Interview With Shawn Collins,
Internet Marketing Guru (added 2003)
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] I would like to welcome Shawn Collins
of ClubMom,
who is highly respected in the online affiliate world.
Shawn has a book out called "Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants
" I have personally read this book and it is such an excellent resource that you really must have!" >>MORE
Shawn, can you tell us a little about yourself (ie,
dad, married, kids, personal likes, place you live, etc. anything you
like)
[Shawn Collins] I'm
33 years old and I'll be married for seven years on May 25, 2003. I met
my wife Vicky in college (University of Maryland at College Park) and
we have two little girls and are expecting one in December, 2003.
When we were engaged, we talked a lot
about how we were both raised by stay-at-home-moms, and we wanted the
same for our kids. But at the time, I was in an entry-level publishing
job and it seemed unlikely that we could pull it off. But after a lot
of hard work and cutting corners, we made it happen. Now things are getting
easier for us, and it's so wonderful.
We live about 20 miles west of New York City in Summit, NJ and we started
up a company together in July 1999, BabyLounge, Inc. (http://www.babylounge.com),
which is a website where Vicky does the content and I do the marketing
and tech stuff.
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] How long have you been on the Internet and how did
you get started making a website?
[Shawn
Collins] I
started up on the Internet in the summer of 1994 when I discovered the
Dos version of Usenet. I would check the message boards for updated scores
for games in the 1994 World Cup. Around that time, I played around with
the Mosaic browser (before Netscape and IE) and later used Netscape to
explore the limited number of sites that were out there. Yahoo was a favorite
site of mine back then, but I switched over to using Google about a year ago for searches.
In late 1996, I was playing around on AOL and I came across a tutorial
for HTML. I struggled through learning how to write the code by hand and
eventually had a very primitive site up on my AOL account. In 1998, I
bought my first domain (today I have about a dozen domains), http://www.velocitynyc.com/.
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] You are not only an affiliate, but also an affiliate
manager. Which of these were you first, and how long have you worked with
ClubMom?
[Shawn
Collins] I
was an affiliate from the time I had my first AOL site. I joined the Amazon
program (not a lot of programs to choose from back then).
I've been at ClubMom
since the day the site was launched on February 14, 2000. The job came
out of left field, because I visited ClubMom
as a favor to my brother-in-law (and president/co-founder of ClubMom),
when he asked me to stop in and visit the marketing team to talk about
affiliate marketing.
At the time, I was working at Refer-it (the affiliate program directory),
and ClubMom
was trying to determine whether to even have an affiliate program. So
I went in and made a little presentation to the marketing folks and they
were sold. But they couldn't find an affiliate manager to set it all up.
I started out trying to find a suitable candidate (sort of like Dick Cheney
trying to find a running mate for George W. Bush), and after about a week,
they made me an offer. It was an odd situation, because I was very happy
at Refer-it with no plans to look for another job. But I really liked
the family atmosphere at ClubMom
(I'd spent past holidays with most of the founders and already knew a
handful of other employees, because the company was started up with a
core base of family and friends).
So I took the job and it's the best professional
decision we've (my wife and me) ever made.
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] You have written many articles. Can you tell a little about these?
[Shawn
Collins] I've
always loved writing, and when I first came to NYC (from MD) in 1995,
I spent a lot of time pounding the pavement trying to get paid to write.
I had a few things published in local papers, but no job came about, so
I got into publishing (on the boring, administrative side).
Meanwhile, I kept writing for newsletters and papers in the city and in
1997 I was working at Medsite (http://www.medsite.com),
where I started up their affiliate program. I wrote some articles and
newsletters for them, and loved the fact that I was getting paid to write,
even if it was just part of my job. (At the same time, I was learning
about affiliate marketing from the merchant side).
In the spring of 1999, I left Medsite to join Refer-it, where I was given
the chance to do a lot more writing and learn more about affiliate marketing,
which was becoming increasingly interesting to me. At Refer-it, I started
writing regular articles for affiliates and affiliate managers that were
published at ClickZ.com, internet.com, emarketer.com and a bunch of other
sites.
But the writing really exploded after I joined ClubMom.
In addition to writing every other week for ClickZ, I started
up as a columnist for SAM (Sales Advertising and Marketing) Magazine,
and got a book deal with Que Publishing for my book about affiliate marketing
("Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants").
Also, while at ClubMom
I have written a dozen or so tutorials for affiliates, as well as articles on affiliate marketing for a wide array of marketing sites and publications. Currently, I write a column for Adbumb.com.
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] You have created many websites and could be classified
as a super dad! What are your websites? (the web addresses, description,
why started, and how much time is involved in each?) How long did it take
for you to make any money?
[Shawn Collins] http://www.velocitynyc.com
- Ticket broker affiliate program
- originally a NYC portal, but changed to an affiliate site for greater potential to make money
- couple hours per month
http://www.babylounge.com
- company with my wife - our main site now
- started to make money creating online birth announcements, but it is
now more focused on making money with affiliate programs
- 5 hours per month
http://www.ballfourbook.com
- fan site for the baseball book Ball Four
- started it up to fill niche for very popular book and sell related merchandise
(I am mentioned in the updated version of the book)
- 1-2 hours per week
http://www.affiliatemanager.net
-Resource for affiliate managers, including message boards for affiliate managers.
-
Originally launched as a companion to my book, but it's become much bigger than that.
-
I spend about 3 hours per week on it.
http://www.affstat.com
This is for an affiliate marketing statistical report I authored. The site was created with a template, and only took a few hours to create.
This project was immediately profitable, as it was intended to sell my reports.
http://www.affiliatesummit.com
Affiliate Summit is a conference series I have created with two partners. We are running affiliate marketing conferences in November 2003 and June 2004.
Overall, I started making money within weeks of
my first site and it's gotten better from month to month ever since to
the point where affiliate checks make the difference in my wife being
able to stay at home with the baby.
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] What are your favorite tools to use in making your
websites?
[Shawn
Collins] I
use Arachnophilia to code my pages, Paint Shop Pro for graphics, and WS-FTP
to upload everything. My favorite paid host is Hostway. My favorite site
for bells and whistles is Java Script Source (http://www.javascriptsource.com)
[Wendy at Dreamish.com] Do you have any advice for people who want
to make a place on the web of their own?
[Shawn
Collins] It's
a fun and easy project for people to create their own place on
the web. You can brainstorm on an idea for a site and a domain
and then register it for less than $10 for a year.
It takes a lot of time to create a site that will make decent money -
the key is to have quality content and then to drive traffic to that content.
Then, join affiliate programs that are in context with your site (ClubMom
and Google's AdSense do the best on my site BabyLounge.com).
Before expecting the checks, do research and read everything you can find
to figure out how to become a success online. It doesn't happen overnight,
but as it happens and the checks start to come in, it's very exciting.
Thank-you for your expert advice and your time Shawn.
We can learn alot from you!
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