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PI LIVE & Influencer Marketing Show Review

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PI LIVE & Influencer Marketing Show Review

Time is precious and time is money. Attending a trade show needs to be worthwhile. There are plenty that are not worth the effort. So, is the PI LIVE & Influencer Marketing Show worth the time and money?

I attended the shows to keep myself up-to-date on affiliate marketing, in particular to check out what was new, if anything. The other main reason was to gain a greater understanding about influencer marketing.

As soon as you walk in the friendly, yet professional atmosphere’s there, everywhere. Yes, it’s about showcasing, but you immediately feel like you are among like-minded professionals. There’s little ‘selling’, because the tech and services often speak for themselves.

What’s so special about the PI LIVE & Influencer Marketing Show?

The quality of the attendees and the quality of the businesses presenting is definitely confirmation you are in the right place (as it should be). It may sound obvious, but I’ll say it anyway; this is a show whose focus is around performance and measuring that performance.

Marin Dome stage at PI Live & IMS Show

Marin Dome stage at PI LIVE & IMS Show

This is a huge differentiating factor to other shows as they can lose that type of focus…it’s very ROI-driven. As a self-confessed numbers guy, this excites me. This is one of the main reasons I’ve been two years in a row.

Other reasons to attend? It attracts serious digital specialists from all over Europe. You can have engaging conversations with people you wouldn’t normally encounter; digital professionals whose passion equals yours.

Also, it’s enjoyable. This may seem a moot-point to some, but it has a really good vibe. Full of positive energy, full of positive people who are happy to be there. It makes a huge difference when you compare it to other shows. I had to duck out before beer o’clock as I have a young family and wanted to be home for bedtime…but I was enjoying it and wanted to stay, which is rarely the case at shows.

 

Top tips for planning ahead

It was a busy Tuesday when I arrived at 9am as doors opened, queues are organised and moved swiftly but they may delay you getting to the first talk or session. So get there in good time.

I highly recommend you plan your day, especially for the talks. When I arrived the Kindred Theatre was on the 2nd floor and took longer than I would’ve liked to find. The case studies only had a certain number of allocated spaces, arrive at least 10 minutes ahead of schedule to secure your place. Sessions at the Main Stage and Marin Dome are going to be just fine as there’s plenty of overflow space.

What about the quality of the speakers?

There’s a variety of topics and plenty to fill up both days of the show. To that end if it’s possible, attend both days to ensure you soak up as much as you can. You may have to make some tough choices between which sessions to attend though.

As there are so many talks it would be a lengthy article to comment on all of them. The one that stood out for me was the first talk I attended: ‘The coming revolution of immersive internet and dominance of virtual influencers’. This was genuinely impressive innovation I had not seen before and un-questionably the future. Like it or not virtual influencers and artificial intelligence will be a major influence on our children and may already have significant influence on many of us. You could not fail to be impressed with how Dudley Nevill-Spencer presented what this future space is going to look like and what is (surprisingly) already in play.

The icing on the cake

Digital Disruptors Final at PI Live & IMS Show

Digital Disruptors Final at PI LIVE & IMS Show

For me the Digital Disruptors Final was the icing on the cake. This touches on a passion and a frustration of mine:

• The passion is engaging with the youth-of-today who have that digital and entrepreneurial mindset and enhancing it
• The frustration with why large corporates and their out-of-date recruitment processes who seem to struggle recruiting in the digital world. I’ve even written an article about it: 5 reasons why large corporate businesses struggle in the digital world

The aim of digital disruptors is to encourage young people to investigate the online space, empowering them think outside the box and about what is achievable. You don’t need degree to be work within the online ecosphere, and digital disruptors embraces this.

Will I attend the PI LIVE & Influencer Marketing Show again next year?

YES. I found the Influencer Marketing aspect of the shows very strong. I wanted to spend more time being talked through demos. Often you don’t need to attend particular trade shows two/three years in a row, but with the technology moving so swiftly, missing the show means you may well miss the next early stage innovation.

…and some admin points

Lunch at PI Live & IMS Show

Lunch at PI LIVE & IMS Show

Dietary requirements – I have a bit of a snowflake diet these days (Dairy, Gluten, Egg, and Potato intolerances are just a few of the no-go foods), but this is not an issue here and plenty of choice even for me

On tap – Complimentary water, coffee and fruit is provided throughout the day and there’s plenty of it
Cloakroom – Complimentary
WiFi – Complimentary
Places to work while at the show – These are provided in The Nookery

3 click Amazon Feedback Secret for positive feedback

The 3 click Amazon Feedback Secret all top performing stores share

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The 3 click Amazon Feedback Secret all top performing stores share

Top performing Amazon stores aim for top levels of Customer Feedback – after all, your 98% feedback is no use if your competitors are winning BuyBox and customers, because they’ve achieved 99%.

Top performing stores need top performing feedback.  The high levels of positive feedback achieved by top performing stores may seem unreachable to some sellers – after all, however wonderful your service is, there will be the odd chirpy customer how rewards you with a 1/5 and then there’s occasional mishap in despatch and shipping…. So if your feedback is languishing below 95%, you might think that 99% is an unachievable target – that is, unless you share the ‘3 click Amazon feedback secret’ of managing your feedback.

A Relton Associates survey of low performing Amazon stores – stores with feedback levels of 92% or less, found that 80% of the feedback impacting on that score was totally avoidable and could be removed in 3 clicks using standard Amazon processes.

The key factor affecting the seller’s feedback level was found not to be performance, but knowledge of Amazon processes.  These sellers were just not managing their feedback.  If low feedback rates are affecting your store’s performance, and you would like to find out how to use ‘the 3 click Amazon feedback secret’ removal process, then why not drop us a line to find out more

Brand Reputation Management on Amazon and eBay

Brand Reputation Management in Market Places

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Keeping control of your brand in e-commerce marketplaces

You can sometimes come across some very poor brand images browsing the internet. You’ve just seen one you can’t get out of your head. It’s small, low resolution, badly lit and …oh no, it certainly doesn’t comply with your brand guidelines! In fact, didn’t you discontinue that particular pack variant in 2009?

Product images for your brand can proliferate on online market places such as Amazon and eBay which are now significant sales channels. Not only can they damage the hard work you’ve put into developing and managing your brand, they can also damage your (and your distributors) SEO due to the massive weight given to online market places trumping your own brands organic results. this type of intense pricing competition drives down your RRP and can in turn devalue your brand. What’s worse, if listings link back to you (I’m looking at you, Ebay), they can generate hundreds of spammy links that further impact on your Search Engine Ranking Positions (SERP’s).

But don’t despair – this is a situation that you can actually control. It just takes a little extra vigilance and a more detailed knowledge of how online market places operate. After all, it’s no more in their interests to have brands badly represented on their platform than it is yours.

First you have to make a strategic choice about your brand reputation management in market places and on the web in general.

Do you want your brand to appear in online marketplaces? After all, in a competitive marketplace, you may feel a presence on these channels is a must for your brand while allowing your distributors to sell here supports their business models.

But just because you’re happy for your brand to appear in online marketplaces doesn’t mean you need to lose control of it – you can manage how your valuable Intellectual Property (IP) – AKA your Brand – is presented by resellers.
Amazon enables brand owners to register IP over their brand. This lets you control all Amazon listings for your products and the barcodes associated with them. You can ensure that multiple listings of differing quality does not emerge for your products, and you can dictate which images and copy are displayed. You still need to be vigilant and put in place regular monitoring to ensure new ASINs are not generating with your brands products/EANs…but at least Amazon will take swift action when you identify any misuse of your IP.

However, on eBay, there is no central listing for each product so it is much more difficult to control listing quality. It is also a less transparent platform in that you cannot find detailed information on sellers and contact them. This is my suggested methodology for controlling re-sellers activity on Ebay:

• Compile a list of known resellers and contact them ask them to enforce brand guidelines. Be ready to provide images and content for each listing in order to support the reseller in meeting your guidelines.
• If retailer doesn’t respond and does not amend listings, report to Ebay’s VeRO programme as infringing your IP.

On the other hand, perhaps you’ve decided that you don’t want your brand to appear on online market places at all! This is an easy situation to deal with as all market places are geared up to help you protect your IP and you can act very quickly. However, in order to maintain good relationships with resellers, you should contact them advising them you’ll be withdrawing your product from listing on specific platforms (eg Amazon, eBay). You should also provide a timescale within which this will take effect.

Once you’re ready to remove your brands from key platforms, you need to submit a formal request through their IP departments. For Amazon, this takes the form of an infringement of IP request listing all ASINs which infringe your IP, supporting this with trademark registration details. For eBay, it takes the form of a submission to the VeRO programme, cataloguing all Ebay listings which infringe your IP, again supporting this with trademark registration details.

Whichever route you choose, it’s vital to put in place monthly monitoring to ensure that new listings featuring your IP are actioned as soon as they appear.

…and don’t forget, while you make these Strategic decisions about how and where your brand appears, these decisions will impact on distributors and resellers. You must ensure wherever possible they understand and comply with your guidelines, preferably before they make a commitment to marketplace selling. For instance, ensure that your terms and conditions to resellers include clauses enabling you to restrict their right to sell on online market places.

Now you should be able to sleep at night, knowing that your brand is safe!

Julia Brooksbank

Relton Associates