A couple of weeks ago I agreed to come onboard with Steve and work on Affiliate Doctors. One of the first things I took over was the concept of a weekly affiliate chat. I’ve been using a service called Lingr.com for a while now, it’s free and it’s pretty awesome.

To get things moving, I’ve set up a chat room on Lingr. Feel free to drop in anytime (I’m in there most of the time and I know a few of the Docs lurk from time to time).

To keep things nice and simple for everyone to remember, the Lingr account can be accessed here:

www.affiliatechatroom.co.uk

It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Our aim is to have a weekly session for the Affiliate Docs and other affiliates to get together, chat and talk through issues (I’ll be moderating). So this Thursday 2nd Dec 2010 at 8:00pm, we will have a few of the Docs and team in for the first scheduled drop in session.

Why Lingr?

It’s free, it’s stable, it has growl support (for you mac fans) and it has a pretty decent (and free) iPad & iPhone app.

Do I need to do anything?

Just visit www.affiliatechatroom.co.uk and signup (Steve adds – and don’t use Internet Explorer!)

See you there!

With over 13 years experience on the web, Carl’s early exploits and passion for IT began at an early age when he would try (and succeed in) hacking his school computer network. It wasn’t long before Carl began to hone his skills and put them to better use when he started building basic sites and learning how to generate traffic (his first journey into SEO), before succeeding to generate a healthy income through lead generation and affiliate marketing, all whilst his mates were doing paper rounds!

Carl continued to develop his SEO skills with his own sites, and while working as an MCSE engineer, he developed and later went on to sell the largest online Nintendo Wii community site. Then, Carl had a “clever idea” and decided to try his hand working in the banking sector as a “Tradddderrrrr” (something his Ayima boss, Rob Kerry likes to rib him about!). Thankfully, Carl decided that it wasn’t for him and made a swift return to the net before landing his current role as a fully fledged SEO with Ayima.

Splitting time between his home town of Norwich and where he currently lives on the Thames Estuary, Carl is keen to stress that he’s ‘not an Essex boy’. Outside of work, Carl likes to indulge his allegiance as a long suffering Liverpool fan and loves to watch Alan Partridge, Derren Brown and The Inbetweeners. A self-confessed Grand Designs addict, Carl plans to one day tackle his own development and is constantly sketching out his ideas.

Carl’s main areas of expertise are SEO, affiliate marketing and domaining. He enjoys helping and advising others wherever he can, as in his own words, “I’ve seen too many people invest too much time and money into websites that just will never work because of false promises that someone has told them”. We’re delighted to welcome Carl on board to the Affiliate Doctor’s panel and look forward to reading some insights in the coming weeks.

Welcome on board Carl.

Carl’s Bio

Dom “The Hodge” Hodgson is the 23 year old blogger, speaker, conference organiser, Hariboholic funny man and founder of Hodgetastic in Leeds, Yorkshire. His first encounter with t’internet was at the local library as a teenager, and as a bit of a geek, it didn’t take long before he was building his very first site on Geocities and Fortune City (but you’ll have to get Dom very drunk to extract the url!).

A familiar face on the conference circuit for a number of years, Dom set up his own conference to plug a gap he spotted and cover “the things that usually get left behind in the web design process”. In March 2009, Think Visibility was born. With four very successful and critically acclaimed conferences under his belt, Think Visbility focuses on a mainstay of subjects such as SEO, PPC and Affiliate Marketing, but covers other areas such as domaining, usability, accessibility and Social Media.

When he’s not preparing and organising the next Think Vis, Dom organises and gets involved in a number of ‘Hack days’ – for those of you who don’t know what they are, in Dom’s own words, “… it’s where you stick a load of people in a room, feed them, water them, take them out for occasional walks, give them power and WiFi and see what they build :)”.

Prior to his many ventures and interests, Dom worked as a special needs carer at a Mencap respite centre for 4 years (2 spent as a volunteer). To this day, Dom continues to help out deserving causes and charities, and at the beginning of 2010 he started a series of charitable runs under the banner of “Hodge On The Run” (when’s the next one?!).  His first run was to help raise money for a charity close to my heart, The Pace Centre. This entailed Dom wearing a pilot’s uniform and running(?) several miles around Leeds city centre with a toy car on his head. If you’d like to see more, give him a poke to sort out the next challenge!

Away from all geekery and event organisation, Dom likes to relax by sitting back, putting his feet up and, wait for it, partaking in even more geekery with a session or two of Minecraft.  With a penchant for ‘adventures’, Dom has a habit of doing silly things; to give you an idea, here’s a classic example of when he went on a bagel delivery caper!

Dom has kindly agreed to come on board and help out as an Editor at Affiliate Doctors, so without further ado, welcome on board Dom!

Dom’s Bio

First things first, Matt is one of the most friendly and helpful people I’ve come across.  Customer service is A1, and at every stage of the process, he pulls out all the stops to make sure you get what you want.  I had a quick chat with Matt about commissioning 11 doc caricatures (with a 20% discount – nice notch!), and then fired over the pics to Matt so that artist, Brian, could get to work straight away.

So how does it all work?

Well you can order a number of different formats from head and shoulder shots to full body artwork.  Simply visit the site, select your preferred artist and pay online.  You then send Matt a photo and he gets the artist to knock up a rough pencil sketch to give an idea of what the full colour version will look like, and then gives you an opportunity to request any changes.  The pencil sketch can look a bit thin, but don’t worry, this is just to give you an idea.  Once you’re happy, the artist completes the full colour caricature in a matter of days (we had 11 remember).  When you have the final caricature, Matt checks again that everything is as you expect.  If not, he can ‘make it so’.

Here’s an example of the process for Kieron’s caricature (click images to enlarge):

The price?

At the time of writing, a head and shoulders caricature will set you back just €28.00/$39.99 USD/$48.50 AUD (about £25) with up to 25% on bulk orders.  Matt also runs his own in house caricature king affiliate scheme paying 10% commission on an average sale price of $115 AUD.

Since Affiliate Doctors started, a number of other affiliate’s have also used Matt’s services, and you can see another example over at Ray Theakston’s blog Befuddled.  Feeling old?  Well Matt’s team are so good in fact, that some of the people at the last Expo commented on how the artist did a brilliant job of rejuvenating some of the docs

Fancy a Free Caricature?

As a thanks to all AffiliateDocs readers, if you would like to win a ‘head and shoulders’ caricature of your own, all you need to do is become a fan of Affiliate Doctors on Facebook or leave a comment on here telling us why and what you’d use your caricature for.  One winner will be drawn at random at the end of the month!

* affiliate link – any money will go to the The PACE Centre Charity for Children with Motor Disabilities and Kiva Team Affiliate.

Roll on 9 years and Chris now operates a number of businesses spanning gadgets, lingerie, seasonal gifts, the great outdoors and mobile phones, with his company generating around £3m in sales for a number of household brands.

What makes Chris unique is that he has managed to build up his affiliate businesses whilst holding down a very demanding job with Hewlett-Packard – a job that he still enjoys and successfully combines with his passion for affiliate marketing to this very day.

A stickler for detail, Chris was one of the harder Docs to please when it came to getting his caricature right.  This first attempt was promptly rejected when Chris confirmed that he now sports the smooth look:

A keen photographer, scuba diver and supporter of Tranmere Rovers, Chris also enjoys doing his bit for “charidee”. Often found competing in numerous 10k events around the country, Chris has managed to raise over £5,500 for UK charities and talks others into joining his Kiva team, lending $9,500 to businesses in third world countries (new members welcome http://www.kiva.org/team/affiliates).

An active member on the A4U forum, Chris is known to speak his mind, but enjoys helping other affiliates and sharing his knowledge. Not wishing to list any particular area of expertise, Chris has a wealth of experience across the board including PPC, SEO, advising new merchants, General AM stuff, yet is always open to, and often seeks, others suggestions and critique.

We look forward to hearing some insights from Chris over the coming months.

Welcome on board Frostie.

Frostie’s Bio

P.S. Cheers for the artwork Matt

Mark currently operates in a number of market sectors including gambling, finance and electronics, and has recently sold off a number of his original smaller sites to focus on some of his larger projects and final year at Uni (where he may snatch a first!).  His journey has certainly seen him tread an interesting path.  Last year when attending ex-Dragon Doug Richard’s ‘School for Startups’ seminar, a simple “thank you” to Doug at the end led to an unexpected chain of events that now sees Mark embroiled in a new venture with the Dragon and Sháá Wasmund of Smarta.com.

Outside of studies and business, Mark is a keen traveller and can’t wait for the summer holidays to celebrate his new found freedom with a spot of globe trotting.  He loves football and supports both Falkirk FC and Liverpool FC.  Friends say he is permanently attached to his laptop and is always harping on about new site ideas he has come up with – but they couldn’t care less!

Interesting fact about Mark – his ubiquitous pen name ‘hairycornflakes’ is not an eyebrow disorder, it came about when Mark planned to develop a T-shirt site and asked his mates for suggestions on what to call it!

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Mark to the panel of Affiliate Doctors and we look forward to hearing more from the Hairycornflake!

Welcome on board Mark.

Mark’s Bio

Clarke is “The Codfather of Affiliate Marketing” and one of the very first pioneers to embrace it many moons ago in 1997.  Based in Glasgow with his wife and children, Clarke has pretty much seen it, done it and bought the proverbial t-shirt many, many times over.  With extensive experience in all aspects of Affiliate Marketing, Clarke is a seasoned entrepreneur with a number of successful businesses to his name as both an Affiliate and an Affiliate Network Director.  Clarke is also an active member of Nominet UK and attends meetings where he tries to ensure that the voice of the Affiliate is heard.

His first venture into the world of the Internet began in 1996 when he set up a site for the pop band 911!  After a year of designing websites for other companies, his career saw the shift into Affiliate Marketing in 1997 where he cut his teeth marketing web hosting through the affiliate channel.  Three years later, Clarke teamed up with Graeme Sandwell to set up UK Internet Sites Ltd.  Together, they launched a large number of successful affiliate sites in market sectors as diverse as competitions and freebies to gadgets and swimwear to name but a few.  With a firm grasp on the affiliate channel, the dynamic duo went on to launch their very own Affiliate Network in 2003, Paid On Results, which to date boasts 149 merchants and 20,900+ affiliates spanning no less than 22+ different market sectors.

Clarke is widely regarded as one of the pioneers who inspired and mentored many of today’s successful affiliates.  When Mark Boyd interviewed the candidates shortlisted for the Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2009 in the A4U Awards, several of them credited Clarke as the most influential person to have helped them on their way.  To quote Affiliate Doc, Lammo, “if it hadn’t have been for Clarke Duncan, I would probably still be a Civil Servant today”.

Outside of work and Affiliate Marketing conferences (where he has a penchant for candle theft ;)), Clarke enjoys Photography, World of Warcraft and his beloved iPhone.  In fact, during his spare time he can often be found hanging around Glasgow Airport; he claims this is because his son likes to watch the planes take off, but we all know he’s really waiting for the next baggage handler/terrorist scuffle so he can sell the photos to the newspapers!

Interesting fact about Clarke: He is physically unable to smile in photographs without giving a “double thumbs up” gesture!

Anecdotes aside, it’s a great honour to have Clarke join the panel of Affiliate Doctors and we look forward to seeing some great insights.

Welcome on board Clarke.

Clarke’s Bio

Elaine kickstarted her move into the internet in 1999 (or “t’internet” as she likes to say), setting up Allkids.co.uk as a hobby site when she spotted a gap in the market for a comprehensive online resource for parents.  Three years later, Elaine discovered affiliate marketing, and the rest as they say, is history.  She now runs the business as a family concern and has managed to successfully bridge the gap between online and offline as a bricks and clicks empire.  As if that wasn’t enough, Elaine has also branched out as a merchant, running a successful affiliate program of her own through the Children’s Rooms website.

Away from the daily duties of a business woman, Elaine is a wife, mother, grandma and all round good egg.  Originally hailing from Leeds, she’s a Leeds United fan, despite their best days being well behind them (although Elaine tells us to “Watch This Space”).  She also has a penchant for tiaras and Corrie, and her favourite song is “There’s no one quite like Grandma” by St. Winifred’s School Choir (or Dom Hodgson & Jason Brockman if you’re at the A4U Expo closing night party!).

As an entrepreneur operating in such a diverse business environment, Elaine has wide ranging skillsets, but it’s this coupled with her straight talking and down-to-earth approach that have enabled her to succeed in the industry, and we’re delighted to welcome Elaine to the Affiliate Doctor’s panel joining fellow business ladies Kirsty and Joanna.

Welcome on board Elaine.

Elaine’s Bio

Joanna’s key strengths are in SEO, analytics and online marketing strategies.  A regular speaker at a number of key industry seminar and networking events, Joanna enjoys sharing her passion and knowledge as part of her mission to be an all round ‘online marketing evangelist’. 

When she’s not taming the Google beast, Joanna indulges her life long passion for horses and riding, and confesses that her ideal holiday would involve working on a ranch.  Partial to a good read of a programming book, she also enjoys reconstructing her PC and has recently started to flirt with Macs.  Taking inspiration from Danny Wallace’s “Yes Man”, Joanna’s move to London is fuelled by many a regular jaunt to explore what her new home town has to offer, indulging her other passion, photography. 

To read more about Joanna’s thoughts on SEO and all things online, pop on over to her blog at Search Engine Chocolate.  As an ‘SEO chick’ in an industry predominantly occupied by men, it gives us great pleasure in welcoming Joanna to the Affiliate Doctor panel. 

Welcome on board Joanna.

Joanna’s Bio

Dan is a multi-talented online marketer based in London where he manages ecommerce for 2 arts, craft & toy companies.

He has over 15 years experience on the web since achieving a first class degree in Software Engineering, and his career has seen him build upon this passion for all things net, working in the UK, Germany and the US.  He has set up PPC campaigns across 18 countries, managed web analytics & reporting for a couple of dozen sites, and once designed the first UK ecommerce site for one of the world’s biggest laptop manufacturers.

Dan’s main areas of expertise are analytics, PPC and site management, and he has worked in-house for online retailers for the last 7 years.

Splitting his time between London and Sheffield, Dan spends most of his time outside of work eating, sleeping and talking.  Once long ago, he ran one of the UK’s biggest skateboarding sites.  He has only 2 claims to fame: once making a sandwich for ‘Hairspray’ director John Waters, and once appearing in the distant background in an episode of Byker Grove.

Dan regularly helps and advises people in various forums and very much looks forward to helping you out with any questions.

Welcome on board Dan.

Dan’s Bio