KRIS: How did you become an affiliate marketer?

RON: I started affiliate marketing because I wanted to supplement my retirement income, engage my mind in something new and master a different area.

I had developed an international reputation for my contribution to the global development of “action learning”. The fundamental principles of action learning involve collaborative learning and a plan-act-review approach. I thought I could apply these principles to affiliate marketing.

Like most people I bought heaps of e-books and tried many programs, including MLMs and wandered all over the place acquiring new knowledge and learning from each experience…but I was totally unfocused.

It was through Anik Singal’s Affiliate Classroom that I learned how affiliate marketing really worked. Through the Affiliate Classroom I learned the importance of developing an internet profile and focus, how to create and grow a mailing list, how to write viral reports and write and submit articles. I also learned to blog and created my Affiliate Marketing Coach Blog in 2005. Because of this blogging experience I ended up being paid monthly to create and update a team blog on online learning for a network of 200 teachers throughout the State of Queensland. So I have Anik to thank for helping me to find my way in affiliate marketing and blogging.

Question #3

KRIS: You are a Squidoo evangelist. In fact, I understand you will be marketing yourself as “SquidooRoo” in your soon-to-be-released Squidoo training program. I assume that SquidooRoo refers to the fact that you are both an Aussie and a Squidoo expert. You have been recognized as a “Giant Squid” by Squidoo itself (“one of the best of the best on Squidoo”). First share with us exactly what Squidoo is?

RON: Squidoo is a free, social networking platform that enables you to create web pages (lenses) on any topic of your choice. Each Squidoo lens (webpage) has a discrete URL such as:

http://www.squidoo.com/sellyourdigitalphotos

A Squidoo lens is designed to be a highly focused window to other directly related resources – blog posts, websites, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, web-based articles, e-books, etc. Hence a lens is not an end in itself but a means to an end, i.e. to information about a topic, issue, problem, product or service of interest to the reader. There is no limit to the number of free Squidoo lenses you can create. I have in excess of 50 lenses which are catalogued in my lensography:

http://www.squidoo.com/lensographyronpassfield

Each lens has AdSense ads and other ads that generate revenue for Squidoo, charities supported by Squidoo and the lensmaster (lens creator). The lensmaster can choose to give all or some of their share of this direct revenue to charity.

Squidoo lenses can be used for endless applications, e.g. promote a cause, support a charity, educate, showcase an artist or photographer or generate affiliate income.

Each Squidoo lens is made up of modules and widgets (like WordPress blogs) that can be accessed by a unique point-and-click technology. The design of each lens is limited only by your imagination.

In a very real sense a Squidoo lens can integrate many elements of Web 2.0 technology – blogging, Flickr, FaceBook, YouTube, RSS feeds and Twitter. Fundamental to Squidoo is the connections it creates – between people, between lenses, between resources and between social networks.

Question #4

KRIS: How can affiliate marketers use Squidoo to promote affiliate offers? Can you share a few examples?

RON: Affiliates can create niche-focused, multi-media webpages as Squidoo lenses. These in turn can point, via hyperlinks, to their website, blog, articles, FaceBook page, etc. They can incorporate RSS feeds into Squidoo lenses as well.

Squidoo lenses can accommodate banners and text links that incorporate affiliate IDs. Affiliates can just cut and paste the code for the relevant affiliate product from ClickBank, Pepperjam Network or any other affiliate network.

Here’s an example of a Squidoo lens that enabled me to promote an article directory as an affiliate. Anik Singal recently launched an affiliate-friendly, article directory, AffSphere, that pays its authors and referrers. I joined and immediately created two Squidoo lenses, one of which is a review of my own experience with AffSphere. I quickly became the top recruiter for AffSphere and one of their top authors (as acknowledged by Anik in an email to all members). I was able to develop my lenses before the public launch of AffSphere on 12 August this year. The net result is that I not only get affiliate income as a referrer but also income from the sales of Anik’s new e-book and a back-end product. I will gain affiliate commissions from any future product/service he sells under the AffSphere banner. The affiliate commissions are starting to roll in as I write.

In the following lens I promote a ClickBank product called “Camera Dollars System” which is an e-Book showing you how to sell your digital photos online:

http://www.squidoo.com/sellyourdigitalphotos

On my main authority lens, I have a range of reviews of related ClickBank products and offer some free resources that have associated back-end sales such as the Content Desk’s “Authority Black Book”:

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

This lens, like most of my lenses, has a lead-capture module that sends people to my squeeze page where I offer a free, squidoo marketing e-course. The lens also promotes my e-Book on Squidoo Marketing Strategies:

http://www.squidoomarketingstrategies.com

I find that product/service, review-orientated modules and lenses are the most effective. Also the stats from my lens promoting the Pepperjam Network show that text links account for about 75% of my referrals while the banner ads account for 25%.

Question #5

KRIS: Name the top 5 benefits of using Squidoo over say launching a blog for free on WordPress and building content there…

RON: What I have discovered is that it is not a case of “either-or” – either Squidoo or blogging. It is very much of case of “Squidoo-and…”

The essence of my marketing strategy is to use Squidoo as the hub and other approaches (blogging, FaceBook, Twitter, article marketing, etc) as the spokes. I really believe in creating a marketing ring that (like a circle) generates its own unique energy and synergy.

Squidoo, through the uncanny genius of Seth Godin, is uniquely placed to deliver the marketing hub. Just by way of example, whenever I write an article and submit it to Ezinearticles.com, the RSS feed updates a number of my Squidoo lenses. When I do a Twitter post it appears simultaneously on some of my Squidoo lenses, my Facebook page and my blog. When I post to my blog, the RSS feed updates two of my lenses and my FaceBook page. I can also embed my YouTube videos and Flickr photos into my relevant Squidoo lenses.

I firmly believe that in this era of social marketing, your affiliate marketing strategy must build on, and contribute to, the connectivity and interactivity that are the hallmarks of Web 2.0 technology.

The five main benefits of Squidoo that have attracted me to this social networking site and made me such a passionate advocate are:

1. the capacity to very quickly create a focused, multi-media, niche lens (website) to earn an income from any affiliate product or service

Examples are the lens I created to promote Mari Smith’s “FaceBook for Professionals” and a lens I developed to promote the Pepperjam Network – both have brought me income.

2. the speed with which Squidoo lenses are indexed and attain top 10 positions in Google results.

I have lenses that have taken over a top ten position in a niche market within two days of publishing.

3. the fact that Google automatically deep indexes Squidoo lenses.

I have noticed through the stats for my Squidoo lenses that Google not only accesses the 40 tags (keywords) permitted per lens but indexes deep into the contents of a lens. I have written about this deep indexing and provided 10 tips on how to encourage this indexing activity by Google.

4. the ability to rapidly build an internet profile and progressively build your subscriber base.

You can quickly build an authority site and use various lenses as different lead capture pages to build your mailing list. You can add a lead capture module (with suitable inducement) to each of your Squidoo lenses. The different lenses provide multiple windows into who you are and what you have to offer.

5. the ability to contribute to charity, the community or local businesses.

Squidoo enables you to contribute to Squidoo charities as a by-product of lens creation. You can also promote a charity of your choice, a location and community such as Stradbroke Island, a local artist such as Denis Brockie or a local business such as The Cupcake Company Brisbane.

What also appeals to me personally is the opportunity to be creative and extend my “learning edge” or “push the envelope”. The numerous Squidoo lens templates, modules and widgets provide endless opportunities to be creative and to develop different lenses for different purposes. For example, you can create a photographic exhibition, a simulated tropical rainforest walk or an e-portfolio.

Question #6

KRIS: Can you share with us (or provide a video) of what a “day-in-the-life” of Ron Passfield is like?

RON: As I live near the Brisbane River, I try to go for a walk each morning as illustrated in this YouTube video I created from my photos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1deA6Pm5KQ

I developed this video with the wonderful program, Animoto, which is the cheapest and easiest way to develop video marketing as part of an overall affiliate marketing strategy.

A “day-in-my-working-life” can take one of two forms.

(1) My main income is earned as a management consultant so I conduct management development programs with a colleague two or three days a week all over the State of Queensland (from the Gold Coast to Cairns). We have also been to Marburg which is south west of Brisbane but next year we go further west to Roma and Longreach (which I am really looking forward to). This management training activity provides a substantial income and I am booked out until June next year. The workshops are very enjoyable and bring together my expertise and experience in action learning, management, manager development and management education.

(2) When I am not running workshops or travelling, I am on my computer and on the Internet engaged in some form of internet marketing, predominantly affiliate marketing. I create Squidoo lenses, post to my Affiliate Marketing Coach blog, prepare my fortnightly newsletter on Squidoo marketing strategies, write and submit articles, answer the daily enquiries I receive, produce videos, integrate Pepperjam Network advertisers into my marketing and engage in social networking and product development.

Outside of these working days, I am engaged on many enjoyable activities – shopping with one of my grown daughters, walking in a tropical rainforest with my eldest son, spending a weekend on Stradbroke Island with my wife or helping one of my younger sons achieve some important goal (buy a car, start a job or get to a party/concert/formal on time!). I can also indulge in visits to the local coffee shops to read and write and sketch out a lens design (as I work from home and have done so since 1999),

In my spare time, I’m a freelance academic examining Doctoral theses and Master’s research reports for five Australian universities and acting as Professor of Management and academic advisor to the Gibaran Learning Group in Adelaide..

Question #7

KRIS: If given the opportunity, would you prefer to be a movie celebrity or a professional athlete? Tell us who you’d be and why…

RON: I wouldn’t want to change places at the moment. If I had to choose I would be a professional athlete. I was the sprint champion at my school at one stage. However, my real passion is tennis.

I played competitive tennis at “A” Grade and Pennant Level for about 20 years. I even played one fixture final on Centre Court at Milton Tennis Centre (location for many Davis Cup battles). I have written a number of articles and created a Squidoo lens about the Inner Game of Tennis (which also promotes affiliate products). My idol as I grew up was Ken Rosewall.

Question #8

KRIS: Seth Godin in his new e-book, “The Joy of Squidoo”, refers to your “compelling” autobiography on Squidoo. What was he alluding to here?

RON: Well “The Joy of Squidoo” written by Seth Godin and Megan Casey is designed as a free recipe book to open people’s eyes to the unlimited applications for Squidoo lenses. They discuss each application in turn and provide examples. They have used one of my lenses as an example of how to create an autobiography on Squidoo.

As they point out, I have used the SquidWho lens template and added photos, commentary and insights to share my life experiences and my preoccupations, propensities and passions. Seth commented on the lens itself that he enjoyed the humour and noted that when visiting the lens for 5 minutes, “you feel like you know Ron”.

So Squidoo enables you to show who you are and to build your profile and your credibility (which in turn builds your effectiveness and your affiliate income). This is very much in line with Seth Godin’s philosophy of “Permission Marketing” and emergent relationship marketing through Web 2.0 technologies.

Question #9

KRIS: Name your top five musical artists?

RON: The singers I love and listen to daily on my iPod, computer or stereo are Eva Cassidy, Damien Leith (winner of Australian Idol), Sarah Brightman, Placido Domingo and Australian singer/songwriter, Chris James.

I love singing and have participated in a number of singing workshops including a two week, intensive residential workshop conducted by Chris James. The focus was on the healing power of sound, music and meditation.

Question #10

KRIS: Share the best advice you ever received about how to become a successful internet marketer?

RON: Don’t slavishly follow the leader – dare to be different, be true to yourself, follow your passions and create your own unique Internet identity and remarkable products. This is the basic message behind Seth Godin’s book, “Purple Cow” and Squidoo enables you to pursue this advice.

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Next on deck for Meet the Affiliates: Marcus Tandler, CEO, Mediadonis.net

Marcus is one of the most successful affiliates in the world.  The title “internet marketing rockstar” fits Marcus as well as just about anyone I know.  Marcus is celebrated for his outstanding contibutions to affiliate marketing (CJU Europe Award, 2007) and is one of the most well known bloggers outside of the United States.  Learn some tips from Marcus and find out how he became a professional poker player.

This exclusive interview will be published here on the Pepperjam Network Blog next Friday, August 22, 2008.

Make sure you don’t miss it!  Click Here to subscribe to the PJN Blog and have each interview delivered to your e-mail box.

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Read Previous “Meet the Affiliates” Interviews: