One Saturday evening my granddaughter long since bathed and tucked into bed, tip toed into my arms as I sat in the recliner.
Silently she nursed a thumb. She wiggled until she found her "just right spot."
'What are you doing said I?" My heart racing with love.
"Grandpa I want to snuggle."
I reclined even further. Drawing her closer.
Perhaps we over complicate life and business. That's how we keep customers from going to competitiors. By focusing on the things that matter most. Isn't it?
Internet advertising has grown exponentially in the last five years. In last year alone, the total amount of money spent by merchants and vendors for advertising exceeded an estimated $81 billion
Affiliate marketing, performance-based marketing, is one of the best ways for a small business to reward one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s individual marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing plays a significant role in bringing new customers and clients to the table.
It is an idea that originated with the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million dollars per year on the Prodigy service. Since it’s conception, affiliate marketing has become a behemoth in the advertising world.
Successful affiliate marketers, such as Mike Filsaime and Chris Farrell, possess strong brands, media savvy, and determination. They set their goals and work diligently to conquer them.
Utilize the following three tips and strategies that these experts practice every day, to establishing yourself as a successful affiliate marketer:
1. Be Authentic.
Successful businesses rely on effective communication and relationships. If you attempt to build business relationships on falsities, they will crumble quickly. Too often, marketers attempt to adopt a persona that’s alien to them so they can impress or otherwise appeal to an audience.
The end result is tension between what is real and what is presented, or an audience who easily sees right through a fake persona. In either case, you fail to connect with customers and sacrifice credibility.
The greatest success in affiliate marketing comes when your audience can truly identify with you. Be true to yourself, offer genuine value, and the acceptance and rewards will follow.
2. Be Consistent and Informed.
Novice affiliate marketers struggle with this concept at times. They often switch from one method of promoting products to another too quickly. In pursuit of the next big thing, they don’t establish themselves as reliable or knowledgeable.
Instead of developing strengths in one area and leveraging those skills on a consistent basis with a repeat audience, they constantly shift and never become an expert in any method. You’ll develop a better gauge for which strategies are working – or not working – if you develop a consistent system, and your base will grow through your work to meet expectations.
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Something's gone wrong and the media have caught wind of it. What do you do next? Former newshound turned entrepreneur Graham Leach has ten ways to save your reputation.
1. Have a plan
This may sound fatuous, but you'd be surprised how many big companies don't have any systems in place for dealing with a media crisis. Never underestimate the impact a negative story can have. The media loves love big stories and are likely to devote a lot of time and attention to them. Most large organisations which do have a crisis plan invariably deal only with internal response and recovery. The plan hardly ever takes the media onslaught into consideration.
2.Get ready for some company
Make sure you're prepared for the arrival of the media scrum - either outside your organisation's headquarters or at the scene of the disaster, the crisis or the major setback for your company. Where will you marshal them - outside on the pavement or will you invite them in to attend formal news conferences on your premises?
3. Prepare for the questions
What will you tell them? Can your spokespeople hold the company line under intense questioning? In general it's best to have a core of skilled spokespeople who can deal with any interview, whatever its format. Don't just rely on your most senior people. They might be on holiday, or ill. In any case, they will be closely concerned with managing the crisis itself.
4. Open the lines of communication
For the media who are not on site, there should be a dedicated phone line available for their inquiries. The main phone lines of course have to be kept clear to deal with the crisis.
5. Contextualise the problem
Reporters need all the information they can get. Have you background material, pre-prepared and ready to hand out? Facts and figures? Biogs of senior figures in the organisation?
6. Think fast, talk fast
Silence is not golden. However grim things are looking, it's generally best to come out with a statement of some kind – and fast. The longer you leave it, the more quickly the evidence will build up against you in the mind of the public. When, eventually, you decide to confront the media, you may by then have lost a considerable amount of ground, which is then very difficult to recapture.
7. Dole out tasks before a crisis hits
Make sure your press office is fully equipped to deal with the crisis. Everyone should know what role they undertake when the phones start ringing and the media bombardment begins. Once the crisis is up and running, that is not the time to start deciding who does what.
8. Don’t become a slave to the crisis plan
One crisis is rarely the same as another. You need to be adaptable and modify your plan as and when required.
9. Don't neglect social media
Ensure there are people available to deal with the social media. This is where speculation, guesswork and allegations breed and spread. More and more often news or comment appearing on Twitter or Facebook drives the mainstream media. Keeping abreast of the social media is vital in handling a crisis.
10. Make sure your operation is slick
Most importantly, can you accomplish all this in a matter of minutes, before the 24-hour news machines have a chance to speculate and exaggerate?
Graham Leach is a former journalist and co-founder of media training company HarveyLeach via managementtoday.co.uk
Visit our website:www.innothinkgroup.com Executive and Business Coaching: http://ow.ly/anBpK
Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective growth strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability.james@innothinkgroup.com
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