Seth doesn’t give your typical PowerPoint presentation. Sure, he has slides, but they are mainly pictures – images that complement the ideas he’s talking about. He’s quite the engaging speaker and you can tell from his first few words just how passionate he is about his message.

The audience was just as great. The event was a fairly small gathering of about 500 of us – many from the online Triiibes.com community we joined a few months ago – but attendees were just as enthusiastic about his ideas as he was. I met a number of great people throughout the event, each working to create their own “tribe,” which Godin defines as “any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea.”

The premise of the presentation was this – the internet has brought lots of people with similar interests and passions together. People can find like-minded individuals with just a Google search.

But bringing people together isn’t enough. Tribes need a leader, someone passionate about the idea who wants to help organize others to further the cause – whether that be to spread the word about a particular musician, idea, hobby, business concept, gadget or anything else you can think of.

You can find tribes around anything from the Grateful Dead and the iPhone to a political campaign, interest (wine enthusiasts, CrossFit members) or a cause (free Tibet, stop global warming, give business loans, etc).

Tribes can also be found in business organizations – those who actively campaign for change within their department, who aren’t content with the status quo and innovate rather than put up with outdated business models, or who aren’t afraid to speak up if something doesn’t seem quite right. Seth calls these people Heretics.

Heretics aren’t simply dissenters. They make it their mission, their purpose, to lead a movement to innovate and change. They find allies among like-minded individuals. And they work passionately to bring their ideas to the forefront. Sure, it may be scary. Sure, you may come up against resistance.

But it’s better than the alternative, what Seth calls “sheepwalking” or doing what you are told – even when you know what you do isn’t impactful or may actually be hurting the company (think of all the wasted money spent on ineffective advertising). Sheepwalkers don’t speak up because they are afraid of encountering resistance, of criticism or of being fired. These people do their jobs because it pays the bills – but doesn’t give them a sense of pride, satisfaction or challenge.

Yesterday, Seth encouraged us all to be heretics – to find something we’re passionate about and build a tribe around it. Then, it’s up to us to lead that movement and embrace the possibilities.

I highly recommend you check out his new book, Tribes, and if you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, do so! I saw a few people recording the event, so if I find an audio/video link, I’ll add it.  You can also download a free ebook written by members of the Triiibes community.

Update: Listen to the recording here or download the slides. Check out photos of the event. Here’s a great list of tactics to start building your tribe. And lots of freebie recordings.

What You Will Learn:
This call is a review of the Future of Online Advertising conference which was held in New York on June 8-9. Here’s what you’ll learn by listening:

• The key themes addressed by the conference
• Why 50% of advertising fails
• Problems small business owners have measuring advertising effectiveness
• How companies can leverage online video to promote their services
• Difficulties bloggers and advertisers have finding one another

Who Will Benefit?
Anyone interested in industry trends and what the cutting edge of online advertising is.

Websites Mentioned in the Podcast

• Future of Online Advertising
• Greg Stuart
• VideoClix
• Microsoft Ad Labs
• ProBlogger
• Google Analytics

YouTube Videos:

• Shakira’s Fan Version of Hips Don’t Lie
• Flintstones Endorse Winston

Some of the companies below, like PayPerPost and BlogAds, cater to publications of all sizes, while some of the others like Federated Media and The Deck are highly selective and only work with high quality, high traffic blogs. Here are several of the numerous ways you might consider monetizing your blog – or if you’re an advertiser, here are numerous choices you have to reach niche audiences.

PayPerPost – PayPerPost and similar sites (ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews) allow advertisers to pay a specified price for a mention on a blog. Most of these services require some type of disclosure, so the blogger will mention that they have been compensated for writing a review of the advertiser’s product or service. Though the idea of having advertisers pay for posts has been controversial, many prominent bloggers have embraced the idea, including John Reese, Andy Beard, and Dave Taylor.

BlogAds – Henry Copeland provided some information on BlogAds, which runs blog advertising on 1500 leading blogs and is big with political bloggers. BlogAds run alongside blog content rather than as the content, like the PayPerPost model. In fact, Copeland was very vocal at the conference about his disapproval for PayPerPost. Interestingly enough, his criticisms were aimed at PayPerPost bloggers not disclosing that they were being paid to write about a specific advertiser, something PayPerPost makes it very clear they do require.

RSS Advertising – Brent Hill from Feedburner spoke on how publishers can monetize their content by running advertisements in their RSS feed. Feedburner is a Chicago-based company that provides statistics for RSS feeds. I use them for my RSS feeds and recommend that if you publish a feed, you open an account to keep track of who is subscribing to it. (And they’ll be around a long time as Google just bought them.) For those of you with a larger reader base, Feedburner offers ways to advertise in your feeds.

Federated Media – For the larger publishers out there, Federated Media brokers deals between larger, well read blogs and ad agencies looking to target specific niches.

The Deck – Jim Coudal spoke about the extremely exclusive niche ad network, The Deck which has an interesting policy. Blogs in the network can only show one 120×90 pixel ad on their blog and are not allowed to run any other ads. They make 17 ad slots available and sell each slot for about $5700/month. Sites in The Deck focus on creatives and web designers.

IndieClick – Another niche ad network that focuses on indie music, movies, fashion, and news. Check them out.

Sadly, my digital camera chose Thursday to malfunction on me, so I only have low resolution pictures from my camera phone. That said, you can check out photos of the event on Flickr.

Anyway, aside from spotty wi-fi coverage, FOOA was extremely well run and informative. Ryan Carlsen, Director of Carlsen Systems, put together an incredibly informative lineup and kept things on schedule throughout the two day event – quite an impressive feat given the back-to-back speakers.

Throughout the many speakers’ talks, a few themes kept emerging, including:

• It’s harder than ever to reach consumers through advertising. First, there’s the problem of where to reach them with the ever growing number of marketing channels. Then, there’s the problem of how to reach them when virtually all consume content in bite sized chunks while doing other tasks. Something like 75% of people say they surf the web while watching tv. How can you get their undivided attention?
• Advertisers stink (and must get better) at testing their ads and measuring results
• The most promising forms of advertising are coming from social media campaigns and online video. Other potentials include reaching the long tail, niche bloggers through ad networks and RSS advertising.
• Advertisers need to stop “interrupting” website browsers. Instead, they need to go where their audience is and join the conversation, whatever that may be. In other words, it’s no longer about the advertisers having all the control. Now your audience has control of all content they consume.
• There’s a great deal of speculation about where the future of interactive advertising is heading – especially with privacy concerns and ads becoming more intrusive. We’ve learned that a number of things aren’t working – like 15 sec ads running before video content (called pre-roll). We also know that most people don’t like intrusive ads mixed with their content, so what will work in the future?

For more detailed overviews of speakers’ talks, here are the summaries + my thoughts:

• Greg Stuart on Measuring Advertising ROI
• Ron Belanger on Understanding Consumer 2.0
• Kim Malone on Google Adsense Pricing Models
• Ways to Monetize Your Blog

So much was covered. I have like 25 pages of notes! I’ll be adding more highlights as I finish the write ups.

1. awareness – prospects become aware of a need or problem
2. consideration – prospects consider their options
3. action – prospects take a specified action to fulfill their need or solve their problem

Pricing Models

Advertisers must meet customers at each stage of their buying cycle and focus their ad’s message. Right now, there are three types of pricing models for ads:

1. Cost Per Mille (CPM) – Advertisers buy ads based on a set cost per thousand impressions (impressions = the number of times an ad is displayed).
2. Cost Per Click (CPC) – Advertisers buy ads based on a set cost each time someone clicks on their ad.
3. Cost Per Action (CPA) – Advertisers buy ads based on a set cost each time someone takes a specified action. This is the newest type of ad Google has been experimenting with.

During the conference, CPA came up repeatedly. That’s not surprising because from an advertisers’ standpoint, they only want to pay when someone deliberately takes an action. It’s not as attractive from a publishers’ perspective because not only must someone click on an ad, but they must also buy something.

Which Is Better?

I run a number of websites, and the idea of running CPA ads seems a lot like affiliate marketing – it’s up to you, the publisher of content, to sell the product so that by the time someone clicks the ad, they’re ready to buy. That said, Google currently has explicit rules forbidding publishers from encouraging their readers to click on ads. That may change with the CPA model, but for now, they don’t seem to be changing the rules.

There’s also the issue of accountability – how can Google ensure that advertisers report their sales? Kim assured us that is something Google takes very seriously and won’t serve ads unless they are certain the advertisers will pay. Right now, they’re experimenting with setting up a system whereby as long as the customer buys within 30 days of clicking the ad, the publisher will get the sale.

From my perspective as a content publisher, it’s far better to use a CPM or CPC model where I get paid each time an ad is displayed or each time someone clicks on an ad. If I can’t encourage people to click on the ad to buy a product, what incentive do I have to show that type of advertising? I will be curious to see how publishers respond to this type of advertising.

What do you think? As a blogger or content publisher, what do you think of CPA? Would you use it on your sites?

How can advertisers test the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns? Contrary to Stephen Colbert’s advice, the worst thing you can do is “go with your gut.” Given all the potential ad variations out there, how could you possibly know which resonates best with your target audience without testing? We all like to think we can produce great marketing materials, but the best marketers at Fortune 500 companies are routinely getting it wrong. What does that say for us small business marketers?

Stuart explained the three factors involved in getting the best ROI.

1 -Understand your customers’ motivations.

You must make sure your pitch means something to your audience. In order to do that, you must know why customers buy your brand. Stuart gave a case study using ING. Years ago, ING ran an ad campaign stressing that their approach to financial services was “innovative” and “fresh thinking.” Not surprisingly, the campaign flopped. Why? Because the vast majority of people don’t buy advertising based on “innovation.”

It took ING four years to realize this message wasn’t working and they wasted a lot of money in the process. After extensive research, they uncovered what did resonate with their audience – that their service provided a way to “simply the complex financial world.”

2 – Provide a compelling message.

You must tell the message in a way so that your audience gets it in about 2 seconds. As in the ING case, once they knew their customers weren’t interested in “innovative” financial services, they changed their message to focus around simplifying financial transactions. Their ads are remarkably different now that they are focusing on “simplicity.”

3 – Reach customers through the right media.

It’s important to know the bottom line numbers – if you spend $1 in print advertising, how much is that compared to $1 in pay-per-click advertising, or $1 advertising on various websites? In other words, of all the places you advertise, which is the most cost effective in terms of dollars spent for each interested consumer?

Stuart used McDonalds as an example. The ads they ran around lunch time (and to a lesser extent, dinner) were far more effective than ads they ran at any other time. Why not solely focus their ad budget on displaying ads solely in those time periods?

He advised that when planning your ad campaign, don’t through caution to the wind. Instead, take a scientific approach using split testing to determine which factors are effective. Then, once you know what works, allocate your budget in the 70-20-10 way technology companies do: 70% should go to what you know words. 20% to innovate what you know works. 10% to brand new ideas.

Or, as Stuart summarized, when advertising works, it can be extremely powerful. But unless you test your campaigns’ effectiveness, you’ll never know what factors work and what don’t.

Members have access to all sorts of great videos by well respected internet marketing mavens. For instance, Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde teach about search engine optimization. Sherman Hu and Dave Taylor teach about blogging. Jerry West teaches about affiliate marketing, and so on. Most of these videos teach you step by step how to get started marketing your website with each of these different tactics.

In addition, there are weekly group calls lead by Stompernet faculty members to answer questions about the best ways to grow an internet business.

For those who don’t yet have an online business or website, Stompernet has the SIMPLE track which walks newbies step by step through the stages of launching a business. Personally, I don’t think Stompernet is for the absolute beginner, as it’s too easy to become overwhelmed with all the content they offer.

What Was Covered at StomperNet Live?
As with any conference, there were some sessions I felt were better than others, so here are my notes and comments from some of the speakers – and how you might use some of this information to improve your business.

• David Bullock on Increasing the Response to an Ad
• Andy Edmonds on Website Conversion
• Jerry West on Protecting Your Business
• Michael Stebbins on Web Analytics
• Jeff Walker on Product Launches

This is the first of several conferences I’ll be attending in the next month. I’m headed up to NYC for the Future of Online Advertising conference in NYC June 7-8. If you’re interested in attending, you can save 10% with this promo code: 10p3rc. I’ll be doing a podcast next week covering highlights of the event.

Then, in July, I’ll be attending Rich Schefren’s Acceleration seminar in Delray Beach, FL. Rich has some fantastic speakers like Jay Abraham(!) and Jeff Walker. It should be fun.

The main thing Jeff stressed in his talk was that you need to turn marketing into an event – an online “soap opera” that leaves people wanting more up until you launch the product. The foundations for the product launch are offering people enough content that’s extremely valuable that they can’t wait for your next email with more goodies. During the process, you are educating them about your upcoming product and asking for feedback so that you can address all objections up front – and that by the time you are ready to sell the product, you’ve already answered all their questions. All they need to do is buy.

So, how does it work? You must put yourself in your customers’ or clients’ minds and think – what is it that would convince them to buy my product or service. Remember, people buy a future. When they buy from you, they are buying the story you tell about how your product or service is the solution to their current problem.

To do so, you must gather as much information as possible during pre-launch. So, you might tell people a bit about your upcoming release and ask for feedback such as “What’s the biggest question you have about …?” One great strategy Jeff mentioned was to offer to give away a free copy of your item to one person who leaves a blog comment answering “Why they need the product the most and how they plan to use it.” Imagine having hundreds of comments from people who are telling both you and the world how this product will solve their problems. That’s incredible social proof that others find this product valuable!

You will then create all sorts of pre-launch content (video, audio, blog posts, email, ebooks, etc) that build momentum for your launch. The point is to offer all sorts of great stuff for free so that people start sending it to their friends and get them talking and passing it on and referring your stuff to others so that by the time you’re ready to launch your product, lots of people who you would have never reached yourself now know who you are.

So what does all of this pre-launch content look like? It’s designed to walk people through your sales process over the course of a few weeks or even months. We live in a world overloaded with information, so if you were to offer all this information at once, it would overwhelm your visitors. Instead, you offer it in bite sized chunks little by little, educating them throughout the process, getting feedback, and creating other content based on that feedback. Specifically, you want to gather as many questions and objections as you can – so you can address that in your next freebie.

During the process, you also want to offer case studies and testimonials showing how your product or service helped people just like them. You tell them the story about how someone was struggling with a core problem and had searched everywhere for the answer. Then, they found you and now, life is great. Their problem has been solved, and they are so grateful to you for your help.

The Sales Funnel for Offline Businesses If you have no intention of launching a big ticket item online, you might be wondering how this might apply to you. Essentially, this is the heart of the sales funnel and what marketers call the buying process.

1. Awareness – Before someone makes a purchase, they must first realize they have a problem.
2. Research – Then, they’ll do research to determine just how severe their problem is and whether they can fix it themselves or if they must hire outside help.
3. Evaluate Options – Once they’ve acquired all sorts of information, they’ll analyze it and look for possible solutions. This is the point where they might contact you for a free consultation.
4. Buy – Next, if they decide they can’t do it themselves, they make their purchase.
5. Re-Evaluate Purchase – Finally, they re-evaluate how successful their purchase was. Did the product or service do what it promised? Was it a good decision?

Jeff’s product launch system takes prospects by the hand through the first four steps of the buyer’s process. As they look at their own situation, they receive more and more information that speaks directly to them – their frustrations and concerns – and offers them a new way of doing things. Finally, when the product is launched, they are ready to buy.

Personally, I have not picked up Jeff’s Product Launch Formula, but I have heard great things about it and am extremely curious. He will be speaking at Rich Schefren’s upcoming conference in Delray Beach, so I hope to learn more then.

Michael provided an extremely valuable template for asking the right questions and measuring results with analytics software. First, he categorized analytics users into 3 categories:

1. Observers – Making up about 85% of analytics users, these people are mostly concerned with trendlines – specifically, are the numbers going up and to the right? (ie you’re getting more visitors to your site or increasing sales)
   
   
2. Prospectors – These people spend a bit more time than observers digging through numbers. For instance, they might be interested in whether more people opened this month’s email over last months or if conversion rates are going up or which sites are sending them traffic. Like observers, they are still mostly reactive with their analysis and are concerned with trends.
   
   
3. Interrogator – These people are concerned with finding solutions to problems, so they deliberately set up trials to test their hypotheses. For instance, they might be interested in things like which landing page converts better or how a public relations campaign is performing.
   
   

Michael outlined the three steps in any analytics test as follows:

1. Ask: ask a tactical question related to the business strategy
2. Check: pick ways to test this and choose 3-4 of the most possible answers
3. Action: create action steps for each possible answer

He then gave a bunch of examples of implementing this. For instance, say you’re not getting as good return on investment (ROI) for some pay-per-click (PPC) ads you are running. This might break down into:

1. Ask: Which 10% of ads are performing the most poorly
2. Check: Check ads with high costs, low engagement, or low conversion. If you’re using Google Adwords, set up ROI calculations and you’ll be able to see the best and worst performing ads.
3. Action: Stop running ads with poor performance and increase your investment in areas that are performing

Another example he gave was how he might increase traffic from blogs.

1. Ask: Which bloggers send the most traffic and how can I reward them?
2. Check: Analyze referral sources to see which blogs are sending the most traffic. Then look at other factors like which blogs send higher than average time on site (ie if your average visitor spends 2.5 minutes on your site and you have a handful of blogs sending you people that spend 4 minutes on your site on average, that’s great!) or higher conversions (if you know that your conversion rate is 1 in 10 yet some blogs send traffic that converts 1 in 7, those are the ones to reward!)
3. Action:Action: Find ways to do something nice for those bloggers like sending them an Amazon gift card.

As you can see, with each of these examples, you are focusing on a specific question and looking for ways to answer them. When you do find the answer, it’s important to take specific action – like increasing spending on the ads with higher conversion rates or doing something nice for bloggers that send great referrals.

Personally, I haven’t yet used ClickTracks – I’ve been using Google Analytics – but I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Jerry’s talk was more about how to protect your business than the nitty gritty of affiliate marketing, so I thought I’d share some of the points he made that are valuable to any business.

1. Get an attorney – As small business owners, we tend not to want to think about legal issues we might have. I’m fortunate enough to have a lawyer in my family, but for those of you not so lucky, find a business attorney that you trust who can answer various legal issues that come up from time to time.
   
   
2. Incorporate – You’ll probably want a way to reduce some of the liability you undertake by starting a business, so consider incorporating or starting an LLC. Talk with your attorney about the best ways to protect your assets.
   
   
3. Disaster Prevention – You should have anti-virus software (I use Avast) and Spyware protection (like Ad Aware or Zone Alarm). Also, be sure to back up your computer every so often – like 1-2 times per month, preferably. You can now buy 100GB external hard drives for about $100, so there’s no excuse not to back up your data. You should also keep a copy of your data at a location other than your main location in case something happens (fire, flooding, natural disaster, etc).
   
   
4. Anticipate the worst – Do you have a backup plan in place in case your largest account stops buying from you, a supplier goes out of business, or you are sued? Most of us don’t want to think about these things, but they are important to plan for just in case.
   
   
5. Focus – When running a business, it’s easy to become distracted, start lots of projects, and never quite finish anything you start. The key to business is to focus on one thing (preferably something that’s profitable and will help your business in the future), finish it, and move on to the next project.
   
   
6. Learn to say no – This is great advice for anything from taking on less-than-ideal clients to expanding into areas you aren’t so good in to negotiating partnerships with vendors. It’s ok to say no.
   
   
7. Relationships are extremely important – People still do business with people, not computers or mailings, so it’s important to network and meet the right people who can help you grow your business.

All of these tips are great advice for any business – especially the disaster recovery stuff. It seems like every month or so I hear yet another horror story from someone who didn’t backup their computer and then had a hardware malfunction. Preparation is key!