Author: Joe Whyte

Elite Retreat is geared more towards the industry professional looking to learn the secret skill set from the professional super affiliate, SEO, SMO and venture capitalist. The speakers at elite retreat are highly qualified industry professionals who will be able to answer in depth questions which are posed by the attendee’s on a more in depth level then normal conventions. Elite retreat is going to have a one on one feel giving specialized attention to the individual’s who attend making this the first ever one on one convention in its field. This is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and small to large business owners attempting to gain momentum in the search field.

I will be doing a series of interviews with the leading speakers at Elite Retreat attempting to get some information on what they will be speaking about and how it can be beneficial for the attendees in a real world situation.

First up is a leading powerhouse in the search field and his name is Kris Jones of Pepperjamsearch.com.

Joe:What do you plan on speaking about specifically?

Kris: I will share my insights on how to make money online using a combination of search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing, and various alternative online media channels. Since my experiences cross both the affiliate (publisher) and advertiser (merchant) perspective, I’m likely to be responsive to the needs of the attendees and address their specific concerns. This is not a conference where we speak to the attendees – instead, we speak with them to address and optimize their businesses.

Joe: What can attendees expect from this conference?

Kris: Attendees can expect to come to the Elite Retreat with problems or ideas and have those problems or ideas addressed by very experienced, proven internet marketers. In addition, each attendee will have valuable one-on-one interaction with each speaker, including myself.

Joe: Why do you hire such attractive women? Is that your form of chickbait?

Kris: It just so happens that our approach has always been to hire the best and brightest employees we can find. In general, women are smarter than men. Being one of the fastest growing privately-held companies in the United States attracts smart people. Oh, ya, and there is a strong correlation between smart people, being female, and being attractive.

Joe: What is more important to you as a marketer, SEO or SMO?

Kris: I’m a strong believer in both SEO and SMO, but I have to admit that I’m fascinated by SMO. I’m a student (and in some cases a teacher) of different forms of buzz and viral marketing – not necessarily from the standpoint of just putting out (social media) content, but doing so in a way that entertains, while capturing imagination and gets people talking. Both SEO and SMO can help businesses capture market share, but only SMO can truly get people talking about your product or service in a way that makes them want to tell their best friend who tells their co-worker to take action. By the way, my company offers businesses management and consultation in both SEO and SMO.

Joe: Can you tell us about one of your most notable client’s and what you where able to do for them?

Kris: We have been the outsourced online marketing division of igourmet.com since 2000 – we perform all online marketing duties for igourmet, including SEM & SEO, affiliate marketing management (Linkshare), online media planning & management, partnership acquisition (i.e., Target.com, Overstock.com, Epicurious.com), etc. With our help igourmet has received numerous national awards, including designation by Consumer Reports (2006) as the #1 place to shop for gourmet food online, Internet Retailer as a Top 500 online retailer (2005 – 2006), and Forbes Magazine (2003 – 2006) as the #1 place to shop for gourmet food online. We’ve increased igourmet’s sales in each of the areas mentioned above by an average of 150% per year, every year.

Joe: Can you give some advice to our visitors and customers on how to effectively market their site.

Kris: (1) Start with paid (PPC) search-engine marketing. Hire a PPC expert (internal or outsource) outside of executive management who understands PPC and is committed to staying on top of the daily changes and opportunities that are emerging across all of the various seach-engines. Your PPC manager should not be responsible for multiple channels of online marketing – they should be dedicated to PPC. If done correctly, PPC should account for 20% or more of your online sales.

(2) Second, hire an SEO expert (internal or outsource) outside of executive management who understands SEO (especially on Google) and is committed to staying on top of the periodic changes and opportunities that are emerging across all of the various seach-engines. The goal here is to create some short, medium, and long-term goals for how you can represent your website as an authority to Google and the other engines – therefore, have patience, it will take time, but the committment will pay dividends many times over once your reputation is established and your website takes into consideration the basic and advanced tenants of SEO ( i.e., links and what those links say, tags, content, navigation, etc.).

(3) Third, evaluate the power of affiliate marketing. Does affiliate marketing provide an additional market share acquisition channel for your business? Regardless of your business model, chances are affiliate marketing can add an additional 15% or more to your bottom line. Hire an affiliate marketing expert (internal or outsource) with leverage into the affiliate marketing community. Since approximately 95% of your sales are likely to come from less than 5% of the affiliate community (the Super Affiliates) you’re going to need an affiliate manager with access to those 5% (leverage) – I call it leverage because affiliate marketing is really about building partnerships – your affiliate manager must be able to spend most of their time building relationships with the 5% of affiliates who drive the industry.

(4) Finally, evaluate alternative forms of online marketing, including social media, display advertising, contextual advertising, behavioral targeting / re-targeting, strategic partnership acquisition, buzz marketing, etc. Hire an online media expert (internal or outsource) with experience and insight into the aforementioned channels.

By the way, your online marketing efforts should not be structured for autopilot. Moreover, your executive team should not be responsible for online marketing efforts – if this is the case, you need to hire an expert and allow the executive to get back to what they should be doing. If you are not involved in all of the above channels you are missing out on market share that your competitors are likely enjoying.

Joe: How did you propel PepperJam to the forefront of the internet marketing field?

Thanks Kris and I wish you all the best at elite retreat and I know anyone attending your session is going to take away a life long value that cannot have a price put on it.