1: Looks like the Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K has been listening to 4,500 pissed off users over there. Twitter and Facebook paid links will be coming under their regulation in 2011.

Image: Fr. Stephen, MSC

Note: This blog no longer runs on the Headway framework. Instead, it’s a custom WordPress design by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics.

Are You Selling Baldness Cream to Seth Godin?

Selling baldness cream to Seth Godin

Selling baldness cream to Seth GodinYou like Seth Godin.

You hear he’s speaking at an event in NYC so you sign-up for your ticket. Others have signed up too because, well, Seth Godin always offers excellent knowledge and you want to catch up with the latest news from him.

There’s you and 200 other folks in the audience. Seth’s talking, and it’s awesome. You learn so much that you can take away and use for your own business. That’s the gold; that’s why you came.

The MC asks if you have any questions.

Other folks ask about things he was speaking about; he answers. They take notes and share thoughts on how that can help them increase their leads.

Then you pipe up.

“Great, Seth, but I think you’d really benefit from my product that helps bald men be more successful. We guarantee that you won’t feel awkward ever again, and you’ll be more successful with women and career prospects than you could possibly imagine. Because I’m here today, I’ll give you a 3-for-1 option on it – just let me know where to send it. Oh, and while I’m here, do you have erectile dysfunction too, because my company can also help with that.”

Yeah, right.

So. Are you looking to sell to the right audience at the right time, or are you just hitting blindly and hoping something connects?

Image: Squidoo Graphics

Mining for Gold in Blog Comments

Two blog posts caught my eye today. The first was The Art of Blog Commenting by Arik Hanson, and the other was The Time for Location-Based Marketing is Now by Gini Dietrich.

Two different blog posts – Arik’s (as the title suggests) is about blog comments, while Gini’s is about platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla and acts as a rebuttal to a recent Forrester report.

Yet despite being different, they’re both very much tied together by one defining factor – blog comments.

You see, what both blog posts confirmed is something I believe in wholeheartedly – it’s not the blog that offers the most bang for your buck, but the comments that follow once published.

Digital Gold

While a blog starts any conversation, that’s all a good blog should be – a conversation starter.

Think about it – why do you blog (either personally or as a business)? To extend your brand? To promote products and news? To increase your search rankings? All of the above? None? Some? Others?

It doesn’t really matter, since all you’re doing is opening up a conversation.

  • Customer to sales.
  • Potential client to marketing.
  • Job-seeker to new employer.
  • Website to Google’s algorithms.

All these and more are simply conversations between two entities – the blog and whatever shape the audience takes.

So if you’re opening up a conversation to connect to your audience, then there’s only one place that happens – the comments section. And that part of your blog is where the digital gold is melted into shape.

Look Beyond the Blogger

One of the things I hear a lot when speaking to new clients about their existing social strategies is the advice to “read bloggers X, Y and Z to learn about your business.”

Good points. Bloggers X, Y and Z are writing some great stuff and there’s no doubt there are useful nuggets to take away.

But the real juice? That’s not necessarily from the bloggers, who often stop at the crucial point of ideas without offering real-world ideas or examples to let you take away and put into action. Maybe that’s just for paying clients…

Which is why I always advise to go beyond the blogger and read more into the comments if you want to find the real gold.

Cash

Take Gini’s post about geo-location marketing, for example. She makes some excellent points on why Forrester are off the mark with their report, and uses figures and ideas to show why. But Gini is a marketer – that’s her job (and one that she’s damn good at).

But in the comments, there are even more ideas that show businesses what their customers want. If I’m a marketing or promotions manager at Starbucks, for example, I’d be looking at Rob Reed’s comment and putting that on the agenda at my next brainstorming meeting.

Who knows, I might just find that Rob’s suggestion saves me thousands in focus groups but makes me millions in sales.

That’s just one example – considering there are at least 133 million blogs in the world, think how many other examples there could be.

Content is the Apperitif

What both Arik and Gini’s posts show – and many others like them – is that content (while still great) is no longer the king.

Yes, it’s hugely important, and not only shows your thoughts on a topic, but your expertise to a potential client, employer or customer. And as a marketing platform for your business, a blog is hard to beat.

But the real meat is in the comments. That’s where the creativity can really be let loose, and ideas bounced off others and taken to new heights. There’s no limit to a comments section, but there is a finite amount to what makes a readable blog post.

So think of the blog as the apperitif. A great cocktail to ease you into the main course ahead – the comments.

If you’re a business, think of who you want to have a drink with (your customers), and then get out to the restaurant (blog) they frequent the most. And then listen to what they’re ordering.

Because order filling is what you’re good at, right?

Creative Commons License photo credit: damo1977
Creative Commons License photo credit: lusobrandane

Bonsai Interactive ? Kind of a Big Deal

Bonsai Interactive social media and digital marketing agency

So today saw the launch of the Bonsai Interactive website, something that had become a labour of love over the last week or so.

Bonsai Interactive social media and digital marketing agency

Bonsai Interactive itself launched back in June, though it was more a soft launch with our social profiles. The website would have launched sooner, but we had some server hiccups so we transferred over to BlogOnCloud9, who also power this blog and who I have nothing but good words for.

So, Bonsai Interactive. What is it, and why are we kind of a big deal?

Bonsai – The Art of Growing

Bonsai Interactive grew from three people – myself,?Troy Claus and?Selina Jane Eckersall. Troy and I had founded the SRM Group, and Selina owned Sublime marketing agency. Troy knew Selina from way back, and we all became good friends.

It soon became clear that we had the same values, business ethics and determination to have fun along the way, both ourselves and with our clients. It also became clear that a merger was the natural way forward – and so Bonsai Interactive was born.

Why Bonsai? Simple – bonsai means “the art of growing”, and everything we do to help your business grow we’ll treat like a work of art – with care, delicacy, respect and most of all love.

After all, if you don’t love what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with, may as well stop now. So, that’s where Bonsai came from.

SRM Group and Sublime

Obviously, whenever there’s a merger or coming together, one of the main questions that needs answering is what happens to any existing companies? Well, the good news here is that pretty much nothing changes.

While Bonsai Interactive will be the core business and look after marketing, strategy, branding and a host of other solutions, SRM Group and Sublime will remain as two separate entities under the Bonsai umbrella.

The SRM Group will offer social responsibility and education; organizational development; and strategies and workshops on social media for business and non-profits.

Sublime will continue to develop agency relationships and enhance the reputation and respect that Selina has built around the Sublime brand.

With Sublime, we’ll help other agencies get acquainted with the social web, both from their perspective and from that of their clients. Again, this will include workshops, outsourced projects and offering both an introduction and ongoing education for agencies not currently active in social media and digital marketing.

And then there’s Appficient. Still under wraps at the minute, Appficient will be our mobile application arm. We’re currently finalizing a very strong partnership and core team, with offices in Canada, the U.S. and Argentina.

Primarily developing for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry, Appficient will offer a different way of looking at mobile apps, and we’re looking forward to releasing more information very soon.

What Next?

While these arms will continue to operate individually, it may be that eventually everything falls under the Bonsai Interactive roof, if it makes sense to do this operationally.

In the meantime, Bonsai Interactive is live, and we’re looking to keep having fun, and adding a little bit of zen to the marketing space.

We have some very cool client projects we’ll be unleashing soon (including some funky branding exercises in Toronto). We also have some fun live events coming up, the first one being this fall to celebrate the release of The Social Network movie.

We’d love for you to join us online, and you can find us over at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or our blog. And let us know all about you while you’re there – after all, that’s what we’re all here for, right?

Oh, and the “kind of a big deal” tagline? We just kinda liked it.

Hope to see you over at Bonsai Interactive sometime – cheers!

Ambassadors of Quan

FriendsMarketers are savvy.

Marketers make you want what you don?t need. Marketers embed a desire whether you?re hot to trot or not.

Marketers are the Ambassadors of Quan for sales targets and brand focus.

Or are they?

Does your decision rest on your head or your heart? Is there an emotional reason for buying something or a logical one?

Does it matter??As long as you buy, the marketer?s job is done, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

Take a look at some of the key tools in marketing?s make-up:

  • Target markets
  • Products
  • Promotion
  • Distribution
  • Pricing
  • Support services

These aren?t all that marketing does, but they?re the ones that need to be done well to succeed and measure the success. Savvy marketers would use a combination of these and instill a want for a product or service, collect the check and move on. Game over, new challengers please.

That was then; this is now

Today, marketing is different. Today,?consumer marketing is the new tool-set. Communication channels have changed and the message distribution model has changed with it.

Today, it’s not word of mouth but world of mouth that’s leading the charge of marketing. Services like Twitter, blogs, Youtube, citizen journalism and more mean a single marketing message isn?t enough anymore.

Consumers no longer like to be told what they want; they like to be asked what they?need. Want is the old; need is the present?and the future.

But not everyone?s on board with this idea.

Companies are still spending thousands, and often millions, on a message that isn?t being heard. Or if it?s being heard, it isn?t being listened to. Marketing agencies are just as at fault ? many still cling to the power base they used to have and feel they can ride out the storm that is social media.

After all, what do us consumers know, right? Wrong.

Today, we?re connected in ways that marketers can only dream off. We have instant access to the best information on anything we need. We?re now the tool-set that used to be the sole domain of the marketer.

And still many don?t get this. And they wonder why results are crap.

To paraphrase?The Cluetrain Manifesto:

?When we?re not busy being your ?target market?, many of us are your people. We?d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar website. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing?s job.?

It is marketing?s job; but today the target audience is the marketer.

We?re your people too, marketers ? isn?t it about time you opened up to?our tool-set?

Creative Commons License photo credit:?Kippras

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