CAM Blog readers can save 10% on Affiliate Summit East registration

Affiliate Summit East in NYC is starting to really sneak up on us now, as it’s just over 2 months away.

I’m a huge fan of Affiliate Summit as both an educational and a networking opportunity for affiliates and merchants of any experience level.  I’ve been going myself since the first Vegas Summit (at the Riviera) and have been just amazed at the growth each time Shawn and Missy put on another one.

I’d love to see you (and hopefully get the  chance to meet  you in person) in August, and here is a little incentive to make that easier.   You can save 10% on your Affiliate Summit East registration by simply clicking through my link, and entering the coupon code “ASE09CAMBLOG10” when you check out.

Also – it’s just 9 days until the “Early Bird” pricing goes away on Summit Registrations.   It’s a big deal, especially in tight financial times as the prices bump by more than $100 on the Platinum and Gold passes that get you into all the sessions.   So – I’d strike while the iron is hot and save a few bucks courtesy of your friend Wade at the CAM Blog.

If you buy through my link, and send me an email with your receipt, I’ll buy you a  coffee or a drink and spend some time chatting with you on your projects at Affiliate Summit.

Also – an announcement on the CAMA Gospel Brunch is approaching fast.   Keep your eyes right here on the CAM Blog for more info.

HarvestResources.org offers 50% commission hike during June!

I just got an email from Gary at HarvestResources.org and I’m excited to announce that the folks at Harvest have agreed to up their commissions for the rest of June to celebrate the “re-launch” of their affiliate program on Shareasale.  Affiliates will now earn 15% commissions on any sales driven for Harvest Ministry and Evangelism products.

My partners and I at GTO Management have been hard at work on the Harvest Resources program – adding a wealth of new creative and making some tweaks to the program to make it a can’t miss for Christian affiliates. Here’s what we’ve added:

• Increased cookie length to 180 days
• Added well designed banners promoting the 4 Weeks to Successful Evangelism product
• Added text links
• Added a new product data feed
• PopShops support coming soon.
• Added a video creative featuring Pastor Greg Laurie

This is a program that every Christian content site, blog or email marketer should be promoting as Harvest is all about bringing people to Jesus Christ – it’s what we’re all called to do.

So – if you aren’t working with HarvestResources.org yet, you should be.  Here’s how to get started.

Sign up now for the HarvestResources.org Affiliate Program on Shareasale

Ask Wade – What are you reading?

I’m always reading something in an attempt to keep expanding my knowledge and understanding of either the business I work in or the world I live in.    Lately, I am interested in expanding my knowledge and proficiency with Twitter as a way to help build my business and those of my clients, so I am reading (actually listening to) Twitter Power – How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm while I am on the treadmill in the mornings.

I also just started reading a book that I think will be an awesome boost for my business and that of my clients called Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers by Bob Hutchins of Buzzplant.com and Greh Stielstra who was instrumental in the mega successful marketing of The Purpose Driven Life.

I’ll be posting with some tidbits that I pull from each of these books over the coming weeks.

If you have recommendations for more good reads – please comment away!

God Bless,

Wade

Why WordPress? Here are 30 totally different sites that show why.

One of my favorite bloggers in the world is Darren Rowse (aka ProBlogger.)  I like Darren for a couple of reasons:   He’s brilliant at blogging and using Twitter to make money and he got his start as a Christian blogger .

I was floored when he chatted me up before BlogWorld last year and asked me to meet up with him for a chat because he loved what we are up to here at the CAM Blog and with my efforts to help out Christian bloggers looking to monetize their blogs and support their ministry through affiliate marketing.

Darren has come through with another great nugget of information that I wanted to pass on from WebDesignerWall.com showing “30 Untypical WordPress Sites.”

If you are looking for a platform to build your site on… you can find inspiration here.  WordPress is way more than a blogging platform, it’s one of the most powerful and flexible Content Management Systems (CMS) out there and because it’s open source, it’s been extended with plugins that facilitate pretty much anything you could ever want to offer on a website.   On top of all that, if configured properly and paired with decent copywriting skills, WordPress is a lead pipe cinch for good SEO.

So – if you are looking for a platform to build your businesses website on,  give WordPress a look -   with some time spent on your own, or in conjunction with a solid integration and design form with WordPress experience, you can have a really effective site very affordably.

For daily nuggets of blogging and social media marketing excellence – follow @problogger on Twitter.

First time at Affiliate Summit? Get a Mentor!

One of the things I enjoyed most about the last Affiliate Summit was being involved in the Mentor Program for the first time.   This gave me the chance to share the experience I’ve gained in years of attending Affiliate Summit and pass it forward.

I know there are quite a few of the CAM Blog audience who may be either attending Affiliate Summit for the first time this August – to those folks, I’d like to encourage you to take advantage of the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program.    In this program, you will be assigned a mentor who will meet with you before and at Affiliate Summit to help you get a feel for how you can get the most out of  your Affiliate Summit experience.   Your mentor may be able to steer you towards sessions or networking events that will help you out on your affiliate marketing path or make introductions to people who can help you out.   All it costs you as a “mentee” is a lunch or some beverages at Affiliate Summit for your mentor.

NOTE:  Your Mentor is there to help you primarily with Affiliate Summit related information – they are busy professionals as well and are not assigned to teach you the ropes in the affiliate industry in 2 days for the cost of a meal.

Get a mentor – sign up now for the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program.

If you are a grizzled industry veteran like me and you’d like to give back, there are opportunities for you as well in the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program.  You can sign up to help a newbie learn the ropes.   Mentors will be asked to have a 15 minute call and/or email exchange leading up to the conference, as well as a breakfast, lunch or dinner during the conference (paid by the person being mentored.)

Be a mentor – sign up now for the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program

The Mentor Program is being overseen by affiliate Jen Goode – who did a wonderful job of it last year and is a genuinely wonderful person and a good friend.   She’ll take good care of you regardless of what side of the mentor/mentee coin you are on.

Register now for Affiliate Summit East before the price increase

Tip of the Week – increase your email marketing opt-ins with a customized confirmation email

I don’t pretend to know all there is about affiliate marketing, and I definitely don’t know all there is about email marketing, in fact, I really just got started at building my opt-in email list in the last year, at the urging of my friends Joel Comm and Jim Kukral.   Like a lot of people in the affiliate and Internet marketing world, I use AWeber to manage my lists and follow up messages.  If you are looking to add this dimension to your marketing, I recommend this tool as well.

Once you have an AWeber account, you need to know what you are doing to get the most out of it and this is there this week’s tip comes in.   Jim Kukral posted last week on how to increase opt-in rates by customizing the follow up email that AWeber sends out after your form is submitted.   He shared a video that I thought was great – in fact, I am putting the suggestions from this video into play on my site today and recommend that you do the same.

CAM Blog Poll – Will you be attending Affiliate Summit this summer?

Affiliate Summit is the longtime gold standard of affiliate marketing conferences and the next event will be Affiliate Summit East- held in New York City August 9-11.  Over 2000 attendees will gather to network and attend sessions on a variety of industry topics.   There are always a ton of additional networking opportunities and events presented by third parties including the Gospel Brunch presented by the Christian Affiliate Marketers Association (CAMA) on Sunday the 9th.  My question is this – do you plan to attend?

Please sound off and let us know if you are planning to attend as I’d like to set up meetings with as many of you attending as I can.

God Bless,

Wade

Must see webinar for anyone using or interested in launching a Yahoo Store.

Yahoo Stores are an affordable and utilitarian way to start selling your products online.   Getting the best out of them takes some skill though.  I am excited to see that my friend Shawna Fennell, one of the best in the business at Yahoo Store eCommerce Consulting, is offering a webinar that will show you how to customize Yahoo Store to maximize conversion.

Shawna will show you how to take your Yahoo Store from “Drab to Fab” and even how to create a custom logo for your Yahoo Store in 10 minutes or less.

If you are a Yahoo Store or thinking of becoming one,  Shawna’s site at http://www.1choice4yourstore.com should definitely be on your bookmarks list or in your RSS Reader.  You can also follow her at www.twitter.com/shawnafennell

I met Shawna on the Affiliate Cruise on Boston Harbor and she’s good people – I highly recommend that you check this webinar out.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for the free “Customize Your Yahoo Store” webinar – tonight (5/13) from 9:00 – 10:00 EDT.

Why Affiliate Marketing? Check out notes from John Reese

I have a recommendation to any of you out there who are still wondering if you should dive head over heels into this whole “affiliate marketing” thing and really look to make it either a substantial source of secondary income or even your primary gig.   Veteran Internet Marketer John Reese recently released a video that showed how the professional affiliate marketers set up “Affiliate Commission Engine” by building content pages that drive email subscriptions and give you multiple opportunities to market your own products and complimentary products to your audience.   If you checked that video out, it should have set some ideas running in your head on how you could really turn up the volume on your affiliate marketing game.

John pulled down that video and replaced it with a PDF download of handwritten notes he put together on why he thinks that Affiliate Marketing is an awesome opportunity for revenue generation in today’s economy (or any economy for that matter.)  I got my copy and thought it was really well done in presenting both the case for affiliate marketing and the 3 main challenges to success.  It’s a fun and pretty easy read and gives some great food for thought.

Get your hands on John’s handwritten notes on affiliate marketing

The information is free, but of course you will be opting in to hear more about a new affiliate marketing course that John is getting ready to release.  I think the info he shares is worth an email follow up or two though.

Ask Wade – What Content Management System do you use on your sites?

I got this question today from Neil and I wanted to answer it in public so maybe it would help other folks as well who are trying to decide what Content Management System they should use to build their affiliate sites or blogs.

Neil asked:

Hi ,

Do you use Joomla to run any of your websites?…

I have never used Joomla on a site of my own, although my company GTO Management used it originally as the Content Management System (CMS) on our corporate site.   I was always a bigger fan of WordPress – I consider it easier to use and infinitely more flexible.   I have also had really good success with achieving high Google rankings with WordPress and we never did with Joomla.   We may not have used it to it’s fullest, but it’s been a lot easier to get our rankings up since we switched the GTO site to a WordPress Blog back just before Affiliate Summit in January of 2009.

I’ve always used WordPress – installed on my own server for the CAM Blog and I am currently using WordPress in conjuntion with the Frugal Theme – which I really like because of it’s clean design and ease of use.   The creator of the Frugal Theme is a Christian as well and is an awesome guy.  If you are looking for a hand at setting up a really nicely designed custom installation, he’s available for handling set up and configuration and design tweaks for you.

Download WordPress Here

Download the Frugal Theme Here

PS: I asked my techie business partner Joel Garcia for the top 3 reasons why he was cool with going with WordPress over Joomla and here were his responses.  (#3 was most important to note;)

1) Blogging is by far the fastest and easiest way to get noticed by search engines. Other CMS platforms (like Joomla) can be used for blogging, too, though many offer it as a secondary feature. WP is a blogging platform first, with additional capabilities through the use of widely available plugins.

2) Ease of administration. The admin side of WP is vastly easier for novice web entrepreneurs to maintain. Joomla and other CMS options expect a significant degree of knowledge regarding server-level actions. You can use Joomla without this knowledge, but it will be intimidating and scary, and much more difficult to correct error should they arise. WP makes installation, upgrades, and plugin use very easy.

3) Using WP keeps my business partner happy.

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