Spreading the Viral Marketing

Many of you have no doubt heard of Viral Marketing otherwise you probably would not have found this post.  When I look up the term in the pulp fiction of the all powerful and all knowing Wikipedia they provide the following description:

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

Basically viral marketing is word of mouth advertising spread by your consumers to their peers in an environment that allows that message to spread at an exponential rate. 

Lets say for example you are an online poker affiliate and your looking for ways to increase your revenue.  You have a fairly good sized roster of players, but your signups are down and your players are not playing as much as you would like, how can you use viral marketing techniques to improve your signup numbers and increase play?  According to Dr. Ralph F. Wilson there are 6 elements required for a successful viral marketing campaign to work:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

So from these 6 elements how can we develop a marketing model for poker affiliates? It would probably be best to list the 6 elements and then identify how they translate into the online poker world.

Gives away products or services:  As affiliates you can provide many incentives for your players to signup to a particular website, from free swag and deposit bonuses to rake back and freeroll tourneys.  However I think these ideas are all played out and lack the ability to create buzz which is what you are trying to do.  How about something different like for example, on your web page when you are trying to push signups you advertise that you will give all new signups at poker site X a free $10 transfer as soon as they signup.  This gets the player playing and you are earning a rev share from the rake that $10 produces anyways so it represents an investment on your part, but it is one that should pay you back 10 fold.  Ok so we have identified the product you will be giving away which is a free $10 for signing up.

Provides for effortless transfer to others:  The buzz you create from giving away free money is a message so now that message needs to be spread, but using banners and text links are the norm and we are thinking outside the box.  Instead of posting something on your site why not send a mass mail to all of your players saying something to the effect of, “As a loyal member of Affiliate site X we want to reward you by giving you a free $10 deposit when you signup at poker site Y”.  At the end of the email say something like, “This is a limited time offer and we will only grant the $10 free to the first X amount of signups so please do not share this email with your friends.”  The last part of that may seem unnecessary, but what you are doing is basically daring them to forward the email to their friends to share in the promotion. Which may very well attract new players to your site and then not only have you gained a new player at 1 poker room, but you can now also recruit him to join all the rooms you advertise thus increasing the potential earnings from that new player.

Scales easily from small to very large:  Providing free money to new sign ups is a very simple model, you read your reports and for every new sign up you have to do 1 transfer, it stays the same no matter how many new signups you have, in other words the success and size of the campaign will not require you to change your business model to accomodate it.

Exploits common motivations and behaviors:  We are in the online poker industry and our product evokes emotion, therefore our clients are unique to other service/product industries.  This is actually really easy because the word FREE is perhaps the most powerful word in the marketing vocabulary so grabbing someones attention with our model is fairly easy and if your reaching someone with your message then theres a good chance that they are already interested in the product which is poker.  Everyone is motivated by free money and for online poker players especially it is in their nature to take advantage of free offers.

Utilizes existing communication networks: This is relatively easy if you have a forum that your players regularly visit and participate in then your message is instantly available to view and sparks conversation amongst potential new signups.  If you don’t have a forum then build a social networking site and join the various interest groups that already exist and are tailored to attract the type of people you are targeting.  You would then distribute your message accordingly.  Blogs Blogs Blogs!!! Start searching the web for existing blogs with high page rankings on Google that are poker related and request link exchanges or better yet write your own blog and distribute it to various blogosphere directories with the title of your posts identifying exactly what your message is, “Free $10 when signing up at site X”.  Blog directories are invaluable when spreading information to people with the same interest.  You should also include the blog URL in your emails to existing clients.

Takes advantage of others’ resources:  For our model we are taking advantage of social networking sites as well as blog directories and your own members through email forwarding.  The sheer exposure to potential clients is the resource we are taking advantage of without costly advertising.

So now you have a viral marketing model that would serve the online poker affiliate with the goal of attracting new signups and increased revenue.  Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions, I know this is a crude model so no need to point out the obvious, but any comments or links you send will be answered and only increase my google juice, hahaha viral marketing strikes again…  

Not a Chipleader Affiliate yet?  Click here for a FREE membership 

Absolute Poker Bad Beat Jackpot at $765,000.00!!!

Hey Affiliates, its a prime time to get some new registrations at Absolute Poker where the Bad Beat Jackpot has broken $765K on its way to an astounding $800k!  If your new to the program click here for some more information on the Bad Beat Jackpot   Absolute Poker is one of only 2 poker sites in the industry to offer this fantastic feature that is sure to turn a few heads.  So login to your affiliate accounts at Chipleader go into the HTML Link Factory and get your Bad Beat Banners posted up today as well as get some info down about it and the massive payout it promises on your next bad beat it could happen at any moment…

Not a Chipleader Affiliate yet?  Click here for a FREE membership

Optimize your Conversion Rate

One of the most if not THE most important aspect of an affiliate partnership is making sure you are optimizing every effort to convert your players on the first visit to a particular site. There are a number of ways to accomplish this and it is up to both partners (the Affiliate and the Gaming Site) to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to converting players into registrations and real money depositors.

First of all it is extremely important to keep updated banners on your affiliate site, it not only keeps you the affiliate updated on new promos and events so that you may promote them, but it gives your potential clients the most recent information on a site and can help sway them into signing up with a certain website based on an available event, deposit bonus or tournament that strikes their fancy. A lot of what impacts the decisions you make for posting which types of banners should correspond to what your SEO strengths are, if your getting hits from keywords such as “poker deposit bonus” then obviously you want to have the most current banners displaying the most current deposit bonuses on them. When you’re choosing the partners you want to work with make sure they are continuously updating their creative, if they do not, then they are not fulfilling their end of the partnership and not providing the tools you need to be successful. Also placing those banners in the right spots is very important, far too many times have I seen banners from 20 different sites placed all over the affiliate site or down the left and right sides of the page allowing you to scroll down for what seems like a mile as if the affiliate has the intention of just bombarding their viewers with a barrage of banners and letting the numbers pan out and determine their conversions, this is wrong. One, you are not doing targeted marketing you are simply slinging banners around until something sticks. Second, you are more likely to get a registration that never deposits rather than a quality signup that generates revenue for the partnership. It is more effective to create your own original content that searches well and place a bonus code with a hyper link text or a banner within an article that pertains to the specific content. One, if the viewer takes the time to read your content then they are generally more interested in the subject and more likely to signup and deposit if all the equations are to their liking. Second you are targeting a viewer with specific content and the road you are leading them down is like driving down the autobahn with no traffic in site, it’s very clear and laid out for them without all the clutter and congestion of multiple banners of multiple sites that may distract and ultimately deter them from signing up.

The most important aspect of this industry is money processing capabilities. Any site that you decide to partner with should have the ability to process credit cards without a hiccup! First time players are more likely to utilize a credit card to deposit for their first time versus any other method on the premise of convenience and timing. A new player that is relatively uninformed of what is involved in processing transactions wants to enter their card number, amount, click submit and then BAM!!! as Emeril would say, and their account is funded and they are playing within minutes. Before choosing a partner you should be familiar with their depositing and withdrawing methods, and pay attention to the little details such as whether or not they stress the use of Credit Cards. Do they have them prominently displayed on their deposit page in the top position or offer special deposit bonuses for using a credit card? Sites that do not promote the use of credit cards as the first deposit method may have trouble taking deposits with this particular method and it will severely inhibit your conversion rate as most new players will simply give up and stop trying after one failed attempt and simply walk away from the computer until the next time the urge strikes them to signup a gaming account and this time they may be going through a different affiliate or directly to the website without your guidance.

So remember, know your partner and make sure they are committed to a successful partnership as well as have the resources to supply you with what you need to take full advantage of ALL your traffic.

Not a Chipleader Affiliate Yet? Click here for a FREE membership!!!

The Day in the life of a Chipleader Girl…

Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good night,

This is my very first post on this blog and I’m not going to lie i’m pretty nervous… a little stage fright, I’m just going to shoot from the hip this morning. It’s a fairly mediocre morning at the office…although one of my first msn messages was from a colleague and it read “YEP it’s one of those mornings when I yurn for a Bloody Mary”. I didnt know how to take it… should I turn on him and throw him under the bus to HR or be honest and agree with him!? Not sure…

Anyhoots, I want to give a shout out to all of our affiliates for collaborating with us the last few months with the migration, we have a great group of partners. Also, for the affiliates that are coming to Costa Rica, nice work… we are really looking forward to you all coming down for this tropical getaway (AKA CIRCUS SHOW). For all of the affiliates that will not be attending… do not fret there will be many more STELLAR promotions that we’ll run.

Well I hope everyone enjoys their weekends, enjoy the picture of Marcela (Chipleader Affiliate Manager), that troll’s birthday is Sunday… paying some homage to her.

Cheers,

Vixen

Optimize your Affiliate Website

Top o’ da morning to all the Chipleader affiliates or maybe afternoon or late evening if your on the other side of the pond, whatever time it is you can rest assured that its always a good time for a cocktails(nk nk nk) especially on Friday.  Anyways I have been going through alot of the affiliate accounts in the last couple months and it seems that there is alot of missed potential out there.  I see alot of really good looking sites with good content on them but they are not producing any numbers that would justify the time put in to building the website.  I want to give you guys a couple pointers on optimising your sites and hopefully improve your traffic which translates into $$$, which is why we all got into this buisness in the first place right?

Blog

Blogging is an easy, efficient, low cost way to drive traffic to your site.  Develop a blog and then register it with a bunch of blog search directories for example, Digg, Blogger, Technorati.  These are all great directories and help readers find exactly what they are looking for. If you write a blog on folding a certain hand when faced with certain situations say “Folding 9 10 Suited” based on position at the table or being reraised or whatever it may be you can bet that someone will find your blog and be intrested enough to read it all because I’m sure that everyone that plays poker has had to fold a 10 9 suited or stayed with it chasing the inside straight and got busted.  So now that you have reached someone intrested in what you have to say you can now stear them to your site by placing hyper link text in your blog leading back to a certain section of your website. So if your site has a section on pot odds and calculating odds then when you discuss that you can link for example, “your pot odds on playing a hand like that,” you hyperlink that so that they click on it and it takes them to your site.  Once you have them at your site you can then try to convert them into a player at either AP or UB I hope (nk nk nk).  The point is that its an easy way to increase the traffic to your site and the blog directories basically do all the SEO for you and its ALL FREE!

Google Analytics:

This is a free tool that the SEO Czars, Kings, Maharishis, Sultans and some would say Mythical Gods at Google have provided for all of us for FREE! Simply signup a gmail account and you are then entitled to a plethora of tools to help you increase your searchability (not sure if thats a real word but after using plethora I get a freebie).  After you setup the account you are given a HTML code that you have to embed on your site for tracking to begin.  The metrics provided are incredible, you can track what countries people are coming from, the average amount of time they are on your site, the number of pages they view, the keywords that are being searched that you are being found on as well as the search engine that sent the visitor, the reporting features are not endless, but damn near.  You can create goals as well to measure the effectiveness of an action your are trying to make the visitor take such as signing up an account so if you had a registration page on your site you could set a goal to measure how many times people went to the page as well as how many times they completed the registration which in turn would give a conversion rate.  This is just one of the many aspects of Google Analytics that can help you be more effective in driving real money players and get your MGR up up up!

I will be posting more little tips on optimizing your sites and generating more revenue in the near future and perhaps beyond depending on how enlightened I become, sometimes there are dryspells.  I will leave you with one last little tip and then I’m done, “Impress someone today with Verbal Acupuncture” think about it……..

Not a Chipleader Affiliate yet?  Click here for a FREE membership to the best Affiliate Program in the WORLD!!!

Great joke from an affiliate! Thanks Kirk! :)

An 85-year-old man was requested by his doctor for a sperm count as part of his physical exam. The doctor gave the man a jar and said, ‘Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow.’

The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor’s office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day. The doctor asked what happened and the man explained, ‘Well, doc, it’s like this–first I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing.

‘Then I asked my wife for help.She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing.

‘We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried too, first with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin’ it between her knees, but still nothing.’

The doctor was shocked! ‘You asked your neighbor?
The old man replied, ‘Yep, none of us could get the jar open.

Affiliates, Chipleader wants to send you and your players to the WSOP.

ATT: Poker players and affiliates get ready to win your seat to the Big Tournament for free! We’re sending an unprecedented number of players and this could be your best summer ever in Las Vegas. Read the post below and get ready to win!

UltimateBet to Give Away Record Number of Free Seats to Poker’s Biggest Main Event

Players invited to compete in month-long contest for multiple shots at free WSOP* seats

They say you can’t put a price on the World Series of Poker* experience. One online poker site is taking that sentiment a little too literally by handing out a large number of Main Event seats for free. UltimateBet.com today announced a new promotion that solidifies the poker site as the best place to win a free seat in the series.

“This is an historic promotion for fans of the world’s greatest game,” stated UltimateBet spokesperson George MacLean. “We’re handing out loads of Main Event seats and online poker fans can win one just by doing what they love – playing poker.”

Annie Duke, UltimateBet’s new Cardroom Consultant, created the Ultimate Main Event Giveaway promotion so that more online poker players are able to experience Texas Hold’em on the world’s biggest stage alongside poker’s best pros.

To qualify for the promotion,UltimateBet players must simply play in any real-money poker Sit ‘n Go, ring game or multi-table tournament at UltimateBet.com between April 24th and May 23rd and climb their way up the Main Event Giveaway leader board.

At the end of the qualifying period, the player who has earned the most RAI$E status points will automatically secure a $12,000 Main Event prize package featuring the $10,000 buy-in and $2,000 for travel accommodations.

But that’s just the start of UltimateBet’s Main Event generosity. Players ranking 2nd through 70th on the leader board will play in an exclusive freeroll that features a prize pool of seven additional $12,000 Main Event packages.

In an effort to send as many players as possible to Las Vegas for the world’s most prestigious poker tournament, UltimateBet is opening the floodgates to even more Main Event seats through a series of freerolls. On Saturday May 24th, the online poker site is holding a 25-seat Guaranteed Tournament where at least 25 Main Event prize packages will be won. Players ranking 71st through 225th on the leader board will win their spot in the $500+30 tournament. Those ranking 226th through 3427th will be divided into five separate freerolls where hundreds of additional opportunities to win a spot in the 25-seat Guaranteed Tournament are on the line.

More information on UltimateBet’s Main Event Giveaway can be found at www.ultimatebet.com.

About UltimateBet
Designed with the assistance of the best poker players in the world - Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke – UltimateBet provides the best poker games available on the net. Players can download the free poker software, play in free ring games and tournaments and get tips from these pros to learn the sport or to enhance their playing strategy. UltimateBet currently has over 2 million registered players.

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$1 Rebuys $5k Guareenteed Pro Bounty Tournaments

Hey Affiliates listen up!  Ultimate Bet is pleased to announced that this month they will be launching a new tourney format called “$1 Pro Rebuy Madness Bounty!” Heres how it works:  Play our $1.10 $5K guarantee Rebuy tournament any night, knock out one of our pros and win the amount they used for rebuys and add ons.  Our pros have been known to get pretty crazy and we hear they are side betting on who can spend the most on rebuys.  So, for example, if P0ker H0 sails for 24 rebuys and one add-on (a low number for him!) you would win $25! So be sure to get your piece of their madness!  To all UB affiliates get this info on your sites as it is an invaluable way to get your registrations up. Keep checking back or signup for the RSS feed and get up to the minute info on promos that you can use to raise your MGR.

Not a Chipleader Affiliate yet?  Click here to signup for FREE

Online Poker Player Hits $741,741.14 Jackpot at Absolute Poker

Hey Poker Players,

You got to get over to Absolute Poker and start playing on those jackpot winning tables. Someone just won the second biggest jackpot in Absolute Poker’s history won Thursday evening.
An online poker player from Atlanta, Georgia has popped Absolute Poker’s latest Bad Beat Jackpot, taking home a life-changing piece of a jackpot that had soared to nearly $750,000.

The latest bad beat happened on June 5th at 21:33 ET when BUDYLOVE, an online poker player from Atlanta, Georgia, lost with Four Nines to a King-high Straight Flush in a hand of Texas Hold’em. Seated at one of Absolute Poker’s Bad Beat Jackpot tables, BUDYLOVE’s losing hand netted her $246,362.82 in cash. The pot winner, an online poker player named MAMEDURI, walked away with $131,126.80 in cash. The participants in the hand and those playing at tables with the same stakes split over $100,000.

The latest jackpot win was just shy of beating the previous Bad Beat Jackpot world record set by Absolute Poker last year. On August 29th, 2007, KADI, a Texas Hold’em player from Australia, lost a 10-high Straight Flush to a King-high Straight Flush, setting off Absolute Poker’s Bad Beat Jackpot bells to the tune of $821,670.69. Absolute Poker still holds the record for the largest Bad Beat Jackpot ever won in online poker history.

Since the latest Bad Beat Jackpot was so high, $185,435.28 was dedicated to the pot of the next jackpot. As of Noon ET on Friday, the jackpot had already reached $208,000.

In poker, the term ‘bad beat’ refers to losing a hand that is clearly favored to win. Normally, such a loss can leave even the most hardened poker player distraught. But at Absolute Poker’s Bad Beat Jackpot tables, losing a monster hand has the opposite effect. If a player loses a Texas Hold’em hand holding four 8s or anything better while seated at specially-marked tables, they’ll win a large piece of the Bad Beat Jackpot.

To help the jackpot build, $0.50 is collected from qualifying hands at Bad Beat Jackpot tables. The jackpot keeps growing until someone hits a qualifying bad beat, at which time a large percentage of it is distributed amongst the bad beat victim, the participants in the hand, and those playing at tables with the same game type and stakes.

Full details on Absolute Poker’s Bad Beat Jackpot game can be found at www.absolutepoker.com.

Legendary online poker player Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy joins Ultimatebet

Hey Poker Players

The UB pro roster keeps getting bigger with lots of great poker talent coming aboard. Hot off the press, a successful stock broker turns poker pro and now joins the hottest online poker room on the net.

UltimateBet Enhances Roster of Talent with Signing of Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy

Online poker site scoops up legendary online poker player

UltimateBet today announced the addition of Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy to its roster of respected online poker professionals. Josephy joins UltimateBet as the first member of the online poker site’s new “Star Players” team, a new division of players created by UltimateBet’s new management team.

“A Star Player is one who has an undisputed high level of skill, lots of integrity, and is well respected in the world of online poker,” stated Annie Duke who spearheaded the signing after following Josephy’s achievements over the years. “One look at his impressive record reveals that JohnnyBax epitomizes a Star Player and is the perfect addition to our roster of respected and talented poker players.”

The 42-year-old father of three from Syosset, New York is no stranger to good bets. Prior to turning to poker as a full-time career, Josephy was a successful stockbroker for 14 years, catering to hedge funds and high net worth individuals. Today, he’s earning the respect of high rollers.

Online poker players revere JohnnyBax for his exceptional tournament play and equally impressive positive attitude at the tables. In addition to a host of online success stories, Josephy comes to the table armed with a solid history of land-based wins.

In 2006, Josephy finished second in the Aruba Poker Classic, UltimateBet’s signature poker tournament, securing $446,975. He has cashed six times on the WPT circuit and four times at the World Series of Poker*. Josephy has already won a WSOP* bracelet and has amassed two top 10 finishes at the world’s most prestigious poker tournament along the way.

Josephy can be found playing online poker at UltimateBet under the name JohnnyBax and will be featured in a variety of future promotions on the site. Online poker players can employ UltimateBet’s free UltimateBuddy software to discover where JohnnyBax is seated and instantly join him at the tables.