I just finished Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Robert Cialdini, Noah Goldstein, and Steve Martin.

The reason I picked up the book is that Cialdini is my favorite author, and I’d say his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is the best business boook out there – one that every marketer should have in their library.

As you can tell from the title, the book is broken into 50 mini-chapters of practical tips and tricks on being more persuasive in your business.

That makes it really easy to digest the quick lessons when you have a spare moment.

And what other book mixes references to Britney Spears, the Smurfs and Sex and the City with academic concepts like loss aversion and the scarcity principle?

Robert Cialdini will be delivering a keynote address at Affiliate Summit West 2010, taking place January 17-19, 2010 in Las Vegas.

Video: Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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The ninth issue of FeedFront, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit, is at the printer and it will be hitting mailboxes in early January 2010.

Issue nine of FeedFront will also be distributed at Affiliate Summit West 2010.

This issue of FeedFront Magazine includes The Importance of Branding in Affiliate Marketing by Rae Hoffman, How to Recycle Your Affiliate Blog Content by Justin Premick, and FTC Endorsement Guidelines by Gary Kibel.

Also, people to follow on Twitter, affiliate marketing statistics, and the program for Affiliate Summit West 2010.

Issue 9 of FeedFront can now be viewed online, downloaded, and printed from Scribd.

Get the FeedFront RSS if you’d like to get all of the articles as they are published to the feed.

If you haven’t subscribed, you can get the magazine for free at http://feedfront.com/free-subscription/.

Also, become a fan of FeedFront on Facebook to see past issues, covers, etc.

FeedFront Magazine, Issue 9

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Missy Ward is compiling a list of the parties and special events taking place at Affiliate Summit West 2010 next month in Las Vegas.

The most busy night for parties at Affiliate Summit is typically the Monday. This time around, we’ll be counter-programming the Monday parties with an alternative.. the Affiliate Summit Trivia Tweetup.

Check out the list at http://missyward.com/2009/12/18/parties-and-special-events-during-affiliate-summit-west-2010-asw10/ and keep checking back for updates.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Affiliate marketing is dead… to people who can’t figure it out, consultants desperate for business, journalists with an elementary understanding of the space, and bloggers trying to create linkbait.

But the claim floats around each year anyhow.

Some guy named Aristotle theorized about the death of affiliate marketing long ago. Ok, it was actually a writer named Rick Aristotle Munarriz at Motley Fool four years ago. Same difference.

A few years back, John Lemp, CEO/Founder of IntegraClick, purchased the domain AffiliateMarketingIsDead.com, yet as the industry thrives, the domain remains a placeholder.

I’m guilty of stoking the flames, too, as I wrote an article last year called “Affiliate Marketing Is Dead” for eMarketing & Commerce magazine. But I was employing the complicated literary device known as the head fake.

Anyhow, I have a pretty vivid indicator of the health and growth of affiliate marketing, and that’s the attendee numbers year to year at Affiliate Summit West.

Back in 2005, when we first held an Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, we has a modest 550 attendees. That number has grown each year, and we are expecting 4,000 people at Affiliate Summit West 2010, based on past registration patterns.

That will be the biggest of all 14 Affiliate Summits to date.

Oh well, at least the Chicken Little thing isn’t unique to affiliate marketing. Earlier this week, Robert Scoble wrote about how the sky is falling for SEO.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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I’ve put together a presentation with advice for folks attending Affiliate Summit for the first time.

Have a quick look for guidance on when to arrive, the dress code, what to bring, following Affiliate Summit West 2010 on Twitter, and more.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, sign up for the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program where Affiliate Summit veterans team up with first timers to help them get the most out of the conference.

Visit http://www.affiliatesummit.com for more details on the conference.

Video: First Timers Guide for Affiliate Summit West 2010

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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ShareASale has announced the winners of their second annual ShareASale Performance Awards.

The winners of 2009…

• Exceptional Affiliate: Stylefeeder
• Exceptional Merchant: Vann’s
• Exceptional Affiliate Manager: Jared Saunders of JensonUSA
• PowerRank Champion: Checks Unlimited
• Emerging Technology: Spadout
• Pay It Forward Award: Karen Garcia, Scott Jangro, and Michael Coley

More details on the awards at http://blog.shareasale.com/2009/12/15/shareasale-performance-awards-2009/.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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AWeber teased their new Web Form Generator a couple weeks ago, but it was only available to certain accounts.

This feature enables users to create highly customizable signup forms directly in their accounts, instead of just taking the basic form HTML and editing it in another program, and I just noticed that it’s now available to me.

I am going to be playing with the new feature, but I guess you’re not necessarily going to notice. It’s more of a backend treat.

Some of the things I am anxious to test drive are the new templates (over 100), a new interface to make changes to forms (I used to throw the code in Notepad and manually edit it), and lots of design options (change gradient, images, sizing, background, header, footer, etc.).

Not that sexy if you’re not using email forms on your sites, but cool stuff for those of us using AWeber to create forms. If you’re in the latter group, go to create a form in your account to see if you have access to the new tools.

Video: Walkthrough of AWeber’s New Web Form Generator

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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I started noticing DailyBooth links on Twitter a month or so ago, and didn’t really get it at first. I would click through and just see pictures of people doing stuff.

I figured it was just another place to post pictures. So what?

But then I realized the photos on DailyBooth was the start of conversations, and they had an element I like in a conversation – seeing the person that’s communicating with me.

Sort of like Twitter, but with pictures and without all of the junk.

Come on over, start posting your pictures, and join the conversation. If nothing else, reserve your username.

Check me out on DailyBooth at http://dailybooth.com/affiliatetip.

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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CT Moore interviewed me at Pubcon in Las Vegas last week about trends in affiliate marketing for the NVI blog.

We chatted about the intersection of social media and affiliate marketing, pay per call, the impact of the economy on the industry, and whether Google will kill affiliate marketing.

Video: Pubcon 2009: Shawn Collins on Affiliate Marketing

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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There is a new way to get free Gold passes to Affiliate Summit West 2010, taking place January 17-19, 2010 in Las Vegas.

I’ve been posting codes daily for the last month or so, but it’s come to my attention that some people have supposedly figured out a way to cheat the system.

I haven’t been able to verify that it’s happening, or whether it’s just an empty claim from some digital gangster in his mom’s basement. Either way, I’m changing up the way these codes are made available.

Moving forward, the codes will be announced on the voicemail of a new phone number – the voicemail will be updated at random times and then a Tweet will go out to announce that a new code is up there (if you don’t want to make the call to NJ, there will be an alternate way to get the info.).

Here is an action shot of me setting up the first code voicemail.

Since this process is a little more involved, I will probably do it five days a week, and then either Monday or Friday the code will be good for three uses to account for the missed weekend days.

Otherwise, just as it was in the past, the code will only work for the first person to successfully enter it in.

Follow @affiliatesummit and/or @affiliatetip on Twitter for more details.

Video: New Way to Get Free Passes to Affiliate Summit West 2010

This post originally appeared on the Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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