Affiliate marketing: an alternate perspective

371 followers

4 years ago

Imagine a spirited conversation between the Web and its users. If the Web were to express an opinion about us as it whooshed by on its juggernaut trail to become ever bigger and more sophisticated, what would it say?

Would it compare us to the town that was so small that if IT were to sneeze while driving through, it'd miss the whole thing? Would we users hurl back a retort from UXland like: If you don't like the weather in New England wait a minute... ?

So much depends upon scale, perspective and a sense of humor.

I was trained on the cutting edge of 1990s word-processing technology. We were already in class being trained early in the morning as the same new programs were being released for distribution. This was significant because even the small jump it gave the company over its competitors could potentially be worth millions of dollars by close of business.

Being plugged into that environment was exciting and instructive, but what I really wanted to do was to help people to maximize their health. So I trained on nights and weekends in hands-on health care that used a different kind of tech and left the corporate office world.

By doing that I fell off of the IT ship. IT obliged by careening off without me for a whole decade before it eventually circled back into my life. Since I lacked experience or training in marketing strategies or technologies, I had no scale of reference. That made stepping aboard an affiliate marketing vessel seem easy.

Boy, was I wrong.

Who has time? How many billions of webpages would someone have to sift through in order to stumble upon some newbie who still has to figure out her niche? And without traffic, how can you become an affiliate?

Last year I hit the ground running and summarily stalled out when I realized that affiliate blogging wasn't at all about writing whatever I wanted whenever I felt like it, posting articles for people to read, getting a nod from Google and then somehow connecting it all to an Affiliate Universe.

I was completely green. Balancing effort to build something that just seemed over my head with keeping the lights on and a roof overhead made for a pretty rocky start.

While I didn't know the degree of dedication and hard work it would take to run it, I did know that my blog, though well-intended, lacked the kind of focus that could turn it into a viable business. I just didn't know how to fix it or where to direct it.

In short, I felt lost at sea.

I guess I just needed to go back to the very beginning and define a few basics for myself.

So I'm back from a long sabbatical that's lasted for about three-quarters of my 12-month WA membership. I went on it to reconnect to reality.

I wanted to hear how things were being talked about in the vernacular outside of WA. How other systems were being offered and received and how other people generally were treating each other. I cross-referenced ideas taught in our lessons here and tried to get a fresh start on my blog.

I was never completely gone because I was still checking in here. There's just something about this community and the extension of common courtesy in the majority of interactions here. So I stayed anchored. I just wasn't blogging or working much on my site.

Instead, over the past year I've attended lots of online challenges and webinars and learned how to get to my "why." Routes lit up and showed where the right itinerary could lead to.

I listened to the vocabulary: marketing, SEO, keywords; stages of the purchase cycle, website development, analytics; loading speeds, sales funnels, buying psychology...the presence of unconscious beliefs that either sink or float you...avatars...taking responsibility for the outcomes in our lives...all ideas that held together an unprecedented year that was reshaping us even as we held on and learned. It impacted resources. It made us think...

Along the way I learned about some of the underpinnings of online marketing like buckets and email lists and social media. Just to have command of even a tenth of this stuff...speaking for myself, I'd be so much farther ahead by now...

...but then again, I might just be farther ahead down a different path than the one I need to be on right now. I feel lucky to have been getting to fill the gaps in my knowledgebase as business and the economy moves online.

But I did find out that I can write. Writing may or may not be the go-to skill that everybody runs for to secure a ship when it docks, but it can help to bring the ship in. So I've embarked on a voyage to learn enough that it may become a formidable tool, or it may not. When something has good potential and comes relatively easily it's good to play with it, see where it takes you and find out whether it will sustain you there. So that's what I've been doing. with my year's membership: exploring and discovering...with the WA premium library of materials as back up.

Academic information is no substitute for practical experience, though. That said, asking questions probably still the very best way way to identify your purpose. And a little deeper questioning can reveal how to apply that purpose to goals.

I needed to be out there formulating my own questions and constructing my own framework for everything I'm learning.

Some of those questions look like this: What's marketing? Why an avatar? What platform would work best for me and what do I have to say that anyone would want to hear? How could I find and connect with my own "tribe?" What are people really looking for out there that I can actually help them with?

Speaking of guidance, the WA resources, classes and coursework can lead to success in affiliate marketing if you're coming from a certain perspective. Being a part of this exceptional community has hands-down been one of the brightest parts of my experience here.

It all makes so much more sense now that I can see a little better how the pieces fit with my skillset. And as writing is now one of the most highly-sought skills in the rapidly-expanding online economy, it seems that now might be a good time to find out what part of the giant funnel called online marketing resonates best.

Now at the one-year mark I finally appreciate how this all works. There's so much to learn on so many levels.

Some of us learn a little differently. For me the itinerary just seems easier to grasp once I've seen the entire map.

So I don't know if the past year has been time well spent in terms of starting an affiliate business: but it's taught me two things. 1) there are more ways to benefit from WA than the ones you might think, and 2) it's important to remember that a smart rabbit has three holes.

I also learned that it's not enough to love to write. If you want to monetize a skill so it can support you, then it helps to take the time to really understand it inside-out so you can build it consciously. Even without great tech skills or an MBA, you're still a unique package of all of the things you've done, can do and will be doing in your life. You have skills that are or can be marketable. Having a clear understanding of that package makes you more credible, authoritative and more attractive to potential clients and employers.

And more confident.

We're the avatars. Those avatars that represent the others we're looking to serve are ourselves at Age Whatever when we successfully overcame a problem by finding a solution to fix it. When we create ways to effectively serve others through our own direct experience we complete a more authentic circuit. There's just nothing that can beat personal experience. We build trust and create opportunities for growth each time we offer solutions based upon it. In other words, sharing a solution with else who's struggling with the same problem that we've successfully fixed for ourselves carries a lot of weight.

How would it feel to go through the experience again, but this time knowing what you know now? That's what you have to offer someone else.

Quite an asset.

So as much as possible, consider speaking from your own experience. It's the path of least resistance because you already know it.

Do I hear "niche?"

OK, I think so. But if you still feel lost like I did, then keep showing up and stay open to better things coming your way. Your ship will come in. If you don't feel lost, celebrate your navigating skills and enjoy the blue waters of adventure whenever you can.

Whether or not the Web ever thinks we're insignificant: though everyone's entitled to their own opinion, it doesn't make it necessarily so.

So don't lose that smile! Get really, really good at staying calm and grounded.

BETTER YOU THAN YOUR SHIP!

; )

All the best,

Elizabeth