Affiliate Madness
Over 100 people attended our first SuperMondays event of the year which was held at the Research Beehive at Newcastle University.
Tom Fotheringham from DFDS was the first to take the podium. Tom give us an overview of how DFDS have been using ‘affiliate marketing’ to grow their online sales revenue and how this is now an integral part of their sales strategy.
Running an affiliate marketing scheme is full of pitfalls for both the advertiser and publisher. In his presentation Tom gave us insight into both worlds.
- Understand what you want to achieve, what are your goals, stick to your objectives but be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances
- Concentrate on one or two areas of interest and avoid spreading yourself too thinly – A jack of all trades is a master of none!
- Think about which merchants you’re going to promote – the higher product value and commission the more you will earn! Selling a CD about 0.50p
- Consider affiliate programs that offer ‘lifetime’ revenue commission
- Ensure you have the right tools; hosting, software, domains
- Avoid wasting your time on unproductive websites
- React to change and keep ahead of the game
- PR – make people aware of your sites through press, radio and TV. Not everything is online
- Sell yourself – demand higher commissions if you are one of the top affiliates on a program. Use your strengths to your advantage
Next to the podium was Ling Valentine from LingsCars.com. Ling is well know in the region and nationally as a crazy marketeer. While most people see the ‘crazy Chinees woman’ the truth is that afer only a few years Ling has built her business up to a £35m turnover by driving visitors to her website and using a very efficient suite of custom developed applications to convert sales.
Ling has developed a website that has polarised the online community. Half of the visitors are scared of the garish graphics and poor layout, but the other half love it and see it as a refreshing change from typical corporate websites. In both cases Ling benefits because invariable both contingents get on blogs and twitter to comment. All of this activity drives new traffic and eventually sales.
We wish Ling good luck in the future and hope that we will be seeing more of her ridiculous videos in Youtube and stupid animations on her website.
