Many email marketers don’t see soft bounces as a major cause for concern and rarely have any specific strategies in place for dealing with them. However, soft bounces can be a strong indicator that one or more ISPs have queried the reputation of your IP address, mailing volumes, or the level of spam complaints generated, with the consequence that they have chosen to temporarily block your emails from getting through to customers.

Following the first blog post in our email marketing series which was on increasing open rates, in this piece we look at some of the common misconceptions about soft bounces and what can be done to improve deliverability.

The purest definition of a soft bounce is “a delivery failure with a 4XX/Transient bounce code” – examples of which are:

1. 421 Grey listing = Retry now and send again.
2. 451 no reverse DNS = Retry now and send again later after you fix your DNS.

But what about those misconceptions?

It’s easy to make such excuses, but misguided notions such as this have marketers believing that the bounce had nothing to do with failings in their own marketing practices!

Established guidelines might suggest removing the recipient from your mailing list after three bounces, but inbox sizes (including webmail accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail) have dramatically increased in recent years and, realistically, full mailboxes are unlikely to be the culprit.

The same is true of work email addresses: few companies start bouncing communications without letting the user know well in advance that their inbox is due a clearout. It is also unlikely that bounces are caused by overloaded ISPs or corporate servers as most companies will never allow themselves to be in that position in the first place.

In Azam’s email marketing team’s experience, the most likely cause of soft bounces is ISP blocking. The way ISPs deal with spam has become aggressive and sophisticated – the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail are notoriously ruthless. They are quick to start blocking emails when they identify suspicious patterns of behaviour.

Common causes of ISP blocking are a lack of authentication; poor/unproven IP reputation; fluctuations in the volume of messages sent from your IP address and spam complaints attributed to certain addresses. Bear in mind that you may incur soft bounces because of the behaviour of companies sharing your IP address, making the way your ESP handles its shared IP addresses very important.

Emails blocked by ISPs are recorded as soft bounces, serving as an important indicator of how spam-orientated the ISPs think you are at that point in time. They may show a drop in reputation for the IP address you are using, uneven mailing patterns and/or an increase in the level of spam complaints your emails are generating.  All of these issues can be remedied by your Email Service Provider once identified.

Our email marketing series will continue with advice on minimising unsubscribes, optimising email creative for mobile handsets and more. Subscribe to Azam.info so you are informed when the next article in the series is published.

Are you extracting the most juice from your email subscriber base? Write to results [at] azam.net or call +44 (0) 870 870 2222 to discuss how our award-winning eCRM and email marketing specialists can significantly grow your databases and enable you to maximise revenue from broadcasts to your subscribers. As an example, we are generating well over £100,000.00 in sales per weekly newsletter we create and deploy for a client! Contact us today to discuss your requirements.

24 Apr

• 0 Comments

With many of us feeling the squeeze in the current tough economic climate, it’s always worth looking at ways to keep costs low.

If you are looking for a clever way to grow your business and save money then we recommend you look at Vistaprint’s brilliant range of free personalised items such as 250 free business cards.

How can Vistaprint give away free business stationery and products?

The free products such as business cards come with a tiny Vistaprint logo on the back of the items. It’s a little advertising for them to cover the cost of production. They also hope you enjoy the quality so much that you will become a repeat customer.

It’s worth taking a look and trying them out. If you are a savvy minded business person, save a few pounds and grab yourself free business stationary here.

You can get other freebies including a company website and email address.

For more free stuff, visit Azam Marketing’s freebies section where we have got webmaster tools, software and ebooks.

Earn Money referring clients to Azam Marketing!

If you are looking for another great way to help your business, earn money by recommending Azam Marketing’s acclaimed marketing and design services to your friends and associates. Find out more about our client referral scheme here.

10 Apr

• 0 Comments

This month marks my fourth year anniversary at Azam Marketing as Director of Affiliate Partnerships and later this year I will celebrate my ninth year of managing affiliate programs, a role I first took on when I started running several high profile affiliate programs for the Shop Direct Group back in 2003.

Having been an Affiliate Manager for nearly a decade, I value the experience I have gained – working both merchant and agency side has allowed me to manage a wide variety of affiliate programs across a range of sectors including retail, travel, finance, IT and B2B.

Being part of the Azam Marketing team has further enhanced my affiliate marketing knowledge as I can reach out from the Azam Agency division to the Azam Affiliate team to brainstorm ideas and discuss ways in which I can incentivise affiliates to give additonal exposure to my client’s programs and increase those all important sales.

There is also a wealth of information on other industry blogs and websites which help me keep my ideas fresh as well ensuring I don’t lose site of the fundamentals of what makes a good Affiliate Manager.

Over the last few months I have read a number of inspiring affiliate management articles. My top five are listed below for anyone interested in learning more about how to manage a successful affiliate program.

1. How do Smaller Merchants get Traction in a Crowded Market Place? - A useful guide for Affiliate Managers who are managing smaller affiliate programs and are looking to engage with affiliates to negotiate premium publisher promotions and optimise sales to compete successfully against bigger and better known brands.

2. Finding the Value of your Top 10 Affiliates - Matt Swan describes how analysing publisher sales data can pinpoint the value specific affiliates are adding to a program which will help advertisers understand how to create tailored affiliate campaigns to meet specific KPI’s.

3. Analysing the Incremental Value of Cashback - The true worth of cashback sites is a topic that we often see debated. Graham Jenner (Topcashback) outlines the results of a recent survey which investigates the incremental value of cashback to advertisers and their sales performance.

4. How to Optimise Creative and Landing Pages to Boost Sales Via Your Affiliate Program - My own presentation which I gave at Conversion Thursday last year focuses on why improving affiliate conversion rates can be significant in increasing affiliate engagement and sales.

5. 20 Effective Tools for Affiliate Management A concise list of ways in which you can recruit affiliates from US Affiliate Management Consultant Geno Prussakov.

So those are my recommended top five affiliate management reads; I hope you find them as interesting and motivating as I did. If you would like to leave a comment about the above you can do so below. You can also contact me at sinead [at] azam.net or follow me on Twitter.

You can also keep up to date with all affiliate/performance marketing news and information here on azam.info. Make sure you sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for future blog posts from our team.

08 Mar

• 2 Comments

Update: We are thrilled to announce we won Highly Commended ‘Best Finance Publisher’ at this year’s Performance Marketing Awards! Thanks for all your support.

The finalists have just been announced for this year’s Performance Marketing Awards and Azam is delighted to have bagged another two fantastic nominations: ‘Best Finance Publisher’ and ‘Best Use of Email’.

This is the fourth year in a row that Azam has been shortlisted in a variety of categories. In total we have now been nominated for an incredible ten awards since 2009 (including being Highly Commended and winning of course!)

Showing the breadth and depth of our agency, the categories we have been selected as a finalist for include Best Agency (twice), Best Lead Generation Campaign (twice), Best Paid Search Partnership, Best Advertiser, Best Affiliate Manager In House or at an Agency, Best Finance Publisher (twice) and Best Use of Email.

On announcing this year’s finalists, Matthew Wood, founder of A4u and the Performance Marketing Awards, has said: “Judges have been impressed with the level of multiple channel integration this year. The desire to increase revenue through their performance marketing activity by all demographics has been evident, and with well managed programmes, technology integration and successful innovation, this year’s shortlist proves that investment on a pay-on-performance model is reaping rewards.”

It has certainly been a busy year so far at Azam with a host of exciting new clients coming on board across all our divisions. Our email team has enjoyed phenomenal growth, running hugely successful campaigns for top advertisers including Body Shop, Honda, Barclays, Gala Bingo and Vodafone. We have also had lots of new wins in our Affiliate Management and Search Marketing divisions.

This year’s awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London on the 15th May promises to be another amazing event. We hope to see you there!

Here’s a full list of the 2012 nominations:

Best use of Email

• Aimia Inc for Nectar
• Azam Marketing
• Freemax Media for Aunt Bessie’s
• Freemax Media for Broadband Genie
• SaleCycle
• Vouchercodes.co.uk for The Body Shop

Best use of Data

• 7thingsmedia for Affiliate Manager Plus
• Affiliate Window for Sky
• Affiliate Window with Quidco and RAC
• Churchill Insurance (with Quidco and OMG)
• Digital Window – The Strategy Team
• myThings for Littlewoods

Best 3rd Party Application

• Aimia Inc for Nectar
• Commission Junction for Ad Genie
• InvisibleHand
• ROEYE for eBay
• Skimlinks
• Ve Interactive

Best New Entrant

• 7thingsmedia for Ideal World
• Affiliate Window for Zalando
• Linking Mobile
• Performance Horizon Group
• Promocodes

Best Agency

• 7thingsmedia
• Affiliate Window for the Affiliate Window Agency Team
• Arena Media
• Lbi Bigmouthmedia
• MEC
• Starcom MediaVest

Best use of Affiliate Marketing as part of a Multi Channel Campaign

• Affiliate Window for Sky
• Aimia Inc for Nectar
• Commission Junction for FlyBMI
• Fifty6 for Virgin Media
• TradeDoubler for Jessops
• Vouchercloud for White Stuff
• Vouchercodes.co.uk for New Look

Best Search Campaign

• Carat for Vodafone
• Found. for flybe
• MEC for Halifax
• Net Media Planet for Mac / Microsoft
• Starcom MediaVest for Europcar
• Vouchercodes.co.uk for Boots

Best Lead Generation Campaign

• 7thingsmedia for Secret Sales
• Arena Media for RED Instructor Training
• iProspect for Acuvue
• Mindshare for Mazda
• ValueClick Media for Canderel

Best use of Social Media

• Affiliate Window for The Hut Group
• NHS Blood and Transplant

Best use of Mobile

• Commission Junction for Argos
• Linking Mobile
• Quidco for Quidco Mobile
• TradeDoubler for Figleaves
• TradeDoubler for The Body Shop

Publisher Innovation

• Broadbandchoices.co.uk – Sky Winter Promotion
• InvisibleHand
• Savoo
• vouchercloud

Advertiser Innovation

• Affiliate Window for RAC
• MCHI for TalkTalk
• MEC for Everything Everywhere (was Orange)
• Webgains & The Gift Experience
• ZenithOptimedia for B&Q

Network Innovation

• Affiliate Window for Affiliate Window CTS
• Affiliate Window for Compliance
• Affiliate Window for Vertical Specialists
• OMG for OMG Rewards
• RevenueWire for CallStream

Best Consumer Targeting Campaign

• 7thingsmedia for Agent Provocateur
• Affiliate Window for TalkTalk
• Criteo for Total Jobs
• Mediaplex (ValueClick) for Doctors without Borders
• Merchenta for Virgin Balloons
• ZenithOptimedia for B&Q

Best Managed Affiliate Programme

• 7thingsmedia for Ted Baker
• Affiliate Window for Debenhams
• Affiliate Window for LOVEFiLM
• Affiliate Window for O2
• Affiliate Window for Sky
• Affilinet for Matalan
• LinkShare for The White Company
• MEC for Everything Everywhere
• TradeDoubler for The Body Shop
• TradeDoubler for Tesco

International Excellence Award

• 7thingsmedia for 7thingsmedia and friends
• LinkShare for NET-A-PORTER
• Neo@Ogilvy for Sony
• Skimlinks
• TradeDoubler for Aer Lingus
• Ve Interactive

Hotshot Rising Star Award

• Adam Bullock from Top Cashback
• Andrew Chung from Twentysix Digital
• Chris Bishop from 7thingsmedia
• Chris Worthy from ROEYE
• Graham Jenner from Top Cashback
• James Little from Top Cashback
• Matt Swan from Affiliate Window
• Pete Newman from Found.
• Rakhee Jogiax from LinkShare
• Stephanie Small from Neo@Ogilvy

VERTICAL AWARDS

Best Finance Advertiser

• Affiliate Window for RAC
• Arena Media for Legal & General
• LV=
• Neo@Ogilvy for AMEX

Best Finance Publisher

• Azam Marketing
• Found. for Post Office

Best Retail Advertiser

• Affiliate Window for Phase Eight
• Affilinet for Debenhams
• ASOS for ASOS Fashion Finder
• Commission Junction for Argos
• LinkShare for Oasis

Best Retail Publisher

• Aimia Inc for Nectar Fashion
• Found. for Maplin
• InvisibleHand
• Top Cashback
• vouchercloud for White Stuff
• Vouchercodes.co.uk

Best Travel Advertiser

• Affilinet for Virgin Atlantic
• Lbi Bigmouthmedia & Best Western
• ValueClick for Commission Junction & Thistle
• ValueClick for Commission Junction & TUI

Best Travel Publisher

• Found. for Handpicked hotels
• InvisibleHand

Best Technology & Telecoms Advertiser

• Affiliate Window for BSkyB
• Affiliate Window for Vodafone
• Affiliate Window & buy.at for Carphone Warehouse
• Affiliate Window & buy.at for O2
• MEC for T-Mobile
• TradeDoubler for BT

Best Technology & Telecoms Publisher

• Broadbandchoices.co.uk
• uSwitch

Best Casino & Gaming Advertiser

• Dublinbet
• ValueClick for Commission Junction & Paddy Power

Best Publisher Support

• Digital Window (Affiliate Window)
• LinkShare
• TradeDoubler

Best Advertiser Support

• Affilinet
• Digital Window (Affiliate Window)
• LinkShare
• TradeDoubler

About Azam Marketing

Headquartered in London, UK, Azam Marketing has been at the forefront of digital marketing and design since 1997 and specialises in affiliate, display, email, search and social media marketing, as well as carrying out website design and development. The agency also operates a successful consultancy and training arm.

About the Performance Marketing Awards

The Performance Marketing Awards were launched in 2007 as part of the a4uexpo Performance Marketing conference event. The following year, the awards got their own spotlight and became a separate annual black tie ceremony held at a prestigious London venue.

Now fully viewed as the ‘oscars’ for the Performance Marketing industry, the award ceremony recognises the innovation and excellence protruding from the sector and aids the development of this growing industry, year on year.

About A4u – organisers of Performance Marketing Events.

A4u has been providing Performance Marketing insight to over 70,000 members for over 10 years. Currently A4u is breaking industry news, creating in-depth articles and reports including our recent Performance Marketing Guide (which Azam Marketing has written the email marketing chapter for) and M-Commerce Report, plus our ever popular industry forum with 10+ years of content.

Affiliates4u is part of the A4u brand, within which we create industry events including the a4uexpo Performance Marketing Conference in London and Barcelona, plus the annual Performance Marketing Awards ceremony and the series of one-day PerformanceIN events focused on the vertical sectors within Performance Marketing.

Would you like to use Azam’s team of multi-award-winning digital marketing experts to generate more leads for your business? Get in touch with us by emailing results [at] azam.net or calling +44 (0) 870 870 2222 anytime.

01 Mar

• 2 Comments

Azam Marketing are delighted to announce the launch of the America Car Rental affiliate program on Tradedoubler (ID 214568). Login now to sign up to this exciting and lucrative program!

According to recent statistics, over 4 million UK residents visit the USA each year, making this campaign ideal for affiliates wanting to target many different consumer segments – from families booking a summer holiday to individuals arranging a quick weekend getaway or a business trip.

America Car Rental is one of the internet leaders in providing some of the lowest all-inclusive car hire prices from trusted suppliers such as Alamo, Dollar and Budget. Booking online is simple and there are no hidden costs.

Customers can take advantage of a wide range of benefits including a Price Match Guarantee, Unlimited Mileage, a choice of Multicurrency Payments (Euros, Pounds or Dollars) and a UK call centre.

High Commissions

As well as providing an extra-long 90-day cookie, America Car Rental’s multi-tiered commission structure offers one of the highest payouts in the Travel sector. Commissions are paid according to the total revenue generated per month (based on travelled bookings):

Up to £50K = 10.00% commission
Between £50K and £100K = 12.5% commission
Between £100K and £250K = 13.5% commission
Between £250K and £500K = 15.00% commission

Lucrative bonuses and performance incentives are also available to affiliates who can give preferential exposure – contact us for details.

Affiliate Tools

A wide selection of banners and links are available to download from Tradedoubler, as well as advanced tools such as an API for integration with your website. If you can’t find what you need, let us know!

PPC Terms

If you are planning to generate traffic for America Car Rental via PPC advertising please check the program terms carefully to ensure that your campaign is compliant. You may also utilize the comprehensive PPC keyword list which can be downloaded at: http://www.americacarrental.com/ppckeywords.csv

Sign Up Today!

Click here to join the affiliate program on Tradedoubler, or if you have any questions please email program manager Karen Clayton: karen [at] azam.net.

The America Car Rental program is also available on the ShareaSale affiliate network – to sign up please click here. Or, for other lucrative campaigns, please download our latest advertiser portfolio

24 Feb

• 0 Comments

Azam Marketing is excited to announce that the Carlton Leisure Affiliate Program is now LIVE on Affiliate Window (Program ID: 3989)!

Carlton Leisure has been one of the leading travel agents in the UK for over 15 years, offering cheap flights and hotel stays around the world.

They already run successful Press, TV and Radio advertising campaigns and are now extending their reach even further by launching a promising affiliate program.

Carlton Leisure focus on offering the best deals at very low prices, which leads to high conversion rates. Carlton Leisure will pay affiliates the following commissions on completed bookings – please note that commissions on flights are very generous compared to competitor programs as most other travel agents will only pay commission on specific airlines:

- £5.00 per complete flight

- 4% per total hotel sale

-2% per flight plus hotel sale

- £10.00 per complete flight booking* for the following airlines:

• Emirates
• Etihad Airways
• Qatar Airways
• South African Airways
• Singapore Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• Gulf
• Turkish
• TAM

*Booking refers to one complete sale which may contain one or more flights – for example one complete booking may include 4 flights, commission payable for this booking will be £5.00 only. Likewise, a booking that includes only one flight will also be rewarded with £5.00 commission.

Live XML feed available – contact cl [at] azam.net for further details.

Vouchercode

Voucher code: “FLT5”

Discount: £5 discount only on those airlines within OTHER_FLIGHTS commission group. These are:

• Emirates
• Etihad Airways
• Qatar Airways
• South African Airways
• Singapore Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• Gulf
• Turkish
• TAM

At present any bookings made with the above airlines receive a higher rate of £10.00 CPA per booking. However, please note that where the above voucher code is used, Carlton Leisure will only be able to offer £5 CPA instead of £10.00.

PPC Affiliates

Please note that Carlton Leisure WILL allow PPC affiliates to bid on brand terms – please refer to the full terms and conditions on Affiliate Window.

Exciting Program Launch Incentive!

To celebrate the launch of their affiliate program, Carlton Leisure are offering any affiliate that generates two or more sales for its program one entry into their prize draw to win flights to the following destinations:

*1st Prize

Bangkok, Sri Lanka or Kerala

*2nd Prize

Dubai

*3rd Prize

Rome or Milan

All you need to do is generate two or more sales to be entered into this exciting prize draw, so pick up links today to get started!

You will find our banners and links by logging into affiliatewindow.com, viewing your merchants and clicking “Linking Methods”

(Terms and conditions: Competition runs until 30th April 2012. Prize winners may take flights between 1 May and 31 November 2012 excluding 1 July – 31 August 2012. One person per prize. Tickets are non-transferable and non-extendable. Taxes are not included)

If you have any questions about the Carlton Leisure program or Carlton Leisure’s launch incentive, please email the Azam Team at cl [at] azam.net and we will be happy to help in any way we can.

For details of other lucrative affiliate campaigns managed by Azam, take a look at our advertiser portfolio or telephone our offices on +44 (0)20 7436 4496. We offer unrivalled affiliate support 20 hours a day, 365 days a year!

08 Feb

• 1 Comment

In the first of a serious of articles on improving results from email marketing, Azam Marketing’s Director of eCRM Operations Ryan Ranaweera, who has been in the email marketing industry for a decade, offers advice on improving open rates.

One of the core measures to identify the success of an email marketing campaign is the open rate.

If your email is unopened then results will not be achieved and targets will remain unfulfilled, whether they are to create brand awareness, stimulate a conversation or simply sell a product.

The open rate is generally calculated by taking the total number of emails opened divided by the number of emails sent. The industry standard open rate is less than 20%, however B2B open rates tend to be close to 30% or higher.

There are many dynamics which may influence your open rate.

List Source
Rental lists tend to have lower open rates than house lists, however, inactive/old house lists may well yield a lower open rate.

Email format
Email Service Providers can only track open rates on html based email content. If an email is sent as plain text based or only a text version is requested, these will not be counted within your open rate calculation, regardless of whether the email was opened or not.

Email client
When an email is viewed in a preview pane such as Outlook Express 2007 this is actually counted as an open. The user does not actually need to click to enlarge the email. B2B email campaigns tend to have higher open rates as recipients are likely to use Outlook and similar email clients. Web-based email readers such as Google Mail and Hotmail required users to effectively click on the email from a list of messages within the inbox before the email can be opened.

Sender Alias
This is the recognition factor, motivating the user to open the email based on their familiarity of the sender. The ‘from’ field is of crucial importance as users are more likely to open an email if they recognise the sender. A useful tip is to customise your from field such as using an established brand name. Be careful when using female names in the from field, especially first names, as these can trigger spam filters, people often delete emails from unknown women quicker than any other email.

Subject Line
You should put a lot of thought into deciding your final subject line. It is usually the first thing a recipient reads when the email is delivered into the inbox, so its content is crucial. Spend time doing thorough subject line testing to determine which yields the greatest response. Avoid using ‘promotional’ words or phrases, such as “Special offer” or “Free”. These are likely to trigger spam filters. Ensure your subject line is not too long, thirty characters at most. Short and precise content is both easier to read and straight to the point.

Timing
The time an email campaign is broadcast live is an important consideration. If a campaign is deployed late at night it is likely that most recipients will not read the message until the following morning. The problem arises here where the user’s inbox will most probably be flooded with multiple emails sent over night, mainly spam, so there is much competition for hierarchy within the individual’s inbox. There is no ideal time set in stone to deliver an email; it depends on the customer base, the content and the offer. Some like to read emails on the weekend, others may prefer the early evening. Experimentation is the key here.

All the aforementioned components together make a successful email campaign and can lead to significant increases in open rates.

Monitoring the open rate is necessary to ensure your activity is on track. Remember the open rate is an effective measure to the success of any email marketing campaign. The more time spent analysing, testing and configuring your email campaign down to the very minor details, the more significant chance you have of enhancing your open rate.

Our email marketing series will continue with advice on minimising unsubscribes, dealing with soft bounces, optimising email creative for mobile handsets and more. Subscribe to Azam.info so you are informed when the next article in the series is published.

Looking to generate more revenues from your email marketing activities? Don’t hesitate to contact our friendly team on +44 (0) 870 870 2222 or results [at] azam.net to find out about our database management, eCRM and email marketing services.

03 Feb

• 1 Comment

It’s like the Three Musketeers; All for one and one for all! Hmm… Did I get that right?!

It’s probably more like one for one = Google for themselves and the rest will try and tag along.

The battle of the triplets have been going on more for many a moon, however Google has always managed to stay ahead of the competition year in year out.

It’s no competition for them really; after all, Google possesses about 90% of the current search market share in the UK.

I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were Google though.

Of late, we’ve been reading numerous articles and press releases about Bing pushing new features out to the market, integrating search results with Facebook data and even rolling out a mobile browser that further integrates the search results with Facebook users’ preferences.

How about Facebook itself and Twitter then? Even LinkedIn has started to invade the space!

They are the (fairly) new kids on the advertising revenue block, and definitely the ones to watch out for.

These guys seem to come up with various CPC and CPM models like nobody’s business and Twitter has even launched ‘sponsored tweets’ and ‘promoted trends’ to try and attract new advertisers on board.

The world of simple (well, let’s be honest, it’s always been rather complex!) PPC marketing is fading away and we are faced with multi-channel, multi-social and multi-integrated marketing channels to choose from.

User behaviour is also changing: it’s all about being social and transparent, what we like, what we dislike and we are sure to share this information with all our connections.

Thumbs up and Thumbs down method seem to be the way forward, and it’s a highly powerful tool to drive sales or kill sales.

Not to be forgotten, this doesn’t only apply to the consumers, it’s imperative that brands are interacting with their consumer base actively and engaging them in conversations, good or bad.

So what next? We are still none the wiser who’ll be the long term King of the Castle.

The race for the crown is still on.

Will it be a search engine, social platform, or a mix of all? Perhaps we will witness one of the search or social media giants combining all the above elements in the future.

Watch this space – I’m surely keeping my eyes peeled!

Want to rank at the top of the search engines? Use Azam’s 15 years of search marketing expertise to benefit your business. Go here now to find out more.

Click here to find out more about the amazing The Google Sniper 2.0

22 Jan

• 0 Comments

Do you know of any individuals or businesses that might benefit from marketing or design services? If so, we would encourage you to take advantage of Azam’s generous client referral scheme!

Our Referral Partner Program pays you for bringing new advertisers to our award-winning agency and allows you to expand the services you offer to clients.

We have referrers/affiliates who are earning hundreds of pounds/dollars every month for referring clients to us three and four years ago! You can generate a lucrative recurring revenue stream for yourself with minimal effort.

Why does Azam Marketing have a client referral program?

It’s an acknowledged fact that businesses grow much faster through referrals and word of mouth recommendations than through advertising alone. We know the online industry flourishes through close-knit networks and many of the most successful partnerships are initiated via one-to-one introductions.

What kind of new clients are you looking for?

Our agency is looking to recruit new clients across all of our divisions, which include affiliate, email, search and social media marketing, public relations, and web design and development. We also offer web hosting, domain name management, and consultancy services.

How will the scheme work?

A referral lead is made by delivering the lead to Azam by any means – email, telephone or in person.

All potential clients will then be contacted by Azam to qualify the lead and fully understand what services the client requires. Our experienced sales team will then submit a comprehensive proposal to the client in order to secure the business.

We promise to handle all client referrals in a professional and efficient manner and will communicate with referrers at all times to ensure that you are kept informed. We encourage referrers to contribute as much as possible to warm up and convert leads.

What can I expect to earn?

To qualify for compensation, a referral lead must close within six months of the initial referral, and Azam must not already be engaged with or have knowledge of the opportunity.

Remuneration will be paid on the amount of work required by Azam Marketing up to the point of the client returning a signed contract. Thereafter, commissions of up to 15% of gross earnings will be paid to the referrer on the service(s) recommended to the client.

Commissions will not only be paid every month for the first year, but on a lifetime basis subject to certain terms. Referrers who remain proactively involved in the ongoing management of client partnerships will receive bigger payments.

Five reasons for partnering with Azam Marketing

• Our dedicated sales professionals will use our 15 years of experience to close your leads
• Our highly-motivated staff are experienced figures in digital marketing and design, having held senior positions at agencies such as Mediavest, Profero, Walker Media and Acxiom. We will do everything we can to retain the advertisers you refer: clients repeatedly tell us they enjoy working with us because we are passionate and will go out of our way to exceed their expectations
• We provide longer service hours than any other agency – this means you or your referrals won’t have issues getting hold of us
• We have contacts and friends at many digital marketing and technology company and use these relationships to save your referrals large sums of money
• We have a strong presence in the UK marketplace and have also carried out services for advertisers in mainland Europe for several years. We also manage several clients’ campaigns in north America since the 1990s

… plus many more reasons! You may find out more about Azam Marketing and our award-winning services on our corporate website.

What to do next

If you wish to refer a client to us, please read our information pack by clicking here. Then send detailed information about them to results [at] azam.net. You may also call +44 (0) 870 870 2222 to speak to one of our sales represenatives between 08:00 and 22:30, 365 days a year.

15 Jan

• 0 Comments

It is so darn hard to keep up with social media. Yes, I say that a lot, but I say it a lot because trying to keep up with new platforms, apps, tools, guides, and everything else related to social media is like trying to keep up with a Porsche when you are on a bicycle.

To help clear through the clutter, Social Media Examiner published a list of 22 social media tools that they culled from their contributing writers. I went through the list and whittled it down to the ones I found to be the most helpful and useful. So here goes, in alphabetical order:

Argyle Social: Combines social publishing, engagement, and analytics in one dashboard. You can even separate out Facebook and Twitter shares to customize content for each channel.

Cinchcast.com: Record blog posts, articles, presentations, or, well, anything else you want to share as an audio recording. You can use the web or phone to make the recording, add text and photos, and share it on Facebook and Twitter.

FormuLists: Better manage and engage with your Twitter followers. You can filter and network with people based on location/bio keywords, Twitter activity, number of followers and a whole lot more.

HubSpot: A one-stop shop for social media stuff: Connect with the tools that help you optimize your social media programs, peruse a directory of Twitter apps, and rate and shares social media monitoring software and other sites.

Posterous: Post blog posts, videos, photos, and audio to 20 social media channels by sending one email.

PostRank: Track where and how users engage and what they pay attention to — in real-time. Their data measures actual user activity, the most accurate indicator of the relevance and influence of a website, blog post, or author.

Screenr: Easily create instructional or educational videos that combine screen captures with audio. Videos will play everywhere on the web (and on iPhones).

Storify: Aggregrate and curate photos, videos, tweet, and other content from the web for events, product launches, etc.

Sysomos: Monitor your social media conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and forums in one place.

Trunk.ly: Use this social media bookmark solution to keep track of the links you like or Tweet.

By Monika Jansen. Article © 2011 Network Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. First published in the Network Solutions’ Small Business Blog and reproduced with permission.

04 Jan

• 0 Comments