Greetings from Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Las Vegas

[James Martell]

Hi Linda,

Arlene and I just checked into the Rio in Las Vegas to attend Affiliate Summit West 2009. It kicks off tomorrow with the Meat Market, which as you know is really just a BIG meet 'n greet. Lots of fun!

I'll keep you posted!

James

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey James,

Thanks for letting me know you and Arlene arrived safely. I know many others got in today too,
so you'll probably see plenty of AMers and have lots of fun tonight too.

I'm jealous and planning to live vicariously through you two so keep us posted
on all the happenings and send pics if you can too.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Anyone else that's at the show and has time to poke their head in here,
let us know what's up and feel free to post pics or videos.

 

[James Martell]

Hi Linda,

Yes, we miss you.

Arlene and I just spent all afternoon at the Meet Market. It was literally a beehive of activity. Lot's of buzz!

...with Twitter as one of the BIG topics. Great conversations on building followers with Debbie Carney, a successful affiliate and expert of Twitter and the owner of LoxlyGallery.com.

I also had a chance to catch up with Tammy Morales, who has done a great job on a series of three scrapbooking videos. It great to see some real content and the use of video by someone so new to the business. (I saw her talking to Carolyn Tang from ShareaSale about technolgy they have in place so she can widely distribute her videos with her affiliate ID embedded.)

Another interesting thing to note is that overhaul tourism is down 25-30%, however attendence to Affiliate Summit is up 10% over last year.

Here's a quick pic from Miles Baker of (left to right) James Martell, Arlene Martell, Tracy, Tammy Morales and Andrew Wee. You can see some of the activity in the background.

Photo from Summit

Next, we're off to the oneNetworkDirect.com Party and then on to another famous ShareaSale Party at 8:00pm.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for the update and the pic James.
Almost feel like I'm there!

 

[James Martell]

Best Summit Yet!

Hi Linda

What a great event. It was definitely the best yet with so many highlights.

I spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall. I had a chance to speak with Shawn Collins who indicated that they added an additional 20 booths this year. I was also impressed with the quality of the booths.

Lots of great parties as well. I had a chance to attend the Digital River and ShareaSale parties. Lots of fun. It's great to see how the networks invest in their affiliates.

I was also impressed by the presentations I sat in on this year. Todd Crawford moderated a panel on affiliate fraud. It was not normally a subject I would be interested in, but I know Todd and Joshua Sloan who was on the panel. It was very interesting stuff. I appreciate more than ever why merchants don't typically auto-approve affiliates like the did in the past.

I also sat in on a presentation by Jay Berkowitz from 10GoldenRules.com who spoke on 10 Success Strategies for Internet Marketers:

Strategy #1 - Build Your Personal Brand
Strategy #2 - Video
Strategy #3 - Podcasts
Strategy #4 - Make Social Media Money
Strategy #5 - Your Own Website
Strategy #6 - Search Engine Optimization
Strategy #7 - Paid Search
Strategy #8 - Micro-Analysis (improve website performance)
Strategy #9 - Build an Online Community
Strategy #10 - Lead the Trends

One of the things Jay focused on was the power of podcasting and distributing your podcast to the free podcast directories, which is a great strategy and something Arlene has been doing for a while now.

EpilepsyMoms.com - Children with Epilepsy Podcasts
EpilepsyMoms.com Podcast
EpilepsyMoms.com Podcast - Powered by Podcast Spot

Arlene has submitted her EpilepsyMoms.com podcast to 25+ free podcast directories. It brings her all kinds of traffic.

All good food for thought!

The next summit is in New York in August. We plan to attend and we will get there a few days early so we can take in the sights and sounds of that amazing city. I love New York!

James

PS - I had my video camera with me at Affiliate Summit and will be putting together a video about the event. I'll post it when it's done.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for the update James! Sounds like it was a great show and you
gave us nice overview on a variety of topics.

I usually blog all the news I can find about Summit but this one, I just have other issues I'm dealing with and haven't even been able to make time to do
a single blog post about the event.

So I'm happy you posted your update for us!