Food & Online Marketing Blog: BettyHakes.com » marketing online

Online Marketing Conference: BlogWorld & New Media Expo

Betty — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:21:37 +0000

Clear the cobwebs and get ready to learn online marketing & network with the top online marketers today!

Attend the World’s Largest Online Marketing and New Media event (see coupon below) and learn about:

CONTENT CREATION: Learn how to design, build, write, & optimize your blog with the latest technologies
DISTRIBUTION: Learn how to reach your target market using the latest online marketing tools
MONETIZATION: Learn all the tools, techniques and strategies to make money!
NETWORKING: One event where you can meet them all, from small business owners to Fortune 500 execs.
SOCIAL MEDIA BUSINESS SUMMIT: The Social Media Business Summit is an exclusive 3-Day conference that teaches you how to use social media to gain exposure and engage with quality customers. (part of the full-access package)
NEW MEDIA EXPO: The New Media Expo features the only industry-wide new media marketplace where thousands converge to network and find all of their online business and marketing resources.

SAVE THE DATE: October 14-16: Conference • October 15-16: Exhibits Bigger and Better than ever!
Now at Mandalay Bay Convention Ctr. • Las Vegas, Nevada

Use my Coupon to get 20% OFF:

Save 20% NOW on BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2010 registration with the code “EBIRD”

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Betty — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:33:35 +0000

When I tell people I am an affiliate marketer people usually nod their heads as if they know what this means, but I can see in their eyes… they haven’t a clue. I hope to enlighten and educate those who politely nod while they think I’m speaking greek!

Affiliate marketing is when a publisher, also known as content provider (i.e. bettyhakes.com; gourmetbetty.com) is paid when a lead or sale happens at the advertisers, also known as merchant, site (i.e. shareasale.com; vemma.com) from an end users (i.e. you the reader) that is redirected from the affiliates’ site.

Would you like to have hundreds or thousands of visitors bring traffic to your website and only pay on actual sales?
That’s every merchants dream, right? Well, you can have that if you set up an affiliate program.

There are several routes to choose from:

My suggestion would be to start on an affiliate network such as ShareASale.com. Right now, ShareASale.com is the best bang for your buck with only $550 set up fee versus Commission Junction which usually starts at around $3,000. Obviously there are other factors involved, Commission Junction does have a larger affiliate base and you do want to know where your competitors have a program. Both these networks have hundreds, if not thousands of affiliates signed up and much easier to recruit them directly. They have built in reporting features that are easy for you to keep track of your results. Both also have Pay Per Call programs (through Ringrevenue) that allows you to pay affiliates for calls into your call center.

So in summary, if you have a product or service that you sell and you’d like online marketing experts advertising for you, and only paying on a lead or sale, set up an affiliate program. Click on one of the links above to set it up and please tell them I sent you.

Full Disclosure: BettyHakes.com and GourmetBetty.com is an affiliate site (publisher), and is compensated if you purchase product some of the products or services listed above. These sales help support this site (not to mention my upcoming kids’ college tuition! :-0 )

I also work for a full-service marketing firm that manages merchants affiliate programs. If you are interested in learning more on how REV Media Marketing LLC can help you manage affiliate programs, please contact me directly.

Feel free to post any other questions you may have here!

Forwarding chain emails? Read this…

Betty — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:45:39 +0000

Good friend of mine sent over this information via email: thought it was good information to share…..

By now, I suspect everyone is familiar with www.snopes.com and/or www.truthorfiction.com for determining whether information received via email is just that: true/false or fact/fiction. Both are excellent sites.

Below is their advice for us.

Advice from Snopes.com

1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to ’10′ of your friends, sign this petition, or you’ll get bad luck, good luck, or whatever, it almost always has an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those folks you forward to The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of ‘active’ E-Mails addresses to use in SPAM E-Mails, or sell to other spammers.

2) Almost all E-Mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of E-Mail is, a way to get names and ‘ cookie’ tracking information for telemarketers and spammers – - to validate active E-Mail accounts for their own profitable purposes.

You can do your friends and family members a GREAT favor by sending this information to them; you will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam E-Mails in the future! If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much SPAM! Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listings regardless how inviting they might sound! You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT in the long run. Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later! Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let’s don’t make it easy for them!

Also: E-Mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress or any other organization. To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address of the person signing the petition.

Hope this helps! Feel free to share by posting this on your Facebook profile or Twittering about it

Internet Spammers be gone!

Betty — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:43:10 +0000

I just discovered that Howie’s Conversation Domination System sent a post to my Word Press Blog in which I didn’t give permission to post! I deleted it as I will not promote his product.

Howie’s tactics are what I would call black or gray hat techniques that I don’t want any part.

Why do I use Twitter?

Betty — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:01:00 +0000

Twitter seems to be the new buzz word around business and social circles. Non-twitter users ask me to main questions:

- What is Twitter

- Why do you use Twitter

Well, the “what is Twitter” has been answered all over the ‘net – but in a nut shell, it’s a micro-blogging tool that allows you to share information to whomever is reading your posts (aka: tweets).

So why do I use Twitter? For several reasons:

1. to share information I feel others want to know or could be useful to them

2. to promote products, services and events

3. to develop relationships with other online users

And, here’s the key to folks who say they don’t have a product to promote:

4. as a person who works from home, I feel more connected to others by quickly communicating using Twitter (and Facebook). I can read what everyone is up to and be able to communicate out to other on what I’m doing or what my thoughts are that day. Plus it only takes a few minutes and about 140 characters.

For home-based business owners or professionals working out of their home, Twitter is like the water cooler of the office.

That’s my .02 — what about you? Why do you use Twitter?

60% Twitter users dropping out within a month

Betty — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Recent studies are indicating that although Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds, the readership may not be what we think.

However, a Nielsen report estimates that over 60% of Twitter users quit after their first month. Twitter’s 40% retention rate is higher than it was a month ago. (Pre-Oprah retention averaged below 30%.) But social networking giants MySpace and Facebook manage a much higher retention percentage (60%) of new users each month. – source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/6-in-10-twitter-users-jump-ship-each-month-8928/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink

As a Internet marketer, I’m wondering … how come? All us Internet marketing experts have jumped on the band-waggon and stated (and most of the time have proved) that Twitter does work with:

1. reaching your target market;

2. providing quality information in which you seek;

3. grow your business (and social) network — or some call it “your tribe”

4. building your brand

5. promoting events (I’ve filled a room full of Six Sigma professionals for the User Group exclusively using a combination of social media)

So why are 60% of users opening an account and not following or contributing to the dialog such as they do with Facebook?

Maybe they think its the fad of the week? Perhaps it’s useless noise they’ve encoutered or “information overload.” Perhaps we need a different technology or tool that allows you to communicate more effectively within your interests. I for one like to provide useful information to others — but must admit I enjoy tweeting about where I went to lunch and how I feel about the weather today. It’s fun and I want my friends to know how I feel and how I’m doing.

Utlimately, I believe Twitter can be different communications vehicles for different people.

Have you signed on to Twitter and then abandoned it? Please share why…. marketing minds need to know….

You can post comments below.

Measuring ROI on Social Networking

Betty — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:29:00 +0000

Well, I’ve posted this question out there and have yet to hear from you. Why, mainly because we’re all still trying to figure it out together.

Well, perhaps the answer lies in that you can’t measure ROI on your network of friends. Online Social networking is much more than ROI, it’s about making connections and acting on them to help increase your brand awareness and sales. (I do still believe we need to put a process to manage all of it, but more on that later.)

And, let’s not forget making a difference in people lives. What I enjoy about this medium is that we’re all more than just a sales or marketing pitch. We’re getting to know each other and end up truly caring for each other.

I have several online friends who have been affected by Gustav and have been keeping track of them online. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

-Betty

PS: American Red Cross is a huge part of helping out hurricane victims, if you’d like to help, you can visit their website at http://www.redcross.org/

What kind of ROI does Social Networking really give you?

Betty — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:34:00 +0000

Can you really track it?

This is the question I’m asking myself as I’m joining, what it seems to be, every online social networking site on the ‘net.

I’m going to start monitoring how much time I spend on these sites and then analyze the increase (if any) hits to my site(s) and any additional business that is closed through these sites.

Anyone have any comments – suggestions out there?

Bring it on.. and oh by the way.. follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/bettyhakes