Conference calls are a great way to communicate with outsourced employees,prospects, and customers from all around the world. Technology has made it possible to host conferences via telephone systems or to host conferences using web based software. Once you have your conference call recorded, turning it into a transcript is a straightforward and easy process. The transcripts can be used as systems or internal protocols. They can be used as marketing materials like a free report and they can be used as products to sell to customers who were unable to attend the conference or wish to purchase them as stand alone products.

Depending on your audio recording software you may have to configure a microphone or audio recording device to your computer. If you’re recording via telephone then there are tools you can purchase to record and save your conversation right from your phone. It’s a simple adaptor.  So whether you’re recording with Audio Acrobat or you’re using Audacity or another web conferencing software the steps are simple.

Step one. Record your conference.

Step two. Save it as an MP3, WAV file, or Windows Media file. MP3 are generally the most common format so it may be the universally easiest file to save.

Step three. Once your file is saved, send it to your administrative assistant or hire a transcriptionist. Transcriptionist can be found via a variety of freelance websites such as idictate.com, elance.com and guru.com. Your other option is to do it yourself. There are easy software programs for do it yourselfers. For example Express Scribe is a digital transcription software, which is free to download.

To really maximize your conference you can hire an editor or a writer to polish the transcription and make it flow smoothly so your reader receives a professional product.

When looking for a transcriptionist, ask to receive a sample transcription so you can make sure the format works for your purposes. Some transcriptionists offer the editing as part of their services and can even help with the writing if you’re looking to change your conference into an information product.

Giving affiliates the tools they need to succeed is of utmost importance. A skilled affiliate could bring in large numbers of sales and leads but only if they have the information and support needed to do so. Here are some things that can help your affiliates succeed.

• Get creative - Creative is simply a fancy name for the graphics, links and other tools provide for your affiliates to use. Offering a variety of these things for affiliates to choose from allows them to promote products and services in a way that works for them. Some affiliates may prefer text links while others like graphics better.
• Give them numbers that they can use - Affiliates like to know how well they are performing. Most affiliate software provides a way for them to check their stats, including percentage of clicks that result in sales, average sale per click and so on. Making sure they know how to use these features is important.
• Provide content - Affiliates usually sell through their websites or email newsletters. In order to have a successful website or newsletter they need quality content. Providing articles for them to use gives them that content while promoting offerings.
• Encourage affiliates to write their own articles - Article marketing is a great way to get an affiliate’s links on the websites of others. They can write articles that incorporate their links and submit them to article directories for other webmasters to use.
• Have meetings - If you are running an affiliate program online, it is unlikely that you would get a large turnout by having an in-person affiliate meeting. Hold online chats, conference calls, or online seminars. These give the opportunity to connect with and motivate your affiliates. They also give the affiliates a chance to ask questions and share any concerns they may have.
• Keep in touch - It’s important keeping in contact with your affiliates. An affiliate newsletter could feature success stories, upcoming promotions, incentives and new creative that affiliates can use. Most affiliates belong to more than one program so keeping yours fresh in their minds and making participation as easy as possible is essential.
• Keep your door open - Many affiliate programs lack easy access to management. Being the one that provides that could set you apart from the rest. Don’t have time to answer individual questions and concerns, hire a virtual assistant to help. This will let affiliates know that their success is important to you and that you value their input.Keeping affiliates informed and giving them tools to enhance their sales may take up some time but it will pay off in the form of increased sales. Helping affiliates succeed is as beneficial to you as it is to them.

It doesn’t take long to send a payment through PayPal. It’s quicker than writing a check. Sending multiple payments through PayPal can add up to a lot of time spent just sending out commissions. That’s why Mass Pay is a must for affiliate managers.

What Is Mass Pay?

With Mass Pay, you can make multiple payments by creating a single file and uploading it to PayPal. PayPal sends the money to the recipients you specify, and they can transfer it to their checking accounts or access it with a PayPal debit card. It’s simple and convenient for all concerned.

One of the benefits of Mass Pay is the low fee. PayPal charges 2% or $1 for each payment, whichever is lower.

How Do I Use Mass Pay?

To send payments with mass pay, all you need is each payee’s email address and the amount of each payment. You can optionally add a recipient ID and customized note but it is not necessary. There’s no need to have affiliates’ mailing addresses or even their names handy when making payments.

When it’s time to send out payments, create a tab-delimited text file. This can be accomplished with most spreadsheet programs. Just create a spreadsheet with the payee’s email address in the first column, the payment amount in the second column and the currency code (USD for U.S. dollars) in the third column. If using recipient IDs and notes, they go in the fourth and fifth columns respectively. When done just choose the option to save it as a tab-delimited text file.

Once the file is ready go to PayPal and click on Mass Pay at the bottom of any page. Then choose the option to make a Mass Payment. You’ll be prompted to locate the file and upload it and with a few clicks of your mouse your payments will be processed.

How Does Mass Pay Affect My Affiliates?

Mass Pay allows affiliates to access their money instantly if they have a PayPal debit card. If they don’t, they can transfer it to their bank account. Either way, it is usually quicker than waiting for a check in the mail. Affiliates don’t have to pay transaction fees on money they receive through Mass Pay.

Paying affiliates through PayPal’s Mass Pay is beneficial to everyone. It saves lots of time and it gives them quick access to their funds. Mass Pay is easy and inexpensive to use, making it ideal for managers of affiliate programs large or small.

So what does this mean? It means that you need to run your affiliate program according to your goals and the image you wish to put forth. Set forth rules of conduct for affiliates.

Exclusivity

If selling a product that you wish to brand as being exclusive it’s important to extend that exclusiveness to your affiliates. Just as you won’t find haute couture at every store in town, exclusive products lose their exclusiveness if they are promoted on every website one comes across. In this type of situation, you might want to limit your program to a small number of affiliates. You could also take this a step further and only allow your product to be promoted on websites that meet certain criteria.

On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps you want everyone to have access to your product. If so, you would be better served to offer your affiliate program to an unlimited number of people or at least as many as your affiliate software can handle. After all, you aren’t paying your salespeople a salary. You only pay for results.

Affiliate Rules

Every affiliate program needs a set of rules for its affiliates to go by. This set of rules is called the Terms of Service (TOS). It should include the requirements that one must meet to become an affiliate, as well as what is expected of affiliates and under what circumstances they could lose their affiliate status.

It is important to include in the TOS the specific activities that you want affiliates to refrain from. Even if you include language that reserves your right to let affiliates go at will, it is important to let them know what is expected of them. This could include things such as the following:

* No spamming. This is of vital importance, because spamming is illegal and it doesn’t need to be associated with your business. You could even go as far as to include a definition of spamming, because some people are unaware of where the line is drawn.

* No advertising your products or services on a site that contains pornography, racist language or other undesirable items. An advertisement for your products on a site that contains such things could be detrimental to your business. The casual visitor may think that you are actively advertising on the site, thereby condoning the activity.

* The affiliate cannot represent himself as an employee of your company. You can’t control every aspect of your affiliate’s websites, emails and other marketing activities but you can let them know that they must make it clear that they are not owners or employees of your company.

Running an affiliate program can be very rewarding. You need to keep in mind that your affiliates are affiliated with your company and they can influence potential customers’ perceptions of it. Letting your affiliates know what you expect from them from the start can make things go much more smoothly.

Of course, it’s not a neccesity to hand over all of these tasks. By outsourcing some of the tasks associated with running an affiliate program to an affiliate manager, the owner is then able to focus on the parts they really enjoy. For example, if coming up with contest ideas to motivate affiliates is something you love to do, keep doing it. Once you’ve came up with the ideas, then hand them over to the affiliate manager for implementation.

While being able to focus on the aspects of your affiliate program is a benefit of hiring an affiliate manager to some, other people enjoy the benefit of not having to do any of the work at all.

Many people start affiliate programs to increase their passive income by promoting informational products such as ebooks, special reports, and so forth. When hiring an affiliate manager to handle your affiliate program, you are able to sit back and let the business run smoothly while you do other things.

Another benefit to hiring an affiliate manager is that even though an affiliate program is new, the affiliate manger may have been working with affiliate programs for years. They may have the knowledge and experience needed. They can help walk you through parts of an affiliate program you may be unfamiliar with. An affiliate manager can also help make important decisions that can lead to the success of the program.

A well-rounded, highly skilled affiliate manager will know how to recruit new affiliate into your program. The more people promoting the products, the more successful your business will become.

An experienced affiliate manager will also be able to motivate current affiliates by creating fun contests, offering special incentives, and inspiring some friendly competition. When this type of energy happens, sales can sky-rocket.

Some people that sign up with the affiliate program will be brand new to the world of affiliate marketing. This doesn’t mean that they cannot be successful; they just need a little extra help in getting started. A good affiliate manager will know how to reach out to them by creating tools to train them and possibly doing some live training sessions over a conference call.

These are just a few of the many benefits that can be received by hiring an experienced and qualified affiliate manager. Take into consideration these things and talk with others who have hired an affiliate manager for more benefits to find out if it’s the right direction for your program.

Adding an affiliate program can definitely increase the amount of product sales. It will also add to your workload due to the need to create tools and resources for affiliates as well as recruit new affiliates.

These tasks are fairly easy in the beginning. If your program is fairly new and you have the ability to dedicate at least a few hours each week to it, then managing your own program may be an excellent solution.

Thanks to programs such as 1shoppingcart.com, an affiliate program can be set up very easily and within a few steps. Basically, all that is necessary is setting up an account and answering a few simple questions. The program will give you the links to promote your program. These programs also make it very affordable to start and manage your own program.

Another good reason to manage your own affiliate program is simply gaining that experience. Down the road, as the program grows and becomes too much work, you can then hire someone to help manage the tasks. This person can become a great asset to you, the program, and affiliates.

However, there will be days when this person wants to go on vacation, gets sick, or cannot work for some other reason. If you managed the program at some point, it’s easy to step in and take care of any urgent matters while your assistant is away.

Again, only you can make the correct decision for your business. When some people are getting started, they are on a bit of a tighter budget and may not be able to afford to hire an affiliate manager. If this is the case and the time is there to do it yourself, go for it, if nothing more so that you know how the system works.

Later down the road as the affiliate program is off the ground and running smoothly the extra money coming in will allow for outsourcing tasks to a great affiliate manager who can then take your program to new and even more exciting levels.

Think of an affiliate center as the heart of an affiliate program. There may be an affiliate handbook. This can include a background on what affiliate marketing is, some examples of the methods they can use to market your products and services, as well as some additional resources you feel will be of help to them.

An affiliate center should also include tools affiliates can use to promote your products, such as articles, brandable special reports, sample emails, as well as both graphic and text link ads.

Depending on the program used to manage the affiliate program, their affiliate statistics may be included in this area. If the affiliate center is located outside of the affiliate management system, simply include a link to the URL affiliates can use to log in and view their stats.

While it isn’t necessary to provide these things to your affiliates, it is extremely beneficial to both the affiliates and you. Having everything in one place makes it very convenient. Your affiliates can log in and check their stats, pick up some new ads to use on their sites or an article to post on their blog. They can also take a few minutes to look through the affiliate handbook and pick up some new marketing techniques…all in one central location.

It does take time to create these training materials and resources, but it will be beneficial down the road. Providing these things to affiliates makes their job easier, therefore making them more willing to do the work necessary to earn commissions. They can simply grab the ads you created and post them on their site or take the sample email and send it to their mailing lists.

These tools let them get started quickly and easily. A new affiliate can join a program and start receiving sales the same day. This is a win-win situation for both you and the affiliate.

If you have already started a program, but have not yet created an affiliate center, don’t worry. It’s never too late to start. You can send an email to your affiliates and ask them how you can make their job easier, what tools they would like to see provided, and what aspects of affiliate marketing they need training on.

Once you begin creating the affiliate center, you should start seeing some great results. Current affiliates will have a new drive and will become more motivated and new affiliates will be able to get a running start.

You will benefit from having such an amazing affiliate program, as well and will see extra profits for years to come as long as the affiliate center is maintained well.

Affiliate programs are relatively easy and inexpensive to start. With just a few clicks of your mouse, anyone can start their own affiliate program. However easy they are to start, they still take time to build and grow into success. By starting with a solid foundation, the ease of building that foundation will be more.

Again, it can be so easy to start an affiliate program that many may be tempted to slap a few articles together and call it an ebook, just to have a product for affiliates to sell. Instead, anyone thinking this way should step back and take the necessary time to develop a good product. If a product is of poor quality, it will be hard to recruit affiliates and the ones that do sign up will have a hard time promoting it.

Once a product has been created, the owner should attempt to sell it themselves first. This will give the an idea of how well (or not so well) the product will convert. Some affiliates specifically look for a product with a high conversion rate. If the conversion rate seems low altering the product a little to increase the conversion rate just may help.

Taking the time to sell ones own product before beginning an affiliate program will also give product owners time to develop ads, articles, and other tools that affiliates can use to increase the sale of the product once the program is opened to others.

Another thing that will only help make a new affiliate program stronger is to research the different types and details of other programs. For instance, will the program be managed by the product owner or will their be an designated affiliate manager? Will the program be conducted through a company such as Clickbank or will it do better with a script installed on the owners own server? Researching programs such as 1ShoppingCart.com will help the owner set up a program that works best for them and their future affiliates.

A product owner will also need to answer the following questions before opening up their affiliate program. How much commission will affiliates receive? What payment method will be put in place? Will there be multiple tiers put into place in order to help gain more affiliates? All of these questions should be answered before starting any affiliate program. Otherwise, owners and managers may find themselves overwhelmed very quickly.

Product owners will also want to take the time to build an affiliate resource center and set it up with training materials and promotional tools and resources. Affiliate programs tend to attract a wide range of affiliates with an even wider range of affiliate marketing knowledge, therefore the program should cater to new affiliates as well as seasoned marketers.

Another step that can and should be taken before opening an affiliate program to the general public is recruiting a few super affiliates. A tip for those looking for affiliates ahead of time: Let them know the program is only open to a limited number of people for a set amount of time, giving them a headstart on promoting the product for anyone else.

Planning ahead allows affiliate program owners to get a system in place and have everything working correctly before opening the doors and announce the new program. After all, it is better to get any difficulties fixed before the whole world knows about them.

When I first heard about Twitter I thought it was a very cool idea.  The problems began when I decided to sign up ….

I had absolutely no clue how to use Twitter for business.  There are lots of business people on Twitter but when I read their “tweets” it became even more confusing.  Everything I do has to have a strategy and this was too hard for me to wrap my mind around, the concept was simple enough but it seemed so silly!

My thoughts were: How is anyone getting anything done?  And who cares what you’re eating for lunch!  These were my intial responses when I saw what entrepreneurs were tweeting about.  I just did not understand how you could sit there all day and write this mindless, useless nonsense and build a successful business.

So I decided that Twitter was not for me, but I kept hearing great things about it so I decided to take another look and this is what I figured out.  Most people don’t know how to use Twitter the correct way to build their business.  And I had no idea how to even setup or use Twitter when I began so I hired someone to help me.

But the other day I found the perfect resource for you to use if you’re new to Twitter and you don’t know how to get started or what to do.  This wonderful FREE e-book will teach you step by step how to use Twitter for your business and how to market using Twitter.

This 48 page gem is called: ” A Geek’s Guide To Promoting Yourself And Your Online Business In 140 Characters Or Less With Twitter” by Geekpreneur! 

Go… Run…  Grab It!  And Start Twittering Today!  http://www.geekpreneur.com

The heart of Animoto is its newly developed Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film.

Based in New York City with an office in San Francisco, the founders of Animoto include veterans of the entertainment industry and have produced shows for MTV, Comedy Central, & ABC, studied music in London, and played in indie rock bands in Seattle. They continue to innovate in the field of creative artificial intelligence.

Check them out, they have a free service and also a commercial license is available for $249/year for unlimited video.  http://www.animoto.com

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