Archive for April, 2008

Merchants wanted for CAM Blog Twitter Giveaway

Apr 18, 2008 CAMBlog Twitter Giveaway

Are you a Christian merchant with an affiliate program?

Looking for a fun way to get in front of your potential affiliates?

I have a solution for you.   You should participate in the CAM Blog Twitter Giveaway content.  Here’s how it works.   You provide a product or service for giveaway through a contest on this site.  Periodically, I will post a trivia question or challenge to the followers of the CAM Blog Twitter account and the first person that responds with the correct answer or completes the challenge and lets me know about it wins.   I send you the winner’s info and you fulfill the product or service giveaway.

Why do this?

  1. It’s a fun way to get your affiliate program some attention with affiliates.
  2. It gets your name out on a popular blog in the Christian niche.
  3. I’ll provide a direct link to the both your product page and front page.
  4. The announcement of your participation in the product giveaway will live forever online on my blog (PR 5 and climbing)
  5. I’ll link directly to your affiliate program information page.

And oh yeah - it’s nearly free advertising.   All you pay for is product and shipping.

If you would like to contribute some  goodies for the masses,  please get in touch  via the contact form, or email me at wade [at] christianaffiliatemarketers.com

God Bless,

Wade

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Let the giveaways begin!

Apr 18, 2008 CAMBlog Twitter Giveaway

I just posed the first CAMBlog Twitter giveaway question:

What was the name of the FIRST Gospel written?

The winner will receive a signed copy of the “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” by Geno Prussakov

This is a great reference book for affiliates and merchants alike. Merchants can learn about best practices and learn from the mistakes made by other merchants and managers. Affiliates can learn what their merchants SHOULD be doing.

If you want to play, follow me at www.twitter.com/camblog

Why do sales letters just not cut it for me?

Apr 17, 2008 Uncategorized

Over the last few weeks, I have been approached by a lot of folks to jump in on their “launch” as a “JV” partner.   Some of them I have chosen to work with because I know the person involved, or their reputation, and some of them I have taken a look at and passed on.

(Sample sales letter page)

I think they all might be decent products, but I just couldn’t get into selling them.   Why?

They used a long “sales letter” approach to selling.   This approach has ALWAYS driven me nuts and I have never “gotten it”  I mean, you have guys who are the who’s who of online marketing; Marlon Sanders, Declan Dunn, Ken Evoy and more who I am sure make a ton of money selling like this (or they wouldn’t be  continuing to do it)

Maybe it’s just me and my ADD self… I don’t have the patience to read through 4 feet of scrolling screen space to get to my buy now button and see what it will cost me to get in on it.

The sick thing is this.  I know for a fact that this style of selling work.  Back in the day, I ran a program for a merchant called Intrigue Learning.   All of their products were sold via this method.   When I fist started, I questioned the “cheesy” style of the page and the owner of the business told me it converted about 7% of visitors.

Well  - there went my argument.

Sales letters drive me nuts… but they work.

Hence, this week I promoted Joel Comm’s new ebook and next week, I will be promoting a new project from Jeff Mills, the “Minister of Marketing.”

Why?   Because I know that these guys are good guys, I know they are smart as all get out, I know they test their stuff and I know they will close folks I send their way.

One product that I am looking into now is one that actually teaches the secrets of design of pages like this from my friend Ry from Australia who is the guy who has designed  the sales letters for some of the most successful recent pages.

The moral of of the story is this - don’t always judge an offer and it’s landing page by how it feels to you or whether the selling style appeals to you.    If you see value in the product and it seems professionally designed, give it a shot and see what happens, you may be surprised at the results.

God Bless,

Wade

Win some cool Christian threads - follow CAMBlog on Twitter

Apr 17, 2008 Uncategorized

I just spoke with my friends at 1M4JC.com and I’m excited to announce that we’re going to be doing a weekly t shirt giveaway here at ChristianAffiliateMarketers.com starting next week.

To win, you need to follow the CAM Blog on Twitter as this is where we’ll be putting out some trivia questions to determine the winners.   I promise I won’t be as geeky and obscure as Jim Kukral has been on Twittermethis.com

So - follow the CAM Blog today and win a cool Christian t shirt from 1M4JC.com

God Bless,

Wade

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Marketing tip - make sure your site is accessible in press releases

Apr 17, 2008 Press Release Marketing

I had a little chuckle this morning as I was goign through my stack of 30 something press releases I get in various verticals from PR Web.   A company that shall remain nameless went to the effort of putting together a nice (although overly lengthy) press release.

I decided that their product and site were worth looking into so I clicked on their link and …….. was prompted for a login and password.

I’m assuming that they want people to learn more about their company and products.  I also assume they’d like to sell some products.  Kind of hard if I can’t even hit their brochure site.

Press Releases are a great way to get the word out on products and can get you some nice Google Juice if the right folks pick them up.   They also tend to persist in Google for a while, so they are “long tail friendly”

If you are going to use them, do yourself a favor.

1.  Keep them reasonable in length.  Focus on a point or two and then call folks to action

2.  Make sure your links work - otherwise, I think you are wasting your (and more importantly) your prospects time.

Nothing is as frustrating as getting excited about finding out more about a product, then hitting a dead end.

God Bless,

Wade

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Merchant Tip: Place PPC Tracking Code for Super Affiliates

Apr 16, 2008 Uncategorized

I wanted to get input from some affiliate friends on this issue, so I put the word out and my friend Josh Wexelbaum from the Scrappy Business Blog came through with a video contribution.

I had a client this week that I was interested in connecting Josh with. The client was new to working with high performing PPC affiliates who requested to have their own Google, Yahoo and MSN conversion tracking code placed on his thank you page. Josh explained to the client why he needed it in order to really promote his program, and I asked him if he could video it up for me.

Josh is echoing what many of the top PPC affiliates are asking for. Bottom line is, they are investing a lot of their own money in your campaign and they want reporting that is in depth, accurate, and actionable. The affiliate network or software’s stats are great, but not all they need.

I am not saying doing this for every affiliate by any means, but if you have a big player that wants to throw substantial bucks at your program, you should give them the tools they need to give your campaign the best possible effort.

God Bless,

Wade

Promote your Christian affiliate offer or promotion here.

Apr 16, 2008 Uncategorized

If you have a Christian affiliate offer, and are looking to get some exposure, you should definitely get in touch.

I love nothing more than to promote solid Gospel promoting Christian offers that anyone out there with a church site, Christian website or blog, or opt in email list can feel proud to promote and know that they are safe in doing it.

There is a lot of garbage out there that is Christian targeting, and while I do take a shine to exposing these guys when they come up, I’d rather just focus on what is happening among the merchants and affiliates that are doing it right.   So….

  • Do you have a Christian affiliate program you’d like to find more affiliates for?
  • Do you have a special offer or promotion to expose to the world?
  • Have you added an exciting new product that affiliates would do well promoting?
  • Do you have an existing affiliate program that you’d like feedback on?

If so, please get in touch.   Between this site and ChristianAffiliateNews.com, we’re seeing over 5,000 unique visitors and feed hits per week.

You can use the “Contact Us” form on top of the page or drop me an email at wade [at] christianaffiliatemarketers.com

God Bless!

Wade

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Learn to Blog for Profit with BlogClassroom.com

Apr 15, 2008 affiliate marketing tools

If you are interested in getting into the affiliate game, I have contended for the last year or so that the best, and quickest way to do this is by blogging. Why? There are a few reasons.

  • Blogs are easy to set up and maintain
  • You don’t need a lot of technical skill or programming ability to blog
  • When formatted correctly, blogs get great rankings in Google - it’s a function of the fact that they are content heavy and of the link taxonomy
  • It works for me. I am a total hack of an HTML coder and I made nearly $1000 promoting Affiliate Summit alone on this blog.

The fine folks at AffiliateClassroom.com and Rosalind Gardner have teamed up to bring you The Blog Classroom to show you how you can quickly and easily set up a profitable blog and get traffic in a hurry.

The Blog Classroom is in pre-launch and they would love you to come check out their system before it launches officially in a couple of weeks. They have some great videos in place from Anik and Rosalind that will get you off to a great start, from launching your blog, to getting your first visitors within an hour of set up.

Anik is promising some great deliverables over the 2 weeks of the pre-launch.

  • at least 8 free video lessons
  • 2 Teleseminars
  • interviews with top bloggers

And this is all during the free pre-launch phase. The resources for the paying folks should be substantial.

If you are looking for that kick start to get into the affiliate business, I recommend that you head over and sign up for their free Pre-Launch Blog Classroom Course today. You can’t beat the price.

God Bless,

Wade

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What is your daily routine like?

Apr 14, 2008 Faith in Culture

One of the issues I am really working on in my life is to really develop some discipline in my spiritual life.

I’m pushing myself to commit some time each day to prayer and Bible study as well as prayer and some sort of devotional time with my wife and kids.

What is your daily routine?

I’m always looking to be inspired by folks with a more mature faith walk than mine, so I’d love to see what everyone else is doing… hopefully we can also inspire some folks who are less mature in their walks as well.

Comment away!

God Bless,

Wade

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Question for my hip, educated audience

Apr 14, 2008 Faith in Culture

I am now officially hooked on my first modern video game.   I had the chance to play Rock Band with my brother and sister in law last weekend and I loved it.   My question is this:

Are more Christian rock flavored tunes available for download?

The only Christian band I noticed in the version my bro in law had was FlyLeaf - which is cool.  I love them.

I would be way stoked if it was possible to pick up tunes by bands like Day of Fire, Olivia the Band, Hawk Nelson, Stellar Kart, Jonah 33, Kutless, Pillar, POD, KJ-52, TobyMac, etc.

I’d feel a bit better about this new addiction if I could be praising and worshiping as I played along.   Would be cool for my kids to see and hear as well.

Can anyone help with this?

God Bless,

Wade

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