Mark Spangler dot Net

Rants, Raves and Internet Marketing Blog. Exploring new social mediums and web trends.

CBS Aquires CNET for 1.8 Billion

Sold at a 44.6% premium from yesterday’s closing price.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-breaking-cbs-acquiring-cnet-for-18-billion/

Create More Sales Channels Through Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing For The Wine Industry

Build A Sales Team Without The Overhead

Are you developing new revenue channels by tapping into the power of Internet marketers and publishers? With the highly competitive online wine landscape, it’s critical to fully leverage the power of the web in your favor - particularly finding ways to work with savvy Internet marketers.

Affiliate marketing is a practice that provides stores the opportunity to generate more sales, while generally developing a payment structure that best suits their business model. It is essentially a revenue sharing agreement between a website owner (publisher, portal, blogger, etc.) and an online merchant. As an online merchant there are tools and resources available to get started building an affiliate program. To give a quick crash course on the options available, I will be documenting some tips, including service providers and examples, which will enable wineries and retailers to visualize the potential and low barrier to entry for forming their own affiliate marketing campaign.

I am surprised to see more wine stores have not already embarked on this marketing play with the current rise of Web 2.0 and direct shipping slowly shifting the market. Today is the perfect time to begin and work out the kinks! Considering the average cut a distributor historically takes (30% on a fair day), affiliates leave room for higher margins and can help you flourish as the online wine industry continues to evolve.

Pay On Your Terms

There are generally three common options and payment types for developing an affiliate program.

1. Pay Per Click – This is the least common when it comes to online retailer programs. When a potential customer leaves an affiliates website through clicking on an ad (whether be a banner, text link, product, etc), money is deposited into the affiliates account as part of the arrangement. Basically in this relationship, the affiliate operates as a toll taker… offering you traffic in exchange for a fee every time they come into your site.

Read my full article published originally at WineMarketer.com here >>

How much should my SEO budget be?

I get this question asked more than I can count. Let my start by saying, every company with an online presence should have a Search Engine Optimization and Marketing plan and no two clients budgets are going to be the same. Clients sometimes get upset when you can’t provide a number in a general conversation, and there is a good reason for that.

Do you know what keywords you are optimizing for? If you do, are they the right keywords to get the conversions you need? Once you get past that, a detailed on-site analysis should be performed to identify keyword development, internal linking structure, page layout, and keyword density among other things.

Well can I get a price now?

Unfortunately not. Let’s look at some off-site factors. What does your competition look like? Are there 100,000 competitors for your keywords or 2,000,000? Who are the top dogs in your field? Let’s do an analysis of their strategies and site to get a gauge on these top competitors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leveraging the Power of the Blogosphere

I originally published this piece for Wine Marketer distribution. These concepts are just as applicable for wine as they are for almost any service or product.

Increasing Power of Blogs

With 3 clicks and no technical knowledge needed, anyone in the world can create a blog. This fact alone drives professional journalists up a wall as their new competition may not be traditionally trained writers with degrees, but bloggers with a loyal following (who also happen to enjoy wine).

Wine blogging provides an opportunity for amateur writers to rise to the ranks of respected wine media members. We have seen it countless times in our own industry. Alder Yarrow, who spends his days managing an interactive design firm, is one of the most sought after and respected wine writers because of his blog Vinography.com. But it didn’t come overnight; it was because of his enthusiasm, posting frequency, knowledge, and ultimately his ability to harness a loyal user base around his content.

Paris Hilton is a brand (whether you like it or not). What does this have to do with wine you ask? In this same sense, Blogger’s become their own brand with an identifying voice, creating market opportunities abound. From book deals to industry partnerships – your identity can become a commercial venture even if it only started off as a single blog post.

Find Your Brand Ambassadors

Obviously, in my opinion, all wineries and retailers should have their own blog and editorial outlet to provide a voice and casual feedback mechanism for their customers. However, that is for another column. Today, I am here to highlight the power that a third party blogger can have for your brand.

Malcolm Gladwell first used the term “maven” in his book The Tipping Point describing those who are intense gatherers of information and impressions. In his book, he also references “connectors,” or people who have a trusted network that can distribute the message of the maven. Is this starting to sound like the workings of a successful blog? I know this was not Malcolm’s original intention, but this concept translates beautifully to the power of the blogosphere.

Blogs have something that many new (and even some old) brands may not have - mavens. And even if you already do, you can always use more. Think of mavens as brand ambassadors, reading a blog daily, commenting and ultimately spreading that blog and its messages to others on a consistent basis.

The Connector Chain

You, as winery, retailer, and brand, want these same mavens to find you as they utilize multiple “connectors” to spread their message! But how? Begin working the “connector chain.”

I could talk about the connector chain for hours. Every industry and even every specific niche of an industry has one. One of the best well known examples is the career of Donald Trump. Recognizing at a young age he needed to be with the best, he left Fordham University after 2 years to attend the University of Pennsylvania to pit himself against the best and brightest. From there, he played the “connector chain,” taking a job with his father’s company, leveraging his personal and family connections to ultimately build his own brand into hotels, books, TV, neck ties and even steaks!
Read the rest of this entry »

Google Ad Manager is Coming…

Beta accounts are being relased for Google’s Ad Manager.

I have used phpAdsNew, which is now OpenX, and haven’t had many issues. However, like most of us out there, I would welcome the opportunity to give Google Ad Manager a run around the block. It will be a hosted solution, which is also very intriguing to small businesses who don’t want to hassle with upgrading and maintaining their ad service software. Since I started using phpAdsNew they have merged to become OpenAds followed by OpenX. During this time, I really only upgraded the package once.

I am also extremely interested to see how Google Ad Manager integrates with AdSense to maximize ad campaigns.

I just applied online and received my first email:

Hello Mark Spangler,

 

Thanks for your interest in the Google Ad Manager beta launch. We’ve received your application and will review it as soon as we can. Because we’re rolling Ad Manager out in stages, it could be several weeks before you hear from us. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.

 

If we determine your site is a good fit for our beta launch, we’ll contact you with instructions for getting started.

 

We’ll also email you if your site is not a good fit at this time. However, we’ll hold your application on file and contact you when we are able to open up Google Ad Manager to more publishers in the future.

 

Sincerely,

 

The Google Ad Manager Team

Let’s hope next post, I have something to report!

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