Child and family related products are often more resistant to economic downturns than other industries. After all, children are one of those expenditures (and blessings) that there seems to always be a demand for.

Recently, I got to interview Dave Newman, Affiliate Manager at TheCuteKid.com. One of the largest online baby photo contest sites, TheCuteKid.com provides many talent agencies with a vast database of fresh faces, and parents with an outlet to reach those agencies and gain exposure for their children.

As it turns out, affiliate marketing is very important for TheCuteKid.com. So important, in fact, that Dave told us that as much as 50% of its acquisition is driven through its affiliate program, and TheCuteKid.com devotes about 1/3 of its marketing budget to its affiliate program. Dave also took the time to discuss how TheCuteKid.com approaches affiliate management, social media, branding, SEM, and CRM.

CT Moore: From your experience, what motivates affiliates to promote your brand more prominently?
Dave Newman: To get them active takes a bonus, or special offer, but to keep them around it always comes down to the payout. If it doesn’t work for them it will not work for us. Smaller margins for volume is normally the route we take.

CT: Where has social media fit into your marketing strategy?
DN: We have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and several other social media outlets. The social media helps with branding, but does not have a high ROI as seen from affiliate marketing.

CT: What branding techniques have you employed to increase awareness and recognition?
DN: Media purchase on top networks and social media helps.

CT: Have you applied SEM strategies to increase your site’s visibility on key search engines?
DN: Yes, we heavily promote TheCuteKid on all major search engines, and hope that affiliates will further increase our visibility by doing PPC and picking up any keywords that we are not displaying on. The outcome has an overall positive effect; however, we do see some cannibalization from affiliates on our branded terms. The hardest thing with letting affiliates do PPC is trying to keep them off our restricted terms.

CT: How much does CRM factor into your retention strategy?
DN: CRM is key for us to monetize our members. We regularly use email marketing to pull members back into our site and point them in the right direction.

CT: How often do you update content on your site?
DN: Our site is updated on a daily basis. There are constantly new articles being posted, and blog entries and forums going up. The main pages of the site change for major holidays and are revised several times throughout the year.

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An accomplished writer, blogger, and speaker, CT Moore is a new media strategist who helps brands reach their business goals by building and optimizing online revenue strategies. By day, he is an account manager for the interactive marketing agency, NVI.