Affiliate Buzz | Affiliate Marketing / Affiliate Programs / Internet / Online / Social Media Marketing - James Martell

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003. Last week, James interviewed Eric Nagel, Chief Technical Officer of F-M-T-C and Preston Holland, Director of Business Development for BrandVerity, about the ins and outs of FTC disclosures. This week, James and Arlene (a.k.a. The Geek) will get back to talking about one of our favorite topics here at the Affiliate Buzz – making money. YES! There Is a Ton of Money to Be Earned By Affiliates In Your Local Market.

Why Go Local?

James and Arlene have pinpointed the next frontier in affiliate marketing and it’s close to home. In fact, it’s your local market, or any local market. Consider a business like HostGator. They pay between $50 -$125 per client you that you send them. But what are your chances of getting top ranking for a keyword like “webhosting” ? It’s a big world, and a big world wide web. Your chances of getting top ranking in a national market are pretty slim. But in a smaller pond, you can be a bigger fish. James and Arlene will tell you how to become the go-to site in your local market. YES! There Is a Ton of Money to Be Earned By Affiliates In Your Local Market.

Reality Sells

How much of a local market can you capture with effective use of Facebook? Well, there are about 200,000 people on the peninsula where James and Arlene live. In a period of a week, the Facebook page for Sawbucks Pub had 190,000 views. Not bad. Ah, but is James spending a lot of money to get that kind of traffic? Nope. He spent less than $50.

So what’s the secret to getting all those people to come to your page? It’s not hiring a designer to create slick looking graphics and ads. It’s reality. Show people what’s really going on - photos and videos. James and Arlene will give examples of how you can draw from a photo archive, from local events or even from local history to create intriguing content that drive traffic to you Facebook page.

Here’s What You’ll Hear.

Listen now as James and Arlene critique each other’s laptops then dig into:

* The advantages of competing in a local market

* Some old school techniques that can still be effective for reaching a local market

* What you do and don’t need to do to get maximum Facebook traffic

* A way to greatly increase traffic to your videos on Facebook

* A sample of the types of content that generate local interest

* A quick geography lesson about the Semiahmoo Peninsula

Resources

James and Arlene will be back in another episode to talk about how you can improve your Google ranking in local searches. In the meantime, check out these resources:

Episode 442 - http://jamesmartell.com/affiliate-buzz/onlicomne-marketing-for-local-businesses/

For information about starting a local web marketing business - http://smartlocal360.

In this week's edition of the Affiliate Buzz, James and Arlene Martell share their secret and simple method for doing it all and having it all – two words. Hire help. They tap into a huge selection of talented professionals who are available on demand and deliver top quality work and will share the secrets to hiring a virtual assistant online.

If you’re a long-time listener, or even a recent member of the audience. You’ve probably noticed that James and Arlene seem to get an awful lot done. Affiliate marketing, podcasts, classes - how do they do it? Even with all the adorable grand kids there to distract them? What's their secret. The secrets to hiring a virtual assistant,  that's it right there they hire virtual assistants.

 

Break the Bad Habit The Secrets to Hiring a Virtual Assistant

If you were a carpenter, would you build your own house? And a plumber to put in your water system right.  An electrician to do your wiring. As an affiliate marketer you probably have lots of skills.  I'm certain you are not  an expert business administrator, writer, graphic designer, editor and techie?.  Is it worth all the time you put in trying to do those tasks? Could someone else do it better?

James and Arlene know that a lot of marketers have a lot of resistance to outsourcing. They even had to get over some of those silly ideas themselves. Today they’ll share strategies for helping you get over the bad habit (yes, it is a bad habit) of trying to do everything yourself.

An Endless Source of Talent

Imagine being able to instantly hire any kind of professional you want on a very affordable budget. Upwork (formed from the merger of Elance and oDesk) allows you to do just that. James and Arlene describe their process for soliciting bids, selecting the right freelancer and keeping a job on track. If something is taking over the 15 minute limit James employs.  He’ll spend the next 5 minutes posting a job for it on Upwork.

Some people never realize how liberating it is hiring a virtual team of freelancers. Every team needs a coach. Who’s going to manage all these people? Not you! It might sound crazy. Hire a virtual assistance to manage everything for you. Who will keep all of the balls in the air and even manage you. (James confesses that it would be a disaster if he had to manage himself.) Best of all, these multi-talented, wizards of office work can be hired for around $6 per hour. Why wouldn’t you hire a virtual assistant?

Here’s What You’ll Hear

Listen now James and Arlene describe:

* The one thing all successful affiliate marketers have in common

* Common reasons affiliate marketers resist outsourcing

* The kinds of tasks that you can outsource

* How much you should expect to pay

* What to include (and what not to include) in your project descriptions

* How to create a shortlist of candidates and select the right one

* How to set up your payments

* The advantage of having team members on the other side of the world

* The joys of having and hiring a virtual assistant

Resources

You can watch for James’ upcoming class on outsourcing. Or, of you’re ready to get started, check out these resources:

Upwork - http://www.upwork.com

BaseCamp – https://basecamp.com

In this week's episode of the Affiliate Buzz, James Martell chats with Jamie Birch, Owner and Principal of JEBCommerce who should be away attending Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. Instead, these two pioneers of affiliate marketing are here holding their own mini-summit to discuss affiliate marketing today and the state of the industry.

Jamie Birch shares his extensive Internet marketing experience includes all facets of online marketing: email, paid search campaigns, customer retention programs, and much more. This wide range of disciplines has enabled Jamie to excel as a business leader and JEBCommerce to realize a great level of success for its clients.

Jamie cut his “affiliate marketing teeth” managing affiliate programs for many well known companies before spending several years at Coldwater Creek, a Top 5 nationwide women’s clothing retailer. While at Coldwater Creek, Jamie established and managed affiliate campaigns, email campaigns, and SEO campaigns – an opportunity that allowed him to develop many of the proven processes JEBCommerce successfully employs today.

Affiliate Marketing Today = Job Security

Jamie didn’t start out in the world of Internet marketing. He actually studied business and finance in college and he noticed a few things as he was managing affiliates programs for the various companies he worked for. “Dot-coms” often lacked a stable business model.

Even big, brick and mortar companies would pass through recessions having to lay off large numbers of employees. But there were no lay-offs in Jamie’s department. That’s how he knew that he’d stumbled onto something of real value. He started his own business to share that value.

First Things First

That business background has served Jamie well. He recognized that it’s easy to learn the technologies. It’s easy to learn the distribution channels. What’s hard is finding something the market needs.

Jamie emphasizes the importance of starting with the customer and staying focused on what they want. He and James will discuss creating customer profiles, identifying the steps on the customer’s path to conversion and strategies for identifying gaps in how customers are being served.

But how do you know who your customer is and how they behave? Jamie emphasizes the importance of analysis and will talk about some of his favorite tools, beyond Google analytics, for knowing your customers’ behaviors.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

Listen now to hear some entertaining stories about the early days of the Internet and a description of the menagerie (bearded dragons, mini-pigs and horses, Oh my!) that Jamie keeps and his take on:

* What’s going really well in affiliate marketing today

* What things the affiliate industry needs to do better

* The biggest mistakes people make when starting an affiliate site

* The first and most important thing you should do when getting started

* Jamie’s favorite tools for analyzing customer behavior

Resources

If you’d like to hear more about what Jamie and JEBCommerce have to offer, you can find him at

Website: JEBCommerce.com

Email: [email protected]

Skype: jamiee.birch

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003.  It’s 2017 and James and Arlene have done a lot to prepare for the new year. They’ve moved offices around and gotten a new desk. They’ve looked at what’s working and what’s not. And they’ve made a plan to double their income this year. One of the ways is with a new business SmarterLocal360.

Today, they’ll revisit one of their clients, James McNamara at DolphinWorld.org to see what’s working and what’s not strategies are working and what needs to be improved on. They’ll discuss improving Google rankings and increasing your Facebook views. Finally, James and Arlene will offer an opportunity to start your own local web marketing business with SmarterLocal360.

 

Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Facebook Page?

Could you be doing Facebook wrong? It’s hard to believe it, but until recently James was. He got a reminder of this when he visited John’s Facebook page for Dolphin World. John was doing exactly what James used to do- creating small ads, hiring a graphic designer to make enticing images. James shared his secret with John and it immediately resulted in 4,000 views. What’s the secret? Real photos.

James will explain how to use your Facebook page to allow visitors to live vicariously through you. He’ll tell you what you need (there’s gold in your photo archive), as well as how to tag and boost your posts and send people to your sales page. And don’t worry about the budget. James typically spends between $5 and $20 when boosting a post.

Are You Ready for Something New Try SmarterLocal360 ?

James and Arlene are looking to double their income this year. If you’re also in the market for a new business opportunity, then consider joining SmarterLocal360. James is offering a 12-week coaching program designed to get you going in a local web marketing business. Best of all, James will work directly with you while you earn your first $10,000 in sales. It’s a unique opportunity to build on your affiliate marketing while also lending a hand to local businesses that really need your help.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

As always, James and Arlene will share the lessons they’ve learned in their own business and working with clients. Listen now to hear:

* How to get more reviews and why they matter

* The number one thing Google looks at for your ranking

* What you can learn from the Google Search Console

* How to quadruple your number of Facebook visitors

* Which posts to boost and how much you should plan to spend

* How you can start your own local web marketing program for businesses that are desperately in need of your services

Resources

See the results of the work James is doing with his friend John McNamara at Dolphin World. And check out Episode #443 if you’re interested in being on of 10 (there are only 8 slots left) people who will work directly with James as you earn your first $10,000 as a local web marketing service provider.

* Dolphin World

* Episode #443 - How to Start a Profitable Web Marketing Business

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003. Last week, James and Arlene talked about a unique opportunity to build an easy to manage, profitable business providing web marketing services to local businesses that are desperately in need of your help. This week, they’ll share an ambitious goal they’ve set for themselves.

James and Arlene want to double their income in 2017, and they don’t want to double their workload. So in today’s episode, they’ll discuss the strategies they use to assess what’s working and what’s not, for themselves as well as for their clients. In fact, James will reveal some of the insights he’s sharing with one of his coaching clients, John McNamara of DolphinWorld.org.

You don’t just want to bump up your business. The idea is how to take your business to the next level without sacrificing your life. James and Arlene want to double their income in the upcoming year. (Who doesn’t?) They do not want to double their workload. (Who does?) Getting the most out of what you already have is one of the secrets to enjoying a lifestyle business that lets you say adios to the boss, good bye to the morning commute and hello to a successful business.

How to Take Your Business to the Next Level in 2017

When was the last time your freshened up your bio? Is the contact information on your site up to date? Have you checked that all of your links are working?

Some things are obvious and some are more subtle. Of course you want to bring more traffic to your site, but James will discuss the importance of getting traffic to the pages that pay. They’ll discuss ways to improve your ranking in Google searches and where to find resources like photos and videos for your website and social media accounts. The new year is a great time to freshen up your site, but James and Arlene will tell you how to do it so you don’t break anything that is working.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

If you’re anxious to get started off on the right foot for 2017, listen now as James and Arlene describe:

* What to do and not to do when you make updates to your website

* Three things you need to check in order to improve your Google ranking

* How you can improve your working environment

* The best and worst hosting services

* Where to find a treasure trove of resources for your website or social media

* Three sites/accounts where you should do an end of the year cleanup

* How to conduct a thorough inventory of your website

* Why you need a coach

* What to include in your plan for the upcoming year

Resources

If you’re interested in some one-on-one coaching session, in hearing more about James and Arlene’s plan for 2017 or on hearing more about their unique opportunity to start a profitable, local, web marketing business, check out these resources:

Episode 442:  How to Start a Profitable Local Web Marketing Business -

Contact Us:  [email protected] or call 604-542-0747

John’s site - https://www.dolphinworld.org

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003. Today James and Arlene reflect on some of the strategies they’ve used to do online marketing for local businesses. They’ll cover five specific services that businesses desperately need and will share stories of the successes they’ve had with some local clients.

Every business needs to be continually attracting new customers. However, many small business owners, like Rod of Sawbuck’s Pub, don’t know how to maximize the potential of the Internet and still rely on old-fashioned marketing techniques (newspaper ads and the Yellow Pages). Those tactics just don’t work they way they used to. But James and Arlene have seen how a well thought web marketing strategy can help a business like Sawbuck’s grow by 700% over the course of a few years.

You could be the hero that helps a business you know achieve that kind of growth. And you can earn a handsome profit for yourself while doing it. In this episode, James and Arlene share their plan to help ten new entrepreneurs get up and running with a ready to roll web marketing business. The kick-off is on January 17th , so don’t miss this opportunity.

A Lifestyle Business

Can you really have it all? Can you have the freedom and flexibility of being your own boss without becoming consumed by your business? Can you develop a business that will earn enough profit to support your life, without sacrificing the things that make life meaningful (time with family, health, travel, etc.)?

Yes, you can. Just look at James and Arlene. They travel, enjoy their grand kids and manage an active, growing, profitable business. Now they’ve packaged up the lessons they’ve learned and are ready to help you get started with your own lifestyle business.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

If you’re tired of the morning commute, wanting to say “adios” to the boss and are ready to start your own work-from- home business, listen now as James and Arlene explain:

* Five desperately needed services that you can provide to local business

* Why businesses need to pay attention to their NAPs and why it matters to Google

* How you can provide high demand services while making a profit

* How to greatly improve a business’s Google ranking

* An economical way to bring traffic to a business website that will leave you “stunned and amazed”

* How you can earn affiliate commissions while simultaneously running a profitable web marketing business

* The online marketing for local businesses profitable business system

Resources - Online Marketing for Local Businesses

James and Arlene are going to help ten people get their web marketing business off the ground, beginning January 17th . If you would like to be one of those ten people, making handsome profits, providing high demand services and enjoying a lifestyle business – contact Arlene at:

* [email protected]

* Or call 604-542-0747

In this week's episode of the Affiliate Buzz, James Martell talks with Andrew O'Brien, aka "The Publicity Guy", about how to get free media attention that can expand your audience, promote your brand and increase your bottom line.

Andrew is the founder of The Publicity Guy, a PR firm that’s on a mission to change the world of publicity. They don’t just go after media exposure…they want their clients to be known across continents as authorities in their fields. Leveraging the limelight is the backbone of their strategy. Andrew uses a sales-accelerated, proven business model to help entrepreneurs gain and leverage media exposure to create stronger brands and build larger, more interactive audiences.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

So how did Andrew become The Publicity Guy? By leveraging his own, unique, personal story. In Andrew’s case, that story includes some pretty hard knocks, including prostitution, war, suicide and murder. Andrew began telling his story and in the process became an expert on publicity. He has spoken at the White House and the Pentagon and has appeared on over 70 media channels including MTV, USA Today, MSNBC, BBC, NHK World, Al Jazeera and many other large-scale networks.

All that exposer taught him one thing: when the media recognizes you as an expert, so does everyone else. The media has a superpower- the power to sway opinions.

Most of us won’t have a story quite as dramatic as Andrew’s, but everyone has a story. The secret is to know how to leverage it. Andrew will explain how entrepreneurs can target their efforts (no spray and pray mass emails), use their personal networks and convert publicity into no leads and increased sales.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

Andrew’s whole career was built on media exposure. Listen now as he explains:

* Where media outlets find their experts

* How you can leverage yourself as an expert

* The difference between a staff writer and a contributor and which one you should approach

* Why you can’t buy a feature article

* His Visibility-to-Growth Formula (Message, Market, Media & Magnetism)

* The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make

* How to get free media attention the right way

* A secret techniques for sending mail that will stand out and get attention

* How to transform publicity into automated sales and lead generation

Resources

Andrew wants to share knowledge and tools that will allow you to go beyond the “spray and pray” technique of seeking publicity. He offers an online course, a one day intensive, consulting and done for you services. Check out these links for more information on what The Publicity Guy has to offer:

Andrew’s website - http://thepublicityguy.com

Ready to use, copy and paste email – http://course.thepublicityguy.com/template

The Publicity Academy – http://thepublicityguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ThePublicityAcademy.pdf

In this week's edition of the Affiliate Buzz. James Martell talks with Rachel Honoway and Eric Nagel of FMTC about data feeds, aggregating affiliate content and tools for linking updated deals to affiliate websites.

Too Much to Keep Up With?

You may have noticed that there’s a lot to keep up with - multiple merchants belonging to multiple affiliate networks, coupons and promotional codes that may or may not work, fixes for things that are broken, new deals coming out all of the time. So how do you keep your site fresh, current and updated with the very best deals for your readers?

FMTC specializes in aggregating affiliate content and making it available to affiliates and bloggers through a series of services and tools. They test all of those coupons, categorize deals by merchant and product and make it easy to tap into their feed of cleaned, categorized and profitable deals. Rachel and Eric will tell you what FMTC has to offer for both niche sites and enterprise customers.

How to Integrate FMTC’s Data into your Site

It’s great to know that there’s someone out there testing to make sure all of the coupons and promotional codes work. But how do you integrate their aggregated data into your site? Eric will tell you where to find the instructions for integrating the datafeed. He’ll also describe a WordPress plug-in, designed to work hand-in-hand with the WordPress Clipper theme, that will allow you to connect FMTC’s feed to your site.

They’ll also discuss outsourcing, a perfect solution for non-techies like James who want to get their site linked to this constantly updated source of deals and promotions.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

Rachel and Eric will talk about the suite of tools they have available for both enterprise customers and smaller affiliates and bloggers. Listen now to hear:

* Tools to help you keep on top of content from multiple affiliate networks

* How to know that the coupons you’re getting work

* How to integrate a datafeed into your site

* How to find deals by product category, keyword or merchant

* A WordPress Plug-in that works with your WordPress Theme

* Special features that will give you ideas for blog topics

* James’ 15-minute rule

* The biggest mistake people make when outsource a job

Resources

Whether you’re working with tens of thousands of merchants, or running a niche site with just a few, FMTC has multiple tools available.

FMTC - http://www.fmtc.co

Rachel’s email – [email protected]

Upwork – http://upwork.com

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003. Do you want to have your affiliate site produce predictable, recurring income? James and Arlene have just finished setting up two new membership sites. In this episode, they’ll share what they’ve learned about turning your passion -that is your area of subject matter expertise - into a membership site with recurring income.

What’s in a Membership Site?

Membership sites offer their members access to things the general public doesn’t have. You can provide value to your members by providing things like:

* Courses

* Video tutorials

* Workbooks

* Manuals

* Podcasts

Of course, you’ll also want to create opt-ins, lead magnets and a sales letter. That sounds like a lot of work, and it is. James and Arlene will tell you how to do it.

Is There a Course in You?

Yes! Arlene will tell you that there’s a course in everyone, they just need to act on it. So how does one go about creating a course? Arlene will describe how she worked with one of their clients to develop a comprehensive course, complete with multiple lessons, workbooks and video tutorials.

She didn’t do it alone. It was a collaboration between herself, the client (Dr. Raj Banerjee) and a writer hired from Upwork. Arlene will describe their process - how she downloaded information from the Dr. Banerjee’s brain, made it into an outline, had the outline written up into a lesson and the lesson into a video script. It’s a theme we’ve heard before from James and Arlene. Create high quality content into multiple formats so that you have more to offer your customers and customers can consume the content in whatever format they prefer.

Here’s What You’ll Hear

Listen now to hear James and Arlene share tips about creating a membership site with recurring revenue including:

* Types of content you can create for your members

* How to develop a course and course materials

* How much time you should expect to invest in creating a course

* What features you need from membership site software

* The best WordPress plug-in for membership sites

Resources

James will also tell you about Digital Access Pass (DAP), his favorite software for creating and managing membership sites. Listen to episode 29 of Podcasting Mastery to meet its developer (the coolest geek on the planet), check out the tool and hire someone from Upwork to set it up for you.

Dr. Banerjee’s website - https://www.gobeyondfatloss.com

Podcasting Mastery Episode 29 - http://podcastingmastery.com/membership-sites-for-podcasters-with-ravi-jayagopal/

Digital Access Pass - http://digitalaccesspass.com

Upwork – http://upwork.com

Welcome to another edition of The Affiliate Buzz, where affiliate marketers have been coming to be inspired, informed and motivated to succeed since way back in 2003. Let’s face it. Most of us, especially affiliate marketers who make the majority of their money in the late fall and early winter, tend feel overwhelmed by the holiday season. So as we approach the end of the year, it’s a good time to revisit the best strategies for getting stuff done. For James and Arlene, that’s an easy answer – their favorite project management tools combined with their favorite site for hiring freelancers.

Up with Upwork

Imagine being able to hire any kind of professional you want almost instantly. Upwork (formed from the merger of Elance and oDesk) allows you to do just that. James and Arlene will explain how Upwork gives them access to independent experts from all over the globe. Once you know how to use it, you can hire a freelancer in a matter of minutes. It becomes a powerful tool, both for building the team of professionals who you’ll work with remotely on an ongoing basis, and for getting immediate help in a crisis.

Isn’t hiring all those professionals expensive? Actually no. You’ll have freelancers from all over the world bidding on your jobs. Since they are masters at what they do and are competing with each other for work, they can do the job expertly and efficiently. James and Arlene have been literally shocked by how inexpensive some of the services are. Really, the only hump to get over is the belief that you have to do everything yourself.

Upwork + Basecamp = Magic

So you’ve hired some virtual talent- people who are great at what they do, but now you have another problem. Now you have a team to manage.

That’s where Basecamp comes in. No more wondering whose inbox that important message ended up in, which version of the document is most recent or what task got assigned to whom. James and Arlene use Basecamp to manage their files, their “To Do Lists” and their discussions. Everything stays in one thread so you can find it and Basecamp automatically sends out an email notification when a team member submits an update.

Upwork makes the dream work. But Upwork combined with Basecamp makes the dream not only work, but run really smoothly. Together they’re magic.

Use Upwork to Create Your Own Magic

Arlene will share her recent experience learning to outsource, and helping another friend hire a freelancer for the first time. Listen now as she and James explain:

* The many kinds of talent (writers, graphic designers, audio editors, VAs, etc.) that can be hired on Upwork

* How much you should expect to pay

* What to include (and what not to include) in your project descriptions when posting a job

* How to create a shortlist of candidates and select the right one

* How to set up your initial payment

* The advantage of having team members on the other side of the world

* How to hire for one-time, immediate projects vs. long-term team members

* How to manage your virtual team in Basecamp

Resources

If you haven’t tried them already, here’s were you can find the freelancers and project management tool of your dreams. Also, be sure and check out the basecamp tutorials and once logged in, there are some great 3 to 5 minute videos:

Upwork – http://upwork.com

Basecamp – https://basecamp.com

Tutorials – https://basecamp.com/how-it-works