Affiliate Marketing – The Basics
Copyright © Neil Mansley
http://www.NeilMansley.com


Affiliate marketing is promoting the goods or services of another person in exchange for getting a commission every time that one of those goods or services is sold. That breaks down to, in a nutshell, affiliate marketing is ADVERTISING! In this way, affiliate marketing can be a very easy method to get something done and when it comes right down to it the low cost and easy time commitments that affiliate marketing brings to the table are exactly what people need when they are starting up a business. However, this does not mean that everyone that tries affiliate marketing is going to be successful at it, so even though it is one of the easiest ways to start a business online, you still need to know how to win at affiliate marketing.

Location

In real estate, location is the biggest thing, the right street address or Zip code. In the UK the right postcode can be worth millions. In affiliate marketing, location is also the biggest thing albeit in a different way. The location we are looking for in affiliate marketing is not the location of geography or region that real estate developers are interested in. No, rather the location that affiliate marketers are looking for is the proper “marketplace” to sell their products, or as we call it, the proper “niche”. Markets are targeted to different things and different interests. Figuring out which markets are likely to be interested in the products you are marketing is part of becoming a great affiliate marketer. You can make things a lot easier on yourself by ensuring that the affiliate marketing that you do is only directed at markets and people that are actually interested in those particular products.

Leverage

There is a very sad story in some affiliate marketing circles and it is the story of the person that did not understand leverage. This person came up with a fantastic marketing plan for affiliate marketing and tried it on one product. The plan worked great but because the profits that it brought in were not enough to sustain a full time income, the person gave up and, heartbreakingly went back to their old job.

What is the lesson here? The lesson is that people need to consider leverage when they consider how to win at affiliate marketing. Figuring out a strategy that works is hard, but once you have that strategy your next goal becomes leveraging that strategy by applying it to as many different products as possible. This is also known as duplication. It may sound obvious as you read this, “If your strategy worked on one product in one niche there is no reason why it will not work on other products in other niches.” However you would be surprised to learn just how many failed marketers miss this simple trick.

Let me put it even more succinctly:
If you can make $100 a week selling a certain product that retails at $10, why not build up your business so that you end up making $1000 a week by selling 100 products that sell for $10 each?

Critical Thinking

Location and leverage are two examples of things that came about as a result of critical thinking. Someone was faced with a problem (too few people interested in the general public or too little profit from selling one product) and came up with a solution by thinking on their feet. Everything that you do in affiliate marketing will require this type of critical thinking and it would be impossible to go through the hundreds of different ways that this is already true of the field. Just remember to always re-evaluate the situation you are in and try to think critically about ways that you can make it better.
Sometimes you have to think “outside the box” there is no such thing as an impossible situation, it is merely a question awaiting the correct answer. As an affiliate marketer it is your job to come up with the correct answer. The real beauty of this is that there are no wrong answers! Just find what works for you.


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