BigMouthStrikesAgain.fm, Episode 9 – @ChefPatrick: Cookin’ Up Domain Goodness

[display_podcast] My guest today is Patrick "Chef Patrick" Ruddell, who cooks up yummy domain goodness on ChefPatrick.com and also owns DomanSubway.com, which lists a few hundred domains that he has up for sale. In this podcast, Chef Patrick talks about:

• How he shifted from the real estate business to the domain business and the similarities between them.
• The story behind the "Chef Patrick" name and the truth about his culinary skills.
• His thoughts on new top level domains and whether they're good marketing/branding opportunities.
• His take on the importance of a good domain name when it comes to maximizing organic and ppc traffic.
• His recipe for analyzing how much a domain should go for and the most money that he's made on a domain.

Once Again, Izea’s SocialSpark Raises The Bar on Disclosure

Leo Steiner was the co-owner and front-man for the Carnegie Deli back in the late-70's through the mid-80's. He was known for doing crazy things like carving a Statue of Liberty out of chopped liver, and entertaining his patrons with comedy; all geared towards raising Carnegie Deli's brand awareness. Leo became very popular after his TV commercials for Arnold's Jewish Rye Bread came out, immortalizing his famous line, "It makes a nice sandwich... a nice sandwich." I was reminded of Leo today, when I read about the disclosure changes that Ted Murphy of Izea implemented to Social Spark yesterday.

SFIMA Affiliate Marketing Workshop

If you're going to be in the South Florida area this Friday (November 20th) and are interested in learning more about affiliate marketing, South Florida Interactive Marketing Association will be hosting a 1-day workshop dedicated to the topic at Nova Southeastern University. I'm delighted to see that many of my friends are speaking during the event, including:

• Jay Berkowitz - CEO of TenGoldenRules.com
• Julien Smith - Co-Author Trust Agents, a NY Times Bestseller
• Carolyn Tang - Director of Client Services for ShareASale.com
• Mike Allen - Owner of ShoppingBargains.com (Affiliate of the Year at the 2009 Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards)
• Andy Rodriguez - Owner of ARC Consulting
• and more.

ShareASale Expands Offline Presence With New Pay-Per-Call Platform

Embracing new revenue opportunities for merchants and affiliates alike, ShareASale officially announced the launch of its new Pay-Per-Call Center today, after an extremely successful pilot program. What's exciting to me is that Brian Littleton, the CEO of ShareASale recognizes that affiliate marketing related transactions can happen offline and integrating the new Pay-Per-Call Platform will give ShareASale's merchants and affiliates a leg-up on the competition. As of today, there are 30+ live pay-per-call campaigns available to affiliates with commissions as high as $50 bucks a call. I had the opportunity to speak with Brian quickly today, who offered "Pay-Per-Call presents another powerful method for Affiliates to reach customers that are otherwise difficult for Merchants to reach on their own. There are huge markets in areas such as local search, offline and big-ticket items where phone calls are preferable to clicks. An Affiliate can now have all of the benefits of Performance Marketing - yet take them beyond the borders of the traditional internet shopping."

Got a Big Mouth? Come Be My Guest on BigMouthStrikesAgain.fm

As many of you know, I'm the founder of BigMouthStrikesAgain.fm podcast which airs on GeekCast.fm. The 30-minute (or less) podcast series features interviews of experts in affiliate marketing, social media, search engine marketing, mobile marketing and other geeky stuff. Over the last several months, I've had a bunch of terrific guests on my podcasts including Brian Clark, Loren Feldman, Jen Goode, Rae Hoffman, Jim Kukral, Brian Littleton, Ted Murphy, Chris Pearson, Jeremy Schoemaker, Wendy Piersall, Scott Stratten, Michael Streko, Andrew Wee and more. And now, I'm in need for new talent. So here's where you come in. Are you an expert in your area of online marketing? Want to share your story and help others learn more about your field? Then I'd love to have you as my guest on BigMouthStrikesAgain.fm.

Jerry Garcia Would Have Loved The Audience Conference

"Our strong suit is what we do, and our audience." - Jerry Garcia Say what you will about the Grateful Dead, but they understood Audience. From the folks that bought their records to the Dead Heads that followed the band around for 30+ years, The Grateful Dead mastered the art of appealing to their fans and monetizing them, while simultaneously staying true to their music. In my opinion, Jerry Garcia would have loved Loren Feldman's Audience Conference. I know I did, along with the rest of the attendees who sat in the audience. Upon entering the Hudson Theater, you could tell that this conference was going to be different. The glamorous history of the theater itself coupled with the fact that we were not forced to wear our pedigree dangling from a lanyard created a feeling swankiness; a feeling one does not typically experience during a conference. Loren kicked off the event laying the ground rules in the matter in which we've grown to love him: No Wi-Fi, no Twitter, no open laptops, no cell phones, no flash photography -- or else. It was the first time in a long while that I was about to consume conventional, one-way, top-down media and quite frankly, I was concerned that I wouldn't know how to do that any longer. After listening to the first two speakers, which included Dan Farber and Andrew Keen, I realized what a pleasure it was to just listen and digest. The rest of the speakers that graced the stage of the Hudson Theater were Rachel Marsden, David Binkowski, Joe Jaffe, David Dunne, Jeremy Pepper, Jason Calacanis, Brian Clark, Jeremy Schoemaker, Rae Hoffman, Frank Roche, Melanie Notkin and Ethan Kaplan. I have seen many of these folks speak before, but somehow they were all different this time. More candid, more raw. It was as if they now had the opportunity to share their story in a way that they couldn't have done before with an audience that somehow mattered more -- or at least they all made us feel that way.

Can’t Make the Social Fresh Cruise. Want My Spot?

I've been on the road since the beginning of September and have successfully managed to avoid the Con Crud from multiple events and have also bypassed three family-wide sicknesses. (I chock it up to not eating meat and my love of good wine.)

Unfortunately, while in NY this past week for The World Series, Ad-Tech and Audience Conference, I picked up the germ that would officially knock me out of commission for what the doctor says is "until such time that I deem you healthy enough to kill yourself again." So, I'm supposed to be going on the Social Fresh Cruise this Thursday out of Miami and there's just no way I'm going to be able to make it. On top of that, I've paid the extra up-charge to be in a cabin by myself because I don't like sharing. Period. (Those that know me well, can attest to my obsession over germs.) I can't get a refund, but my bad news is hopefully, someone's good news. If you would like to go in my place it will cost you only $50 bucks for a name change and you will be required to do a guest post on my blog recapping the event. The ship is the Carnival Destiny and it's a 4-night Western Caribbean jaunt leaving out of Miami on November 12th. It's going to be an awesome event filled with lots of cool people that I'd much rather hang out with than be at home sick by myself.

New AskMissyWard.com Question: What WordPress Theme Do You Recommend for Newbie Affiliate Marketers?

Today's AskMissyWard.com affiliate marketing question comes from Chris Gar who asks:

"What WordPress template would you recommend for a new affiliate that allows it to be used for multiple sites and includes all the bells and whistles like seo opt, and all of the social media links, etc. I'm not necessarily looking for a free template, just a good one. Thank you."

Hey Chris, There's only one solution that will fit your needs that I wholeheartedly recommend and that is Thesis For WordPress, by DIYThemes. Now, that being said, I must disclose that I oversee their affiliate program for charity. However, before I worked for them, I was an extremely satisfied customer and recommended the Thesis for WordPress theme, to anyone who was in the same boat as you. I currently use Thesis Theme on MissyWard.com, FeedFront.com and GeekCast.fm. The main reason why I am a happy Thesis for WordPress user resides in the fact that while I know enough about designing, coding and SEO to be dangerous, any tool that can help me spend less time doing this kind of stuff and let me concentrate on marketing, is a godsend. The skillfully-coded HTML + CSS + PHP framework that Thesis for WordPress runs on makes optimizing each page of your site for the search engines, super easy. Here is a video showing how easy it is to control every page of your site using Thesis for WordPress:

Affiliate Summit Wants to Interview You during ad:tech New York

Shawn Collins and I will be manning the Affiliate Summit booth (#1455) during ad:tech New York on November 4-5 at Javits Center. In addition, we’ve partnered with Murray Newlands of MurrayNewlands.com (interviewer extraordinaire) to conduct video interviews during the event that we will host on the Affiliate Summit Blog as well as on GeekCast.fm. Murray will be roaming the ad:tech floor looking for folks to talk about affiliate marketing, social media, search marketing and more and would love to interview you. So, if you see him, flag him down! Additionally, you can swing by the Affiliate Summit booth to pick up some Purell®, eat some of our leftover Halloween candy and schedule a time to interview with Murray. :) This is a great opportunity to share your insights on the industry with the rest of the Affiliate Summit audience.

ShareASale ThinkTank 2009 Wrap-Up

I just got back late last night from the ShareASale ThinkTank 2009 at The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Coast, California, which took place October 23-25, 2009.

If I had to choose one word to describe the event, it would be "spectacular".

What makes this affiliate network event so unique is that all invited guests are provided with complimentary accommodations in a beautiful resort, food and entertainment in exchange for their collective brainpower to help identify new ways in which to increase their respective businesses and enhance the ShareASale platform.

What is interesting is that one would expect that only top-tier affiliates and merchants would be invited, yet there were many up-and-coming affiliate marketers in attendance, eager to gain knowledge and build new relationships.

I arrived a day early and was fortunate to attend the Yankee game (although everyone in California was calling it the Angels game)with some long-time affiliate marketing buddies.

The conference started the next day with the annual golf-outing with ShareASale's CEO, Brian Littleton. I preferred to sit the round out and instead take some pictures and video of the golfers as I tormented them (and the non-ShareASaleThinkTank-players) with my crazy golf cart antics.

That evening's event consisted of the Sunset Welcome Reception and dinner which was a fun, networking experience loaded with yummy sushi, lobster, pasta and more. It was the perfect setting to rekindle old business relationships and forge new ones.

After breakfast on Saturday, the day was filled with sessions geared towards understanding various demographics including women, men, education and life experience and home/office. This was followed by a Vendor Lunch in which tables were set up so that attendees could have the opportunity to speak with the various participating companies. My business partner Shawn and I manned our Affiliate Summit / FeedFront Magazine table and it worked out great for us.

From 2pm-6pm, there were exhibit opportunities for Merchants to meet with current and potential affiliates. Unlike your traditional exhibit hall, there were no booths. Rather, each exhibitor manned their "Cabana" outside, overlooking the pool.