I went to Affiliate Summit West 2009 and loved it, so it was time to go again. I scored a pass from John Chow, but quickly realized I had an extra, so I ended up giving it to a buddy of mine who doesn’t even own a computer. I was apprehensive, but I knew everyone was nice and would accept him even though he’s a techno-turtle.

Friday

As many of you know, I live in Vermont, so the Hilton in NYC is about a 5.5 hour drive. I left with Charles from Perfectly Grand because I convinced him to go and check out this “affiliate thing”. We left Vermont around 2PM and ended up reaching New York City around 7:30.

Saturday

The Audience Conference was amazing. The small feel of the whole thing made it really easy to approach the big kids in the industry and start a conversation. Talking with people like Jason Calacanis or Chris Brogan was really great. It’s an awesome feeling when Jason can pick me out of a group and ask what I do. Brogan did a great speech. I think he was funnier than some of the comedians. Great job Chris. We all really owe Loren Feldman a standing ovation.

Saturday night I hit the sack early because I knew the next two days would be crazy.

Sunday

I caught the Meet Market around 10AM, and then hit up a couple of sessions, but none of them were really ground breaking. The Affiliate Tactics one by Kim from PlentyOfFish is notable because it was that bad. I wish I had gone to Podcasting 101. I heard that one was great.

ShareASale party was great. I think it was at the Empire Hotel and spent most of the night hanging out with a guy named Zon relatively new to the industry. He’s already ripping it up doing PPC, and just hanging out with him, I have a ton of new ideas. The party was great and the view was awesome.

Ben, a great friend from Hill Farmstead Brewery, showed up Sunday night around midnight and that’s when the fun really started. We hit up Old Castle around the corner and got some drinks. We ended up drinking until about 3:30 in the morning with this guy Steve. Fairly standard drinking night.

Monday

What a night. They day was pretty normal, but what a night.

During the day, I missed breakfast, but caught the Luntz keynote.  I was turned off right away because he didn’t know anything about our industry. What the hell? Learn about the people you’re talking to. Otherwise he had some relevant things to say, but still: not knowing is a big turn-off.

I hit up the Shoemoney Facebook session, which rocked pretty good. John Chow and Ian Fernando were there and up to no good and were throwing things during the speech. Fun times.

I was going to go to the Ask The Experts session, but didn’t make it because I was too busy in the Blogger Lounge with Ben doing this:

Shortly after the beer lounge, I went to dinner with Missy Ward and a bunch of other cool people like Lisa Picarelle and Jim Kukral. I took it easy on the drinking because I didn’t want to make an ass of myself after the beer funneling thing. After that, we shot over to the NeverBlue party, which was kinda ok. It was loud and there wasn’t an open bar, so it was hard to network. ytCracker did a good show though. We stayed for like an hour and then bar hopped our way back to the hotel.
We met this dude from New Zealand that makes a shitload on gambling traffic in Australia. He bought out the bar and got us free drinks until 5AM. My buddy Ben also got digits from a cute girl in an Irish pub somewhere on the way back. This is all really blurry, so please forgive the lack of details. You probably already know more about what happened than we do.

Tuesday

To be totally honest, I don’t remember much of this morning. Ben slept until 5:00PM and I ended up showing up to Kukral’s keynote about 10 minutes late, but even though I’m not cool enough to be a super friend, I respect the guy and wouldn’t miss it for the world.

I watched some sessions. All kind of meh.

We ended up going to the Dot Com Pizza thing by John Chow and hanging out with him for the night. We ended up hitting some bars around 9:00, so didn’t get into his Apple Store shenanigans.

Wednesday

We started the 6 hour journey back around 1PM and stopped at a sweet sushi place in Hamden on the way. I made it back by 9:00PM and passed out.

Originally posted on jtGraphic.net: Affiliate Summit East 2010

St. Paddy’s day is my favorite Holiday.  My birthday is in less than a week, and I still haven’t planned anything for it.  Hopefully someone throws me a surprise party.  Anyways – I digress.

I want to talk about capturing the attention of special days of the year – be them holidays, birthdays, etc.  People are in a purchase-friendly mood when they’re celebrating – especially when alcohol is involved.  When you’re thinking about your next affiliate project, consider what holidays are in close proximity.  You’ll want to be promoting things for that holiday up to two or three months in advance, because people often times buy their products early to get the best possible prices they can.

Brainstorming and Execution

Make sure you brainstorm as many monetization paths as possible when you’re beginning to formulate your first plans.  Here are some of my successful St. Patrick’s Day affiliate sites and how they were monetized:

• A blog for hospitality businesses to brainstorm promotions for St. Patrick’s Day.  I directed people to offers for custom shirts, mugs, guiness, etc.
• A holiday deals website giving out coupons for SPD schwag.  I all of the coupon offers I could find, centralizing a place where people could get discounts for all of their Paddy’s Day needs.
• An Irish music website, complete with funny YouTube videos.  I focused on generating income from Audible.com, iTunes, and Amazon.
• A website with the complete history of St. Patrick’s Day.  I just ran Adsense on this one – I’m not sure why it was so successful.

Conclusion

I hope this helped you decide what to do for your next affiliate project – or at least gave you a little treasure chest of ideas for projects you may want to do in the future.  The other thing that is great about holiday offers is that with a little tweaking, you can run with the same website next year.

Like any other project – the more insight you can give your customers, the better.  If you don’t know much about Easter, you probably shouldn’t build a niche site about it.  Luckily my birthday is so close to St. Paddy’s Day, and I have a little bit o’ Irish in me.  Hopefully this next week isn’t too blurry.

Have questions? Ask them in the comments.

Originally posted on jtGraphic.net: St. Patrick’s Day Insights

Vermont Teddy Bear is a company I can really stand behind.  1) I’m from Vermont, and 2) their business model and idea is awesome!

These folks are 30 miles down the road from where I live.  They’ve been in the business for 20 years and have an amazing idea.  I love going down to their shop and actually seeing the bears get built.  It’s a great idea to go down there and tour the place and then build a Valentine’s Day teddy bear for your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/etc.

Anyways, here is an affiliate link for them (specifically to their Valentine’s Day deals): Vermont Teddy Bear

Disclosure:  I get paid if you buy something from their website.  I still stand behind their product.

Originally posted on jtGraphic.net: Affiliate Offer I Stand Behind: Vermont Teddy Bear

Lose 33 lbs

I currently weight 213 lbs, and I would like to slim that down to a cool 180.  I have a treadmill and a rowing machine, so it should be pretty easy to exercise.  I will post my workout strategy in another post sometime.

Put $10,000 into my IRA

This goal may actually change, depending on what my financial adviser says about contributions to my IRA.  Essentially I would like to put the maximum legal amount into my IRA that I can.

Make $10,000 from affiliate marketing

I’d like to make what I put into my IRA from affiliate marketing. ’nuff said.  I think I can do it if I really put my mind to it.  I’m going to Affiliate Summit right at the beginning of the year, so there is no excuse for not reaching the goal right?

Shake Shoemoney’s hand

I think this would be great.  Shoemoney will have a booth at Affiliate Summit, so this should be easy.  He’s somewhat of a role model for where I’d like to go in the industry.  I’ll see you soon Shoe.

Reach 1,000 unique page views per day on this blog

I’d like to make this blog something people look forward to looking at each day.  I need to drive traffic here to create a more interactive, richer environment.  I think 1,000 uniques a day is very feasible.

Finish the concrete work in my basement

My basement has a whole mess of concrete issues that I need to clear up.  This is a big project, but it needs to get done in order for me to set up an office down there.  I hope to get it done by mid-august.  We’ll see how it goes.

Go to Las Vegas

This is easy.  I’m headed there for Affiliate Summit West next week.  I’ve never been to Vegas or a conference before, so this should be fun.

Make at least 250 blog posts

250 posts is about 2 every 3 days.  That kind of number will keep me honest.  I plan to put a counter somewhere…

Take a vacation that is not work related

The trip to Vegas does not count for this one.  My wife and I are planning a trip to Mexico sometime near the end of the year.  This one may happen early January 2010 if scheduling doesn’t permit during 2009.  We’ll see what happens!

What are your goals or resolutions for 2009?

Originally posted on jtGraphic.net: My Goals for 2009