What path to take?

bysmartketeer

6.8K followers

6 years ago

Let me ask you a few questions ...

Have you defined your long-term affiliate marketing strategy? Do you know which is the right path? Do you know which marketing methods and promotional channels will define your overall affiliate marketing strategy?

Tough questions, right?

Well, the bad news is that you need to outline a consistent long-term affiliate marketing strategy.

The good news: I have some tips that could help you in your efforts ...

So ... There are 3 main factors:

1. The marketing approach

You have 2 options: the easy way and the hard way ...

The easy way; you are trying to – ethically – bribe your customers using various incentives (free gifts, coupons, virtual currency, cash-back, etc) to enhance the value of the product or service you are marketing. The most efficient avenues are: pay per call marketing, display marketing, PPC, mobile marketing.

And there is a hard way; it's a real cliche, but you need to focus on valuable, useful offers. Your goal is to create value-packed content pieces and to provide real, viable solutions that can be successfully monetized using widgets, affiliate links, abnners, etc. In this case you are going to focus on content creation, email marketing and social signals.

2. The engagement level

Again, you'll have to choose between 2 options ...

The easy way; you are not interested in building up a reputation in your niche. All you want to do is to generate an income source using mostly PPC campaigns, affiliate links placed on blogs and various forms of paid advertisements. Unfortunately, for (too) many affiliate marketers this is the only viable option.

Or you can choose the (really) hard way, investing a huge amount of time and effort, in order to position yourself as a well-known and trusted authority. In this case your goal is to build long-term relationships and a thriving online business. Your main weapons: social media and content marketing.

3. The promotion policy

Guess what? There are 2 paths in front of you ...An easy way and a hard way …

The easy way; you are going to focus on high-converting, well-paying products. If you know a few things about your products is OK. If you don't ... is OK ...

The hard way; your most valuable asset is your credibility. It's a real uphill battle where you are trying to promote only trustworthy, reliable products that were already tested by you. The result: detailed reviews and honest recommendations coming from the bottom of your heart.

Wrapping it up: as we all know, the easiest way usually is not the best way to do something; however, if you don’t have enough time, or you don’t have the needed resources, you can always choose the easier and faster affiliate marketing methods to generate an extra income stream; on the other hand, if affiliate marketing is not just a hobby for you, but a long haul flight, you should always choose the long and hard way in your affiliate marketing strategy.