Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
Welcome to TGIM – Thank God It’s Monday.
I hope you all enjoyed the TGIM: UK Edition last week. I wanted to touch on two quick topics that I completely forgot in last weeks UK Edition:
Football Manager
Oh gosh, do I ever hate this game. It’s so evil because with dual monitors, I can convince myself that I can “play while I work”. Yeah, like that ever happens. Seriously, my productivity levels over the year are like this:
As you see – I start January off STRONG. It’s a New Year, and I feel great and always work like crazy like most people do.
Then February hits. The January transfer deadline. and I immediately start up a new game of Football Manager, which hurts me for the next couple of months.
I slowly get my productivity back to perfection…in September. And then in October, the new Football Manager is released. And even though I tell myself it’s not worth buying – I end up caving every day on release day.
Of course – productivity doesn’t drop immediately. October & November are mostly spent starting new games, spending an hour or two setting up tactics & training and all that nonsense….and then quitting after 2-3 matches out of boredom.
It takes until December when I ALWAYS find the “perfect” team to go, and get completely hooked(this year – Everton).
My addictions getting worse too – I just bought an app on my touchpad so I can access my PC via it. Which means:
Yep, I get to play Football Manager on the go! Took the kids to McDonalds yesterday and while they destroyed the playplace, I used free wi-fi to sit back, enjoy a big mac and continue my quest to qualify for the Champions League with Everton.
I’m sure many UK affiliates share my pain.
Converting the Offline Punters
Sports betting tips sites seem to be among the most popular affiliate sites in 2011, and it’s no surprise. They’re the easiest sites to run with “on-demand” content meaning you never have to sit down and brainstorm content ideas. There’s also a TON of good exact-match keyword domains still available for registration fee.
This ones more for the UK affiliates – although it applies to everyone – but I’m wondering how many of you talk to the regular punter. I mean the guys who go into the high-street bookies, and put their lines on there. I mean – a lot of you have some fantastic sites – I really like doovdes Best Betting Sites website for example – but how good are these sites set up for that sort of punter?
Here in Ontario, Canada we don’t have Bookies. We have a thing called “Pro-line” where you go to the corner store, fill out a piece of paper then hand it to the employee to run through a machine and put the bets on. Much like putting on your lottery numbers. Of course, pro-line sucks. You’re usually required to bet at least 3 games(so no singles bets) and the odds are horrible. A 5-team parlay that pays out $130 on Pro-Line would pay out $300 online for example.
Yet people bet it religiously. Go to any corner store on a Sunday morning and it’s packed from people putting NFL bets on. I know a lot of affiliates who try and target these pro-line punters with websites educating them on why it’s better to bet online. The problem is a lot of these people aren’t actually SEARCHING for anything related to pro-line, so you’re missing out on your audience.
About 3 years ago, I started going to the store when other people were there, look at the pro-line betting options then make small talk with the people who were also putting on bets. I’d ask them who they were betting, if they have any tips etc. This is a great ice-breaker as people LOVE to act like they’re the most knowledgable people in the world when it comes to sports, and I’d stand there patiently and listen to them tell me about their “locks of the week”.
I’d eventually turn the conversation around to pro-line, and ask them why they bet pro-line and not online, as “my friends been betting online and he likes it a lot better”. Then I’d use those reasons to convert them from pro-line to online.
For example – some people said they just didn’t know “how to get started”. Understandable. Those people would show up the next weekend at the corner store and find a little booklet I did up explaining how to get started betting online. The conversion rate on that was quite high.
A lot of people discount offline marketing, but I find it’s an extremely valuable tool. You just have to go about it the right way – printing off 300 Party Poker flyers and dumping them in your local casinos washroom is NOT the right way. It doesn’t even have to be about conversions either – it can be just market research. You can learn a lot from these people, and factor your designs, layouts and call to actions into your keywords based on what they say.
Tips sites can be very popular with this type of punter. Head on down to the bookies on a Saturday afternoon and start chatting to these guys, what makes them tick, and figure out methods to convert them, or changes you can make to your websites to accomodate them better. For a lot of you, I expect it would be quite the eye-opener.
Great Website/Concept:
In this era of extremely similar and bland affiliate websites opening up every day, it’s nice when you see an affiliate think outside the box.
Like CasinoMack, and his website: fantasychix.com – this is a really neat idea, and you can tell a ton of work and effort has gone into the site. Share that website with your friends guys – it’s a fantastic idea and deserves to become a huge success.
Louis CK:
One of the greatest comedians ever, and he just released a show on his website Live at the Beacon Theatre with pretty much all new material.
Best thing about this is there’s no DRM or any crap like that – he’s set it up and made it as easy as possible for people to buy it. No jumping through hoops etc.
Even more importantly – look at the site. Read all the words, and the text that he uses. The marketing methods he uses in that text is fantastic and has easily helped him sell so much more. I bet a lot amount of people who were planning to torrent it, were swayed just by the way he words things on his site, and his two paragraph “plea” to those people.
Never Put Off Till Tomorrow…
What you can do today.
I really wished I had listened to that old quote.
Every few months, I go through all those sportsbooks/poker rooms/casinos that I don’t promote often. My income from these is usually $200 a month maximum, with some being as low as $5-$10 a month. A lot of them require manual withdrawals, so 4 times a year I spend a couple of hours doing that.
One of the sportsbooks where I make maybe $100 a month on average I was surprised to find $3k sitting there. Nice little bonus, and I went and processed the withdrawal in early November to my Moneybookers.
They sent me an e-mail saying that they didn’t have Moneybookers as a withdrawal option at the moment, but they could send me the money via Western Union. All I had to do was send them my information.
And I put it off.
It went on my “to do” list where it stayed for a whole month. From November 11th to December 11th, it stayed there untouched. I finally got to the item yesterday, and went to log into my affiliate account to see how much I had.
$20.
Yep, because in November a couple of my players ended up having a good month and winning, and because of my laziness I cost myself $2880.
Oops.
It’s just yet another reason why you need to try and stay organized, and stay on top of things. ESPECIALLY when it comes to financial matters, and speedy withdrawals.
I’m sure a lot of Full Tilt affiliates & players know what I’m talking about!
Video of the Week:
I’ve covered a lot in this TGIM and there’s probably more I could cover – but I’ll save some for next week. Let’s end this with a video.
Hurricane Bawbag hit Scotland this week and spawned this fantastic video:
That’s it for me. If you’re a Canadian resident you might want to check out Canada Free Shipping Day which is today – so you can do all your Christmas shopping online! And while you’ve got your credit card out, be sure to hop on over to Food Banks Canada and donate a little something there.
I’ll be back next week, and will hopefully be writing a few articles other than TGIM during the week.
This article was written on December 12, 2011 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
