Much to our delight, the new look for the WP Engine site and logo were praised in a post by well known WordPress site WP Candy.

We’re proud to include WP Engine in our client list and we’re glad to see our work winning them accolades!

After chatting with a few friends old and new, I grabbed a good spot and a cold beer to catch Derek’s presentation to an eager audience interested in leveraging human psychology for fun and profit!

Pick a Fight

I’ve always found that controversy and flattery are two of the best methods for building an audience.  Derek covered both points when he shared how he created a series of blog posts claiming that design was the main factor in making a website successful (“design is king”).  He then emailed the articles to bloggers specializing in design who were flattered at his take and subsequently shared his blog posts.

Next, Derek emailed copywriters and pointed out that designers were claiming that design was king.  Copywriters, naturally believing that content is king, grew furious and created their own series of posts countering the claim that design was king.  The result for Derek was tens of thousands of page views, hundreds of comments and a mailing list of over 10,000 people and growing.

Of course, most business blogs don’t have the luxury of picking fights and having them play out in the comments; however, Derek’s example illustrates the benefits of using controversy, flattery and direct communication with bloggers to grow an audience and start a conversation.

The Secret to Email Marketing? Email People.

Okay so the sub heading sounds kind of obvious, but in our rush for automated sales generation we imagine a world where software spits out emails and customers send us money. In reality, successful email marketing requires a high level of engagement with your list.

Derek offered up that he personally responds to many people on his mailing list.  Sometimes he sends a long response and sometimes he just sends a link, but the fact that Derek took the time to personally email people on his list elicits good will and makes it more likely that his list will be responsive in the future.

Don’t Munson Your Chance for Subliminal Branding

One of my favorite movies from the 90′s is Kingpin.  The movie features character Roy Munson’s ride from hot-shot professional bowler to small town low-life.  Munson’s journey takes him through a series of bad decisions leading to a severed hand and the supposed end to his bowling greatness.

Throughout Munson’s comeback, various characters in the movie use the expression “to Munson something” meaning to have it all and throw it away for very little reason.  Much to Munson’s dismay, the act of throwing it all away would be forever associated with his name.  What will be forever associated with your name?

Derek mentioned how he uses subliminal branding to build awareness of himself and his websites.  He likened this technique to Apple’s use of white headphones in the early iPod ads.  He pointed out that just seeing someone with white headphones instantly reminded people of the Apple ads they had seen on TV or the Internet.

In Derek’s case, he referenced how he would share unique design approaches for increasing list subscriptions.  When people used his advice on their sites, the visitors of those sites who had also read Derek’s post about design approaches, would instantly be reminded that Derek was the one that suggested that.  In this way, Derek has other people sublimenally marketing for him.

Derek’s advice was to create or suggest something visually identifiable with your brand (other than your logo) which people will recognize when they see it in the wild.

New Diggs

IMP found a new home for October at TenOak just a block from Six Lounge, it’s long time home.  Word around the campfire is that it might just be a temporary move, but it was good to see most IMP party goers figured out how to work the GPS on their phone and make it out for another great night of learning and networking.

Blogathonatx is basically a gathering of bloggers who spend a day writing and learning together.

There were tables set up with power and Internet connections to keep everyone working.  During the day there were various speakers covering topics like video blogging, content, HTML/CSS, stump the nerds and a variety of other blogger specific topics.

Blogathonatx did a great job of keeping all the bloggers at the event fed, with a never ending supply of snacks and drinks.  The included breakfast, lunch and delicious dinner provided by Whole Foods were awesome and a welcome distraction for bloggers who had their heads burried in their laptops all day.

Blogathonatx highlights:

Cross stitched QR Code!

Promoting our client WPEngine

I won a book and a shirt!:

Thanks for all the hard work from the Blogathonatx team. I’m looking forward to the next one!

Shawn advised that potential publishers pick their niche around what they personally are an expert at.  Publishers can then field questions and answer the questions by video.  Transcribing the video is also a great way to get SEO value out of your responses.

Additionally, Shawn encouraged everyone to post these videos to Youtube using the transcription as the video’s description along with 1-3 links to affiliate offers.

Tools recommended in Shawn’s presentation:

1. Transcription Service - http://castingwords.com/
2. Online Personal Assistant Service – http://www.fancyhands.com/
3. HMTL Form Tool – http://www.freedback.com/

Give Back!

Shawn also announced a charity auction on atxaffiliates.com to “..benefit Travis County Emergency Service District No.6, who courageously fought the central Texas wildfires of September 2011″.  If you’d like to support those who served during the Texas wildfires, please bid on one of two great items up for auction.

Platinum Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012 ($879 – $1749 value)

Interview on the Affiliate Tip Blog (Shawn never sells interviews so this one’s value is “priceless”)

Don’t miss this chance to give back and support those who serve your community!

10 Things I learned at Affiliate Summit East

I also posted about meeting the “question mark suite guy” from the make money from the government commercials, Matthew Lesko.

NYC was a blast and I can’t wait for the next one. Enjoy the article. Lots of great tips!

I just recently posted a new post on the Pubcon speaker’s blog titled 10 Reasons Every Affiliate Marketer Should Attend PubCon.

If you’re planning on attending Pubcon please keep an eye out for me at these great sessions:

Maximizing Your Affiliate Payouts
Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Links and Affiliates
Hosting Issues and SEO/SEM
Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Organic

I’ll be discussing ways that affiliate publishers can leverage merchant relationships to make more money. I’ve been managing affiliate advertising campaigns and networks since 1996 and I’ll be sharing some of the things that publishers can do to increase commissions, get freebies for their website and get a leg up on their competition.

The title of the presentation is “7 Ways to Squeeze Every Last Cent From Your Merchants” so come join me on April 26th at 12:00 PM at Mangia Pizza 12001 Burnet Road to learn from an advertiser’s perspective what you can do to get more money out of your website. I’m looking forward to meeting with even more interesting affiliate marketing professionals!

So what’s in it for you?

The main thing is links and noteritary.  When you negotiate your guest blogging role, ask for a bio at the bottom of every post and link back to your website.  Many sites also have an author’s page which is another good place to snag a link.

As your presence on the blog grows, you’ll also benefit from noteriety within the blog’s community.  You can then leverage this noteritary on the topic you’re targeting so that people associate your name with that particular topic.  This can lead to referrals and even more links.

Good luck!

Here’s a list of the events we plan on attending during Pubcon and SXSWi.

Keep an eye out for us and if you have any good suggestions, please leave a comment!

Pubcon Kickoff Party – 6:00PM – 03/07

How You Can Use Twitter To Create A Million Dollar Business (Like These 2 Geeks) – 7:00PM – 03/08

Austin Tech Happy Hour – 6:00PM – 03/10

TechSet SXSW 2011 Kick-off Party – 8:00PM – 03/11

SXSWi: FreshBooks 2,000,000 Users Party Day One – 12:00PM – 03/12

SXSW Small Business Web Party – 4:00PM – 03/12

But wait.  There’s an easier way.

Smart advertisers around the country are including QR codes in their real world advertisements to help engage visitors and increase conversion rates.

QR codes are very similar to UPC bar codes found on the back of almost everything you buy; except, QR codes are commonly read by mobile devices such as devices using the Android, Blackberry and iPhone operating systems.  QR codes give you the ability to embed almost any kind of data including website addresses, product information and much much more.  This data is then easily accessible to mobile users by simply snapping a picture of the code using built in cameras.

There are several free QR code generators that provide a web interface for creating custom QR codes.

With such an easy implementation and great benefit by engaging the user, you should seriously consider using QR codes in your next real-world advertising campaign.