Archive for February, 2010
Incredible Testimonial from Guitar Student John
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Fun Stuff on February 28th, 2010
I always enjoy sharing these wonderful testimonials…and this one is one of the best.
Hello Steve,
I’m a recent purchaser and practitioner of your guitar course.
I’d like to thank you for the work you have put into the course, it’s truly remarkable. But it’s even more than that fro me.
I’m a recovering alcoholic and the guitar has become something that helps keep me on the wagon and a large part of it are your lessons. Your calm demeanour and teaching style really are a pleasure for a turbulent mind, i really look forward to my lessons with steve.
Your work has really been a positive force in my life and i thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Enough gasbaging from me, gotta go practice.
Thanks
John
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Big News Coming Very Soon!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Legacy News on February 26th, 2010
As I just posted on Twitter…
BIG BIG News coming over the weekend from us…it involves Gibson Guitars and something that rhymes with “Piephone Map.”
Can’t say much more but you will know soon 
March 2010 Bonuses on ShareASale
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Bonuses on February 26th, 2010
We just announced our March 2010 bonuses on ShareASale.
Our usual bonuses such as our $50.00 2nd Sale Bonus, our $200 50 sales for the month bonus, and all of the others listed on our ShareASale Promotions and Bonuses Page are in effect.
This month we have three special bonuses:
- Sell Twenty (20) Learn & Master Painting Courses and earn a $300.00 bonus.
- Sell fifteen (15) Learn & Master Ballroom Dance Courses and earn a $100.00 bonus.
- The $500 bonus for making 200 sales in a month (on top of the $200 and $325 bonuses for 50 and 100 sales) is increased to $2,000.00 this month!
So now there are plenty of great opportunities to earn some serious bonuses this month!
Our First Pay Per Call Commission Increase on ShareASale!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Pay Per Call on February 25th, 2010
I just got to award our first commission increase on our Pay Per Call program on ShareASale to Marvin in the Bahamas, who is now earning $20.00 on every converting call.
A converting call is any call that presses [2] for information on buying the course and lasts over four minutes. As I mentioned in this post, we chose four minutes because that is under the average time that a buying call takes. Some take as much as twenty minutes while others take only four or five minutes. Most calls that last over four minutes result in a sale though.
After ten converting calls, we consider the number that actually bought and continue to adjust payouts based on the quality of the calls. Marvin’s calls were of an outstanding quality so he earned the increase. I am looking forward to giving him another one after his next ten or twenty calls and to giving increases to all of you who have not yet generated ten calls.
More information on ShareASale Pay Per Call Program
Three Affiliate ABCs Podcasts
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Podcasts on February 24th, 2010
I was very pleased to be a part of three Affiliate ABCs podcasts last week with hosts Debbie Carkey and Vinny O’Hare.
In the first podcast, we discuss Evaluating Merchants for your Affiliate Site. This podcast is great if you are looking for other merchants in other niches. What should you look for?
I talk about how to choose merchants based on the customer perspective and the affiliate perspective covering topics such as “leaks,” navigation, the order process, commissions, cookie length, terms and conditions, banner quality and quantity, affiliate manager activity and responses, and more!
Check out this podcast here:
Affiliate ABCs #26 Evaluating Merchants for your Affiliate Site [28:22m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
And you can also subscribe to it in the GeekCast podcasts in iTunes.
Next we did a podcast about communicating with your Affiliate Manager. Whether you are working with us or another Affiliate Manager, this podcast is full of great tips for working with your Affiliate Manager. While some Affiliate Managers are admittedly not very responsive or open to questions or giving tips, a lot of us are very open and WANT to communicate with our affiliates. Some of the highlights of this podcast include: asking for help with creatives, banners, etc., communicating with instant messenger, phone, email, and forums, and discussing commission rates.
Affiliate ABCs #26 Tips About Communicating with Your Affiliate Manager [31:05m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
And the last podcast, Affiliate ABCs #27 is a spotlight on our affiliate program at Legacy Learning Systems. Unfortunately this podcast cut off at 25 minutes due to a bad connection, but thankfully we got through most of it.
We discuss the many ways that our courses can be promoted by affiliates and the different demographics and target audiences.
You can check out this podcast here:
Affiliate ABCs #27 Merchant Spotlight - Legacy Learning Systems [25:38m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
Enjoy!
Virginia and Vermont Advertising Tax Updates - Great News!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Marketing News, Legal Matters on February 24th, 2010
Great news for Virginia and Vermont affiliates today! Both advertising tax bills died.
Here is the latest from the Performance Marketing Alliance (PMA) via Twitter. More to come later
Updates on Last Week’s Tracking Issues
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Legacy News on February 24th, 2010
I am updating everyone on the tracking issues last week on our ABestWeb Support Forum in this thread.
I will be emailing updates throughout the day today and tomorrow!
Thanks for your patience.
Affiliate Contests from Both Sides of the Tracks Podcast
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Podcasts on February 23rd, 2010
So this post is three weeks late since I meant to post it when it first came out and totally forgot. Oops!
In the February 1 episode of the Both Sides of the Tracks podcast, hosts Eric Nagel and Jason Rubacky discuss affiliate contests. They spend quite a bit of time talking about the very successful LEGACY Week 2.0.
About the Both Sides of the Track podcast: What do you get when an affiliate development manager and an affiliate do a podcast? Views from both sides of the tracks. It’s the same issues, but rarely seen in the same way. ShareASale’s Jason Rubacky and affiliate Eric Nagel host.
Listen or download and make sure to subscribe to them in iTunes!
Standard Podcast [50:43m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
First Sales Booming!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Encouragement on February 22nd, 2010
So far this month we have had TWENTY new affiliates make their first sale on ShareASale. That is almost one per day!
In the past three days alone, we have had six affiliates make their first sale.
ShareASale has a report that shows the affiliates for a time period that have made their first sale. Here is a screenshot of it below. Some of them are really rocking…made their first sale within the past week and are already vying for that 10 sale February bonus!
Keep up the great work guys and gals
Three Cool Tools to Choose Your Website Colors
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tools, Web Design on February 22nd, 2010
As you know, the colors you use on your website play a big role in the overall impression that your visitors get of whatever it is you are trying to sell to them.
I am a big believer that color schemes must be well thought out. I personally have some favorites, but sometimes I get tired of designing the same old sites or my own favorite colors don’t match a product.
I have used three tools that I highly recommend for choosing a color scheme that I wanted to share with you. I have seen others, but these are my favorites. All of them are FREE!
Am I missing one? If so, share your favorites here!
Very easy to use color theme creator. There are six palette settings: monochromatic, complimentary, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic color that you can choose depending on what type of site you are designing. The best feature and why it is my number one pick, is the ability to preview the scheme on a dummy web page. You can also export your color palette as a Photoshop palette, HTML+CSS, TEXT, XML, and GPL .
One great feature of Colorotate is the ability to browse through various user templates. They are a great source of inspiration.
I don’t find it as easy to use as the Color Scheme Designer, but it is still a good resource. Another great feature and one that makes it totally worthwhile is using the 3D interface to see the multidimensional nature of the colors. You can also upload images and use those colors if you already have a logo or design in place.
Least favorite of the three. You can extract color schemes from images which is good, but I personally don’t like the interface. Like Colorotate, you can look through previous users themes and get some inspiration, which is a great feature.
Tracking Problems - Very Sorry!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Legacy News on February 19th, 2010
To all of our affiliates, I must sincerely apologize.
It has come to my attention that we have had a major tracking problem for the past couple of days. I am not sure at this time of the exact amount of time it has been going on, but it started as late as 6:00 pm last night and as early as Tuesday of this week. My best guess right now is somewhere in the middle.
As of just now it has been fixed, however I know that it has caused some serious problems for many of you and for that I am deeply sorry.
I take full responsibility for the errors as they were caused by updating a file in our tracking that I could have prevented. I should have done a better job of communicating with our team here to have avoided this. Trust me, the same problem will not happen again.
I will be working to make sure that you are compensated for all lost commissions and I will be certain err on the side of paying you more than you lost as a result.
I have to leave town shortly today for some family obligations but I will be informing you of the resolution to this as soon as possible on Monday.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support of our great program.
Again, I am truly sorry for the errors.
Is Your Website Being Filtered?
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Web Design on February 17th, 2010
Is your website being filtered by content filters such as BeSafe, Barracuda, or Postini (or the hundreds of other filters out there)?
I had an interesting exchange recently with an affiliate yesterday in which he asked me to check out his new site. I was happy to do so of course and clicked on his URL.
Then I got this:
I have a Firefox plugin called “FoxFilter” and it was blocking his site. Knowing his site is perfectly fine I added an exception and told him about it.
He did some research and found that the word “adults” was causing the problem, as in “Children and adults alike can learn…” Nothing wrong with that!
So I encourage you to make sure to have a few plugins or get a software and make sure that your site is not being filtered. You could be missing a LOT of sales!
If you are being filtered, what could be some of the reasons?
First, it might be the text on your site. If this is the case, change your text. Simple as that
Second, it could be your server. If you are on a shared server and some other site is doing something shady, you might get penalized. So if that is the case, find a new host pronto. If you can afford it, seriously, get a dedicated server.
Third, it could be something as simple as an image name. Check your image file names and update those if needed.
Lastly, check your outgoing links. If you have links to some suspicious sites, you need to get rid of those.
Pinnacle Award Came Today!
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Awards, Fun Stuff on February 16th, 2010
I got my Affiliate Summit 2010 Pinnacle Award Affiliate Manager of the Year “trophy” at the office today.
Thank you again to Shawn and Missy for putting on the awards and to the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board members who voted for me.
Here are some pictures of me with the trophy.
It’s attacking me. What kind of an award is this?
Great Testimonial from our Discussion Board
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Fun Stuff on February 16th, 2010
Just had to share this from our Learn & Master Guitar discussion board…for those who don’t know, Steve’s wife is currently battling breast cancer.
You’re both in my prayers. I must thank you Steve. You have changed my life. If it weren’t for L&M Guitar and now the Blues Spotlight Series, I would never played guitar. I started last Mar 13th and followed the program religiously. Then in November, bought the spotlight series for Blues guitar. I love to play. In my wildest dreams I never believed I could play, much less get up in front of someone. Now I can and I am having a great deal of fun with life again. Thanks for caring so much for people and sharing the gift of music God has bestowed on you with people like me. I’m eternally grateful and pray you and your wife share a long life together.
Regards,
Joe King
Fayetteville, NC
Long-Tail Keywords That Sell
Posted by Matt McWilliams in Affiliate Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on February 13th, 2010
Lynn Terry wrote an outstanding post recently that I want to share with you about using long-tail keywords that actually sell.
Really, this is one of the best posts in a long time on the subject of long-tail keywords because what I often read about is “how to rank high for long-tail keywords” but no one ever seems to discuss using the kind that make SALES, which is kind of the point after all.
As she points out, all long-tail keywords are not created equal.
So I strongly suggest checking out her full post here.
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