Network Podcast Review

Since I seem to have spent most of my time speaking to networks there are quite a few good podcasts to review here

Interview with Clarke Duncan from Paid on Results

Webgains Interview - Robert Glasgow & Ryan Gilbert

Interview with Nicky Iapino - Affilinet UK - Part One

Interview with Malcolm Cowley - buy.at

Affiliate Window Interview - David Hall & Adam Ross

Todd Crawford Interview - One Network Direct

While I wait to record a new podcast (which I have set a date for!) I thought it might be worth a quick review of some of the best of the old podcasts in case there was any you missed and might like to listen to. For starters here are some interview with affiliates. When I look back at this list it’s been great to speak to some great affiliates but I also realise I don’t think I’ve spoken to enough so I’ll need to fix that and stop speaking to networks so much!

Affiliates

Podcast Interview with Kieron Donoghue from UK Offer

Interview with Keith Budden

Interview with Jason Dale - Loquax

Nadeem Azam Interview - Azam Marketing

John Lamerton Interview - Big Idea Media

I haven’t blogged for a while and it’s mostly been down to a lack of time. Becoming a parent has led to less working hours in the day and so a few things have slipped. The following set up is not ideal for getting work done

I realised that last year I probably spent more time writing, talking and recording stuff about affiliate marketing than I actually spent being an affiliate so this year I’ve been trying to refocus and get back to building a few good quality websites and picking up on a few things that I have neglected. I do want to get back to blogging though and focus on some good quality content like Jason has been turning out for months now.

The podcasting is less certain as I think that many people are just too busy to find the time to take part, not talking about anyone in particular I wonder if people are too busy to listen as well? It takes the best part of a day to setup, record, edit & publish a podcast so it’s not always easy to fit in a week.

I think I’ll look to restart with a much shorter format soon, probably just a 10 minute show with minimal editing. There are some great people out there that we can all learn from so hopefully reducing the time commitment means I can get back to providing some content.

In the meantime I’m going to post soon with answers to a few emails that I have received to the blog over the last few weeks.

And if you are still reading and haven’t unsubscribed due to a lack of anything new than thanks - I really appreciate that!

I’ve been discovering a few video podcasts recently including Geekbrief, thanks to Joe However I was delighted to get a mention on a relatively new video podcast called BizPod TV unfortunately they managed to get my name wrong but that’s ok!

I’ve watched a few episodes of BizPod TV now and it’s definitely interesting viewing for small business owners. One of the people behind the show is podcaster Alex Bellinger of SmallBizPod which I have previously recommended for adding to your ipod.

I mostly work with networks which are all set up for self invoicing but there are a few direct deals that I have including advertising on this blog and I’ve found that Freshbooks has been an excellent tool to help with the administration so I thought I would share this tip with you.

You can easily create invoices online and then generate emails to your clients or networks. They then get access to a special area to view their invoices and keep track of what has been paid and when. It’s also possible to easily get a PDF version of the invoice which you I sometimes choose to send as an email attachment instead of sending the link.

If you do need to do any invoicing then take a look as it’s a nice time saving tool.

I haven’t written about Next until now but I’ve been watching in disbelief as the program lurched from one bad decision to another over the last few months. How far they have fallen from winning Best New Merchant of 2007 at the a4uawards last year.

If you’ve somehow missed everything that’s been happening regarding Next then there are a bunch of links at the end of this post for some background reading

If you don’t want to read through all those links then a quick summary of mistakes includes cutting commission rates to 1%, switching networks without respecting the cookies, lack of communication, competitor brand bidding, trying to stifle discussion and an intrusive questionnaire.

However if we now leave Next to lie in the bed they have made what are the key mistakes that Next have made which other merchants could learn from?

Never Reduce Commission Rates - Any reduction in commission rates is going to hurt an affiliate program so always be realistic and take care with your planning to make sure you never end up in this position. If you reach the point of reducing your commission rate from 2% to 1% just close the program instead and affiliates will be less insulted.

Communicate - Throughout the last few months one of the biggest problems with Next has been a lack of communication. No one has raised their head above the parapet to try and engage with affiliates which has made the situation all the worse. When you get this one right make sure you consider the next point…

Respect Your Affiliates - When Next finally decided to try and engage with affiliates it has been in such an insulting & flippant manner that they just seem to be digging a bigger hole for themselves. Making the accusation that affiliates “pollute natural search space with negative comments about the brand” is going to go down in affiliate marketing history alongside Grubbygate. Read this post and maybe even print it out and stick it on the wall.

Accept Constructive Criticism - One of the most worrying aspects of this whole issue is that Chris Frost was rejected from the program due to simply voicing his concerns on his blog. Realise that affiliates are passionate people running serious businesses and although it might not be what you want to hear, try to understand there is a reason for any criticism and look at what you could learn from it and improve.

Good Affiliates Are In Short Supply - There are a finite number of affiliates out there and once you treat many of them badly it’s going to be hard to recover. Take care not to think that your precious brand name is going to have affiliates knocking your door down to promote you. Any good affiliate will have more requests for promotion in a week than they have time to handle so it’s not a case of you ‘allowing’ affiliates to promote your brand it’s more a case of affiliates ‘choosing’ to promote your brand so you better make sure the whole package that you are offering is attractive.

That’s just a few points that I’ve been thinking over but I think Jason at One Little Duck sums up the whole issue in this excellent post

Every affiliate manager action will result in an affiliate reaction!

In simpler terms, if you make a good or bad decision about your affiliate program then your affiliates will react accordingly.
Newton’s Third Law of Motion & Affiliate Marketing

And finally I’ll leave the last word to a merchant that doesn’t have much to learn about affiliate marketing…

Affiliate Marketing is Easy - there’s no excuse to fluff it!

Background Links

Blogs

• Next Affiliate Programme Is A Disgrace To This Industry
• Next - Do They Care About The Affiliate Marketing Industry?
• ‘Next Directory’ - next.co.uk are now saying affiliates are polluting the space?
• Next Directory - Are They Bad To the Bone?
• £313,000 Worth of Next Traffic Up For Grabs
• Cross Brand Bidding - Next.co.uk Tut-Tut !

Forum Threads

• Next Closing - Affiliate Marketing
• Have You Ditched Next Directory And Other Low Paying Programmes - Poll - Affiliate Marketing
• Next are changing! - Affiliate Marketing
• Next Affiliate Program - The Facts - Page 2 - Affiliate Marketing

I’ve just started buying domains again! I tried to stop a while ago but I’ve cracked and gone back to reading lists of expired domains and buying a few that sound catchy. Nothing outstanding so far but I view it as a long term investment. With that in mind I was pleased to get an email from Richard Kershaw letting me know about a new firefox extension he has just released. The domain lookup firefox extension allows you to select a phrase on a page and then easily check if the domain is available. It’s a nice shortcut to save retyping phrases or copy, pasting and removing spaces. Nice one Richard

Here are a few other handy domain related resources

Forums
DNforum
Acorn Domains

Dropcatching
Caught
Dropcatcher
(any tips on how to catch a domain when these two already have it booked?)

Buying & Selling
Sedo

Parking
Just read about these two on Doug’s Mouthpiece so I’ll take a look at them this week.
Domain Parking
iMODO

Registrars
Daily.co.uk - my current favourite after getting fed up with 123-REG

Any other good domain resources to add to that short list?