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The final numbers are in for Affiliate Summit East 2010, which took place August 15-17 in New York City, and we ended up with 3,527 attendees – the biggest Affiliate Summit East to date.

We are very excited about the sustained growth during such a fragile economy – it’s a testament to the strength of the affiliate marketing space, even during a recession.

Day 1

I started off the first day of Affiliate Summit East 2010 with a 10 AM session geared towards folks attending Affiliate Summit for the first time.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be speaking to a sparse crowd as I headed down, and I was delighted to have a large, packed room of conference attendees looking for advice on how to make the most of Affiliate Summit.

My session was followed by the opening of the Meet Market and a series of breakout sessions that covered all sorts of topics, including SEO reviews, outsourcing, podcasting, and WordPress.

I really liked the way our new method of Q&A via SMS, Web and Twitter worked out.

While the action was taking place in the Meet Market and sessions, the exhibit hall was being built out for days 2 and 3 of Affiliate Summit East 2010.

In the evening, I headed to ShareASale’s “Under the Stars” Party on the Empire Hotel Rooftop to continue the networking and good times.

Four hours of sleep, one 5-Hour Energy drink and two 20 oz. Diet Dr. Peppers later and it’s on to day 2.

Day 2

Day two of Affiliate Summit East 2010 started off with the keynote address from Frank Luntz, author of one of my favorite books, Words That Work.

I was really looking forward to this talk and it didn’t disappoint with facts, figures, examples, and ideas for molding a message.

After the keynote, Frank Luntz signed copies of his books for an hour.

The exhibit hall also opened on the morning of day two of Affiliate Summit East 2010, and there was a nice flow of affiliate marketers throughout the two floors of the area.

Breakout sessions during the day covered a wide array of topics, including Facebook, Google slaps, legal issues, SEO, social media, and the Android platform.

There were a number of other networking and educational events throughout the day, such as the Affiliate Showcase, Vertical Exchange, and Ask the Experts roundtables.

Day 3

The final day of Affiliate Summit East 2010 started off with the keynote address from Jim Kukral, author of the bestselling book, Attention! This Book Will Make You Money.

Jim gave a really inspirational talk that focused on building a business around a lifestyle.

Jim Kukral signed copies of his books for well over an hour after the keynote.

The second day of the exhibit hall at Affiliate Summit East 2010 had nice crowds on both floors in the morning and afternoon.

Breakout sessions during the day covered a wide array of topics, including paid search strategies, curation, sports marketing, blogging, and marketing to women.

Thank you to all of the folks that came out for Affiliate Summit East 2010 – see you January 9-11, 2011 at the Wynn Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2011.

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 12 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/38530545/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-12
FeedFront issue 12 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/10

Proposals are no longer being accepted.

The tenth issue of FeedFront Magazine is out, so we’re on to issue 11.

The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in August 2010, and the deadline for articles for issue 11 of FeedFront is June 4, 2010.

If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.

Articles are a maximum of 500 words – no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.

No ghost-written articles.

Do not submit a complete article now – just a one sentence summary.

You will be contacted whether or not your proposal is accepted for the next issue.

The tenth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes in early April 2010.

Issue ten of FeedFront will also be distributed at ad:tech San Francisco, Conversion Conference West 2010, Search & Social Spring Summit, and SOBCon.

This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes an Affiliate Summit West 2010 Recap in pictures, How to Kick the Hype Habit by Rosalind Gardner, Walking the Straight and Narrow by Dush Ramachandran, and Increase Conversions by Shooting Your Designer by Tim Ash.

Also, the advertising tax fight, dealing with changes for advertiser landing pages, mobile marketing, and upcoming events.

Issue 10 of FeedFront can now be viewed online, downloaded, and printed from Scribd.

Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.

If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.

FeedFront Magazine, Issue 10

The ninth issue of FeedFront Magazine is out, so we’re on to issue 10.

The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in April 2010, and the deadline for articles for issue 10 of FeedFront is March 1, 2010.

If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront proposal form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.

Articles are a maximum of 500 words – no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.

Do not submit a complete article now – just a one sentence summary.

I came across a video this past spring with a guy named Joel Bauer talking about his business card. It was an oddly compelling couple of minutes on personal brands that I’ve re-watched dozens of times.
And I’m not alone. The video, “Your Business Card is Crap”, has been viewed about 750,000 times on YouTube.

So I had to find out more about the man behind the business card. It turns out Joel Bauer is a best-selling author, and he has been a professional performer since he was 7 years old.

Also, Joel spent a couple decades creating and producing Infotainment presentations and road-shows internationally for the likes of IBM, Nortel, Dresser Wayne, Polaroid, and ITT, as well as creating systems on personal marketing, branding, passion, Infotainment, speaking, and closing from the platform.

All that is great, but what about the business card video?

The Most Famous Business Card

Shawn Collins: So, the first place I came across you was your business card video.

Joel Bauer: Oh that thing. [laughs] I didn’t put that out there, let me tell you. I think that was someone trying to do damage. It actually didn’t do damage, but stimulated a lot of activity out there, in the form of a bunch of television shows and other stuff. It’s still ongoing.

Shawn: Yeah. I guess the place that actually was brought to my attention was on the show “Red Eye” on Fox News.

Joel: Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. It was kind of weird sitting in a room, staring into a camera while you are watching a monitor with a six second delay from New York.

Shawn: Yeah. One thing I was curious about there is, I guess, you were saying that you thought someone was trying to do damage to you. And, you mentioned on Red Eye that you were sort of playing a character there. So, was that you just sort of hamming it up for that?

Joel: Well, I mean, I’m on the phone with you right now. And you tell me, was I playing a character or not? I mean, obviously; the entire film, called “The Pitch, Poker & the Public”, is where it was extracted from.

The documentary which was made by a guy by the name of Chris Zubryd, who actually published an apology about how someone had taken this small 25 second or 35 second excerpt from the film, out of context.

Because if you watch the film, it has me with my children. It has Joel light, Joel family man.

And then when they asked me to go into the pitch mode, I went into what was a trade show-style pitch mode because that’s what I was doing then. I was a trade show performer. And I was going into that very intense mode… what you would use on a floor.

I’m sure you’ve been to MacWorld, or Comdex, or some major trade show, and you’ve noticed that the only people who are noticed there are those that are intense.

Shawn: Yeah. Absolutely.

Joel: And they’re loud and they’re kind of carnie. So that personality was very polarizing and very edgy and obviously very effective from a viral stand point because here you have a man talking about a business card, without taking his clothes off; and generating as many hits as usually the sites that do that kind of nonsense.

So that was kind of interesting. It’s been fascinating. I don’t think there’s any predictable formula behind viral other than using the word dog or cat. [laughs] Or Megan Fox or one of those things that tends to get people to click on the video. Your Business Card is Crap is not exactly a positive title.

And I do know who put it up there originally. And they did try to do damage and it kind of backfired. I think you fight the fire. They want you to start a fire. They want you to respond. And I don’t respond, because it doesn’t matter. The people that study with me and follow me, they know that what I do has integrity.

Joel on Social Media

Shawn: I was looking to see your real identity on Twitter, and saw there’s one, @TheJoelBauer, that has your picture and your Web sites and everything, so they are certainly trying to give the impression. But is there any reason why you don’t bother to go in there yourself?

Joel: The absolute, with clarity, revelation here, is that I am so consumed doing what I do for my students. Right now I am sitting here in front of an hour training that is going out to 74 recent students. I train professional speakers. People that want to do what I do. I am on platforms two, three, four times a month, training people in our marketing systems. And as a result of that, I do what most other speakers don’t do and that is I actually take care of them.

I’m so busy doing this stuff. Traveling. I’ve got three kids. I don’t have time. Really, if you want to be effective on Twitter or Facebook, you need to do it every day. And it needs to become very personal. That’s my belief. You need to participate.

And I am so busy servicing those who are quite frankly spending a fortune on my attentions. I coach. I coach a very small group. And I’m out there doing it. And I don’t talk the talk. I walk it. So if you hear me teaching, they know that I’m actually doing it. Because then that’s how they met me or that’s how they saw me. The stuff that I reveal actually works.

Joel on Affiliate Marketing

Shawn: I saw that you had some affiliate links to Amazon for your books. Do you do much with affiliate marketing at all, or is that pretty much the extent of it?

Joel: No. Really what we’re doing is I have a group building all that. And it will be done. The only affiliate marketing I will do is with people I actually believe in. Where I’ve actually used their system extensively for significant periods of time and had massive results.

For example, there’s a link on my blog right now that says, “Cancer free.” And I don’t make any money on it, and it’s not affiliate marketing. But I do make some recommendations. And obviously with the following I have, if I wanted to make money on people I could just have JV (joint venture) links everywhere. People would click all day.

And you might say, well, why don’t you do that? It’s because, quite frankly, I’m not looking for every dime. And the marketers who are doing that aren’t transparent. We all know what’s being done.

When it has Shawn’s last name at the end, forward slash Shawn. Well, we kind of get it. Shawn’s making money. I always tell people where I’m making money, and when I’m not. So when I’m doing a training, I say, “Here’s my contact for printing. Here’s my contact and my resource for audio. Here’s my contact.”
And I tell them, “By the way, I don’t make money on any of these resources. You’re actually paying direct what they would charge normally. There’s no markup. There’s no kickback. There’s no motivation for me. I don’t have anyone’s hand in my back pocket.”

And they appreciate that. They’re paying a considerable amount of money to train with me. See Shawn, the difference is when people train with me, they’re spending 10, 15 grand to be in a room with me for seven days. That’s not a lot of money, but it’s a lot to them. And they’re blown away. They’re absolutely blown away by the training. Again, I’ve never had a refund, a cancellation, or anyone upset with these live trainings. Anyone. Because I over deliver; I give them too much.

So my process is more of an offline process, in terms of what I’m teaching. I’m showing them how to speak on a platform, and generate massive dollars right there, right then, doing what it is they believe in, and communicating from their heart. Their area of expertise. An area they can empower others through.

And that’s very different than the Internet model. The Internet model complements it. I also believe that without the Internet you’re leaving at least 50 percent of your money on the table, and you’re leaving your forced continuity. You’re leaving that element of your business that would have enabled you to do it once and never have to do it again. And have an automated, replicatable, duplicatable, transferable process that generates income beyond your years. I believe in the Internet. No question about it.

Four Suggestions for Your Site

Joel: I’d love to close with four simple comments that would probably take us two minutes. I would just like to label them. I constantly see Internet marketers, with Web sites, not talking about your guys. I don’t know who your guys are exactly. I have an idea but there are four things they’re not doing and they wonder why their Web sites aren’t making money.

The first is, when you arrive, there’s no live video. There’s no warm, ingratiating call to action video that inspires someone emotionally. That has specifically you’re mission statement and benefit to them and why they would want to come to the other side. The video is generally missing and it’s not auto-play. That’s a mistake. It should auto-play.

Second component missing on those sites is an opt-in. They’re not even asking for name, email address. They don’t ask, they don’t get. Most sites you can go there check out the site and leave. It’s a massive error.

I don’t believe in sites where you just check them out and leave. I believe in sites that inspire a call to action with a video and have an opt-in that requires really only the email address. A double opt-in, of course, using an AWeber, iContact, or whatever service they decide to use.

If they ask for only the email address they’re going to have a much higher conversion level or opt-in level than they would asking for more information at that point. We don’t have trust, we don’t have rapport. We have nothing.

The email address is the safest thing to request, but double opt-in ensures that if they’re going to put “screw you Johnny” or whatever it is, they’re putting some stupid entry in there, that obviously you’re never see it. It will get kicked. It will never be confirmed in the system.

Opt in, video. Third component. At the end of the video, which is very short, 15 seconds, call to action. There should be social proof. A stream of 10 to 15 seconds of people raving about what it is you do. They should be monetized.

“As a result of Shawn, we generated 30 grand in the first three weeks. We couldn’t believe it. His writing style has enabled us to write more effective copy that has motivated people from the heart to invest in our products. We never thought it was possible.”

Then it goes on. “Before John, 30 pounds overweight. After John, his simple guidance and steps…” See, a monetizable testimonial is anything that shows the before and the after the transformation.

The fourth component missing from Web sites is the call to action. If there is no specific call to action, none will be taken. I would venture to say that in your group, we could go through a list together. We’re not going to. I’m just saying we could, and we could find 20 or 30 percent of them that aren’t doing those four things. They may know about them, Shawn. What I’m indicating here is, beyond knowledge, transcending knowledge is application. Are they applying it? Most of them aren’t.

Dan Kennedy, one of the top marketers on the planet, one of the most brilliant men in marketing, has finally embraced video marketing, and won’t argue the fact that it’s more effective than copywriting.

If you had an audience, and they had to make a choice between sitting and listening to a video, and reading 50 pages of copy, right now they’ll choose the video. Now if you do both, video and transcription, you’re going to optimize very effectively. That’s really effective, new, relevant data for positioning on the engines.
Absolutely the video of the call to action is what most are now using, some of the most effective marketers. I’m sure you could name names, because you’ve seen it done. That’s a massive change that’s taken place in the last two years.

Video now dominates. It’s huge. Copywriting is also very effective. I’m not putting it down. There are people that love to read copy, but the majority would rather be sitting and entertained initially, and then read the copy. I think both should be there, but on a different layer. I’d rather have video on the first layer, as it’s relatively non invasive and it’s an entertainment.

Anyway, I just wanted to make that comment. Very simple four principles. Auto-responder sequencing, the silent salesman. I’m amazed how many Web sites you go there, you opt in.

So those are the principles I discuss in detail prior to going to a live event, even though I don’t teach Internet at those events. I teach something very different, branding and differentiation, and yet I’ll talk about those four Internet principles because most people have a site, and it’s not generating any money.
They build it, and no one came. They’re not Kevin Costner. It’s not a field of dreams for most people.

They’re still dreaming about why it’s not working. I would start with those four repairs right there.

I would like to ask you something right now. Would you agree that if those components are missing, they’ve got a problem from the get go?

Shawn: Yeah. The one thing I would question is for me, as a user, I can’t stand auto-play video, and I’ve talked to a lot of people that don’t like it. So I use video a lot, but I always have the user having to take the action to play it.

Joel: No, that’s fine by the way. I would agree with your assessment, in terms of having interviewed audiences, but in terms of conversion level, our testing produced a very different result. If we want to strictly go according to the numbers, I would say everyone should ignore Joel Bauer, ignore Shawn, ignore everyone, and do their own test.

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of FeedFront Magazine.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 8 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/20220412/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-8
FeedFront issue 8 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/10

Issue 8 of FeedFront Magazine came in the mail to me yesterday. This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes a recap of Affiliate Summit East 2009, as well as articles on auditing affiliate programs, productivity, pro digital video camera formats, PPC, email, advertising tax, and the death of an affiliate network.

Plus, interviews with Loren Feldman of 1938 Media and Joel Bauer from the “Your Business Card is CRAP” video.

If you don’t get FeedFront by mail, issue eight of FeedFront will also be distributed at ad:tech New York, Blog World Expo, and PubCon.

Here are the articles for this issue:

• 03 Affiliates: Stop Waiting for Overnight Success by Matt McWilliams
• 04 Importance of Auditing Your Affiliate Program by Stephen Robinson
• 05 Productivity Upgrade: The Dash by Aaron Dragushan
• 06 Affiliate Marketers Give Back Takes on the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer by Missy Ward
• 07 Five Minutes with Loren Feldman by Missy Ward
• 10 The Coming of Age for Affiliate Marketing by Michael Sprouse
• 11 Getting Noticed Fast Follow Up by Mike Buechele
• 12 Pro Digital Video Camera Formats Explained by Peter Fitzpatrick
• 13 Serious Content: The Key to Serious Traffic by Dylan McDanniel
• 14 $150k a Day on PPC: Lessons Learned by Scott Richter
• 15 The Power of Guest Posting by Eric Schechter
• 16 Affiliate Marketing in the Regulators’ Cross-Hairs by Thomas A. Cohn
• 18 The Infotainer.com by Shawn Collins
• 21 Choosing the Right Email Service Provider by Andrew Paul
• 22 Staying Productive on the Road by Michael Vorel
• 23 Taking the Leap Across the Pond by Jodi Rieger
• 24 Making the Most of Your Show Experience by Dina Riccobono
• 25 Death of an Affiliate Network by JB McKee
• 26 Lessons from North Carolina’s Affiliate Tax Fight by Matt Enders
• 27 Affiliate Summit East 2009 Recap by Shawn Collins

The issue mailed at the end of last week, so it should hit mailboxes all over the U.S. this week and the coming weeks.

If you can’t wait to see your copy (or you’re not currently a subscriber), you can download issue 8 of FeedFront.

Free subscription to U.S. addresses at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription.

Video: I Got Issue 8 of FeedFront in the Mail

The sixth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes later in the month.

Issue six will also be distributed at the Linkshare Symposium East in NYC.

The cover features super-affiliate, Connie Berg, founder of FlamingoWorld.com, and the issue includes a frank discussion about her career, her thoughts on the affiliate marketing industry and the fight against advertising tax in Minnesota.

There are also articles on social media tactics, tips for keeping WordPress running smoothly, things to look for in an affiliate programs, search engine marketing strategies, and more.

Issue 6 can now be downloaded in PDF format, as well as on Scribd.

Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.

If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.

If you can’t keep up with the conference of the month, last month SMX landed in the Big Apple. The Davits Center to be exact. Registration went smoothly, so I was off to the races and on to my first session.

It seems Internet marketing conferences sometimes struggle with balancing introductory, medium and advanced content in one event.

SMX advanced tends to lean more on the Intermediate level and that seems to fair well with most of the attendees.

That said, I still walked out of many of the sessions feeling like the 20 or so tips I gained made the cost well worth it. In fact, there is strong value there for most people.

Two speakers who really blew me away with new ideas, tools, and perspectives were Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts and Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link. As someone who has been at this for 10+ years, I often go to these events to network, but their sessions taught me a lot and gave me plenty of food for thought.

The big news of the show was the launch of SEOmoz’s Linkscape tool, which will attempt to level the playing field by providing information to Webmasters on linking. It is long overdue, as running a link search in Google might only show you 1-5% of your links. This tool’s launch was definitely the talk of SMX, but time will tell if it is a strong as it claims.

New to me were the 30-minute educational sessions in the expo hall, with hosts from Google, SEOmoz, Apogee Search, and others.

These presentations were an excellent way for exhibit hall attendees to get a condensed version of the full breakout session, which they wouldn’t typically get to experience. Topics included linking, paid search, and analytics. Since the expo hall was a bit on the small side, this was also a great attraction for those companies with booths.

Advanced and basic tracks were clearly defined and labeled, which made it easy for attendees to follow. The in-house track was also very useful. It was geared towards helping companies that manage search internally (in-house) and raised issues and solutions for their specific needs. I especially liked the panel on “How To Break Up With Your Agency.” This was a unique topic and one that I think is important for attendees to understand when structuring agreements.

One of the sessions unique to SMX is titled “Give It Up”, where the rule is you can’t blog about anything that is presented for 30 days. It provides some exclusivity on the content and makes SMX distinctive.

All in all, it was a great show. I learned a lot and got to see some of the SEO royalty.

Wil founded SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based SEO firm in 2002.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 4 here – http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue4.pdf
FeedFront issue 4 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/category/issue-4/

The fifth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes in April 2009.

Issue five will also be distributed at ad-tech in San Francisco next month.

The cover features Gary Vaynerchuk and Jim Kukral as they kicked off Affiliate Summit West 2009 this past January, and the issue includes some highlights from Gary’s keynote address.

There are also articles on landing pages, a profile of affiliate marketing legend Kellie Stevens, effective communication tactics, legal issues with sweepstakes, and more.

Issue 5 can now be downloaded in PDF format, as well as on Scribd.

Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.

If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.