Most people go to Jazz Fest for the music, while others go for tradition, to get out of the house, to get a tan, to party, to use a port-o-potty, etc. But I know there’s a group of you out there going for the same reason I’m going…the FOOD! Last year was my first year attending, and the music was great but I loved the food.

For example, I stood in a long line to get a shrimp po-boy. As soon as I got one, I started eating it as I walked away. It was good, really good. So good, in fact, that I walked right back to the end of the line, finished my sandwich while I waited, and got another one. Back-to-back po-boys. It doesn’t get much better than that. A voice inside my head said, “Wonder what heaven’s like, my friend? Well look at what you’re holding, and realize that you’re already here.” I was holding a hot, gooey, cheesy slab of Crawfish bread.

Of course I washed it down with some Strawberry Lemonade, made fresh on site (you can even see the little strawberry seeds floating around). Followed that with some Crawfish Monica and a couple of fried pies (apple and cherry, I believe).

After that, the voice in my head told me to go lay under a huge oak tree, close my eyes and let the cacophony wash over me. I grabbed a bubblegum snowcone to keep me company while I rested. It was a good day.

I’m planning to have a repeat this weekend, only this time I’ll try to snap some shots to blog about here. Jealous? You should be because it’s an amazing time.

We’re gearing up our search marketing strategies at siteMighty. We know a lot about search marketing (pay-per-click advertising), and generally speaking, when we start any new campaign, we do the following:

1. Generate a powerful keyword list: We use a number of tools to do this, but any successful PPC campaign must start with a strong list of keywords.
2. Install conversion tracking: Before you turn on any campaign in Adwords, YSM or MSN, make sure you have correctly installed conversion tracking on your site. The absolute worst thing you can do is flip the switch without knowing if what you’re doing is actually working.
3. Create ad variations: You never know (at least I never know) what message or ad copy is going to resonate with users, so create at least 5 different ads in your campaign. Make sure to include a call to action and your site name in every add. Adwords will rotate your ads and show your best performing ad most often.
4. Build landing pages: You can direct users from your ads to your homepage if you want, but make this part of an overall testing strategy to see which landing page works the best. I keep my keywords organized by subject in my account, and so I usually have a different landing page for each set of keywords. You only have a few seconds to convince someone to stay on your site. You want to make sure the message you used to get them to your site, is the same one that will keep them there.

Currently, siteMighty builds credit card affiliate sites. I have a group of keywords working to bring me credit card affiliate traffic. Here’s the landing page I’m testing against the homepage for conversions. If you were someone looking for a credit card affiliate site builder, which would inform you, grab your attention, encourage you to sign up the most at a glance? Landing page: A | Landing page: B

There was a lot of talk last week about Google’s recent quarter with profits rising by 69% in the quarter. Google’s got its groove back and it is becoming clear that it is not just an expansion of the pie, but it is at the expense of its rivals. Elinor Mills of CNET News explains:

The contrast between the financial results announced last week for the two top search engine companies couldn’t have been more stark… Google’s share is rising at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft. While Google’s share rose 6.1 percentage points last year, Yahoo’s fell 0.6 percentage points and Microsoft’s dropped 1.1 percentage point, ComScore numbers show.

There is no better predictor of the future than the past. And interestingly, we’ve seen this story before, played out in previous generations of the computing era. Each computing era has had its own killer app, and each of these eras is marked by the struggle for dominance with an eventual winner being crowned. King Microsoft, it’s time to hand the throne over to Prince Google.

In my lifetime, the three killer apps have been: operating systems, followed by office productivity software, and now in the internet age, search. Each of these have been figurative money factories for the winners. And each has been marked by a fierce struggle with an eventually winner being crowned (soon followed by talk of monopoly power).

Let’s take a look at these battles:

Battle of GUI Operating Systems: 1984 - 1995 (1)

• Combatants: Apple (Mac OS, 1984), IBM (OS/2, 1987), Microsoft (Windows, 1985)
• Apple took the early lead in the battle for the GUI operating systems with the introduction of the first Mac OS. Microsoft didn’t start to establish it’s dominance until the introduction of Windows 3.1 in 1992. IBM took at swing at reclaiming the operating system of the personal computing platform it created in 1987 but it never got traction. By 1995 with the introduction of Windows 95, the war had been won by Microsoft.
• Winner: Microsoft

Battle of the Office Software Suite: 1990 - 1995 (2)

• Combatants: Apple (AppleWorks 1991), Corel (Corel Office, 1991), Lotus (Lotus SmartSuite, 1992), Microsoft (MS Office, 1993)
• In the early 90’s software makers started to bundle word processing software with spreadsheet software. Wordperfect had been the leading word processing software until Microsoft released its Office Suite. Lotus was an early player too, led by its early spreadsheet software, Lotus 123. Microsoft eventually established dominance as compatibility became crucial for collaboration, driven by its ubiquity in the business world.
• Winner: Microsoft

Battle of Internet Search: 1996 - 2007 (3)

• Combatants: Ask (1996), Google (1998), MSN Search (2005), Yahoo Search (2004)
• The first Internet era created search engines. They were features of portals that were somewhat of an afterthought because the money was in banner ads. Goto.com, (later Overture) invented search advertising business model in 1998 (4). And immediately a business was created out of search. Google soon perfected the the search advertising business model with the launch of Adwords in 2000 (5). And though Yahoo, MSN, & Ask all relaunched their search engines during the mid-2000’s, Google’s dominance has been established.
• Winner: Google

I believe that it is time to close the chapter on this era’s killer app: search advertising. Google is clearly dominant and is pulling away from the field. I wonder what the next great business model will be.

This is the first in a 3-part post series about case studies from day 2 of WOMBAT 3. The panels went much faster on the second day because they were all half-hour case studies stacked right up against each other, so I’m only now getting these great panels posted.

Mini did an amazing presentation about tapping into their existing community using word of mouth. When they started, their community of Mini owners was not being tapped. They were always good at making their community happy, and giving what they wanted (one of the coolest cars on earth), but they didn’t use the community as a core component of their marketing. In other words, they never expected more from their community.

The car company had spent years building an amazing product, not to mention an amazing brand, and their users were actually a core component of the equity of the brand. So, they needed to figure out how to tap into that. 2006 was an important year for mini, but the problem was that they needed to maintain the brand’s momentum and cool while having no new news (because the next model wasn’t being released for another year). It was a cool time to do some really cool stuff.
One thing they did was made a community film about a cross country road trip where they got tons of Mini owners to participate. They made the film to learn something about the culture of the brand. They got really clever with this campaign and even created these funny art pieces that participants could leave on their desks at work that said things like, “John was recently diagnosed with a mystery ailment by the center for disease control and has left to drive cross country to get some help.” Ballsy. Clever.

Another thing they did was to create a Mini covert kit which was a decoder that revealed secret messages in print ads and media (sort of like being the ultimate insider). Tough luck if you’re not a mini owner, but that’s sort of the point. They make their community very happy, while at the same time making the brand very aspirational - we want a decoder, we want in on the joke.

Their last example was of the Mini Motorby campaign where owners were given small key fob. They could logon to a microsite and register the fob with their information. Then, in select cities, when they drive by a Mini billboard, it would talk to them. Amazing as that is, it would talk to them in front of the hundreds of other drivers in traffic with the owner. Once they figured out what was going on, how many people said to themselves, “I want on of those!”?

All of these campaigns illustrate how after they discovered some unique qualities about their community, they could push the limits of those relationships and their own creativity to do some really amazing things.

Stephen Colbert is at it again with his latest effort to Google Bomb the phrase “Greatest Living American“. I’m a Colbertaholic so I’ll play along with a little link love for him. Hey, its also an educational lesson in how to Google Bomb.
My guess is that he is able to pull it off. He’s #8 right now, I’m sure he’ll be pushing #1 by the time this is over. Already on board are: Andy Beal, our friends at NoFactZone, Alchemy of Search, and even Search Engine Watch.

I personally do think that Colbert is the greatest living American, or at least one of them, but it is something we here at Voodoo have been wondering about. I’ve selected several other Americans at random. Vote for your fave!

WOMBAT is off to a good start. The Chip Heath keynote just ended, and I was able to walk away with some really great ideas for how we can be ’succes-ful’. Heath defines success as being: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, stories. In the talk, he focused on being unexpected, concrete and emotional.

Be unexpected - Serve them cookies

He gives this versus that examples of companies doing things expectedly and those doing things unexpectedly. Ritz Carlton is losing market share because although they’re doing a great job of being a top hotel, they’re nothing more than that. Double Tree hotels, on the other hand, is a quality, middle-of-the-road hotel that is doing a good job of being who they are, but throw fresh baked cookies into the mix, and instantly you have something to talk about (and a reason to come back).

How can we serve our users fresh baked cookies? (I plan to answer this in a later post)

Be concrete - Give them something to stand on

The way I can explain this concept is by using on of his examples. Is there a difference between Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy and heart flutters? Essentially, they are two phrases describing the same thing. Which resonates with you more? This goes to using natural language which is something we believe in strongly with siteMighty.

With siteMighty, and affiliate marketing in a broader sense, we have to do some educating to get people understanding what IT is. We made a decision in the beginning to use natural language all throughout the site and in all our correspondence to help people get it easier, faster, better.

Be emotional - Make them care

I want our users to like us. I want our users to know us. The other day I was answering a support ticket for siteMighty, and when the user responded, at the end of her response she said that she hopes we stay the size we are now because she loved getting an answer from us so quickly.

She actually used the word, “love.” That’s emotion. I responded by telling her that I hope to always do things that she can love, no matter how massive siteMighty becomes.

More to come!

It’s been widely reported that Conde Nast launched their new $125 million dollar brand today, Portfolio.com.  Clearly, they are putting the resources behind it that they think are necessary to ensure its success.  The logo had a familiar look to it when I checked it out this morning.  I guess for that kind of money you don’t get your own unique logo anymore, but you do get the best rip-off of someone else’s that money can buy.  (I guess the italicized middle f is going to be the next big thing in graphic design.)

During the launch of siteMighty, we have found ourselves talking about the affiliate marketing industry as much as we are talking about what siteMighty does. Affiliate marketing has a stigma to it in need of debunking. So without further ado, it’s time to change the perception of affiliate marketing:

• MYTH #1 - Affiliate marketing is a zero-sum game. Just like every other web phenomenon there is a tremendous long-tail of opportunity with affiliate marketing. By definition there are only 10 sites on the first page of Google when you search for “credit cards”. And most of them are the behemoths of affiliate marketing. But there are people searching for credit cards using so many other search terms, and there are niche sites that appear for these niche terms. Affiliate marketing is fundamentally about monetizing traffic, and new ways of generating traffic are being created every day. Search marketing has been the big thing to this point, but many successful affiliate marketers are leveraging social media, blogging, online video, and more. There are literally tens of thousands of credit card affiliate sites out there. The sites on the top tier have a lot of traffic and make a lot of money, but there is definitely plenty of opportunity out there. New affiliate marketing sites are expanding the pie, not slicing it up.

• MYTH #2 - Affiliate marketing is spam. This is one of the biggest stigmas of affiliate marketing. People think that it is just someone trying to insert themselves into the clickstream of someone who is looking for something. This may be true in some cases, and there are people who play the PPC arbitrage game, but in my experience, the most successful affiliate marketers add value. SiteMighty-powered credit card sites add value by aggregating credit card offers, providing a platform for editor’s reviews and user reviews, show data about popular cards. We encourage people to blog and write articles as this is the best way to help your users make informed decisions. Here’s a great example of someone who is not using a siteMighty site, but has a credit card blog with great content and really helping inform people. This is our vision of how people will use siteMighty.

• MYTH #3 - Affiliate marketing is the second class citizen of advertising. Advertisers love affiliate marketing because it is so efficient. It’s a very simple equation for advertisers, you pay for performance. An advertiser only pays if the action they are hoping for transpires. It is a pure and efficient proposition for advertisers. That’s why Google is starting to experiment with it through their pay per action Adwords. So, for publishers looking to monetize their sites, there are a lot of advertisers willing to advertise on their site, but they won’t pay CPC or CPM, they will only pay when the publisher drives traffic and a desired action takes place. It’s win-win for both sides when it works.

We’re building siteMighty as a platform to launch great affiliate marketing sites based on the success that we’ve had as affiliate marketers. Basically in the eco-system of commerce on the internet affiliate marketing sites are nice small businesses run by individuals. Affiliate marketing provides a revenue model for small and medium size sites where people can make a living doing something they are interested in. That in essence is what siteMighty is. It’s a publishing platform with a built in revenue model.

My friend, Dave Coustan, IMed this morning and asked if I was attending WOMBAT 2007, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s conference being help here in New Orleans next week. Ironically enough, I hadn’t heard of the event, but I love conferences (and this one is in New Orleans), so I have to go.

Long story short, I was able to get a press pass as a blogger to the event! I’m totally stoked. The full, two-day conference pass for non-members was around $1200, so because of blogging, I’m able to attend this amazing event. Thanks blogging. Thanks Voodoo blog.

I plan on live blogging as much as I can next week, so check back for juicy bits of marketing savvy.

Check out some of the big brands that are going to be there:

Ready to sell your Web 2.0 company yet and move on to your next project? We were last year with Huckabuck.com, and our only channel for getting the word out there was to create an auction and list it on eBay. The eBay as an exit strategy has been used a few times since then, but as far as I’m aware, none as rich as the Kiko sale.

Enter web2.0forsale.com. Beyond the creative use of subdomain a la del.icio.us, this site is interesting to me for several reasons:

1. eBay provides a great platform to sell a company, but you still have to do your own marketing. You can’t just list a company on eBay and expect people to find it, much less seriously consider buying it. You have to get the word out to the right audience that your company is for sale. Web2.0forsale.com potentially solves this by aggregating the demand for Web2.0 companies at various stages of completion and success
2. With the friction to getting a company off the ground continuing to drop, it makes a lot of sense for a project to go through various owners each contributing something different throughout its life cycle. Different owners will have varying risk tolerances and access to capital, and essentially a marketplace like this becomes a farm league for companies.

Now, that being said, the idea of a efficient marketplace for projects/companies is still purely conceptual. Most of what I found on web2.0forsale.com is a mixture of Web 2.0 sounding domains for sale (how many Flickr-style vowelly-challenged “r” names do we need). There was an occasional mashup of Digg-style voting or RSS aggregation, but overall I didn’t see anything too great for sale yet. But hey, how often do interesting web companies come up for sale?

Bottom line: If I were selling Huckabuck again, I think web2.0forsale.com would be a great channel. They will probably attract traffic as web-voyeurs check in to see who’s putting their project up for sale. Think of it as the Web2.0 salvage yard for companies trying to avoid the deadpool.

Thanks Frantic Industries & TechCrunch for the tips.