THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PRIMER

Creative marketing strategies are everywhere - you just have to be open to possibilities.  There are lots of ways you might find to be creative with new online techniques.

But a caveat! - many webmasters seem hidebound when it comes to "e-commerce"...  The web is the web; it's different from anything else; there are new, cool-technology-based ways to market on the internet - yes.  Most internet marketing gurus are surprised each time someone shares an "offline" approach to marketing...  Yet most of those revelatory "new" ways to market web-based affiliate programs are things that old-fashioned marketers have been doing successfully for decades!

Then there's the fact that some affiliate companies say that they must see your website before deciding whether or not they want you to represent them.  It's good business practice for companies to screen for affiliates who won't "embarrass" them, and to seek the most targeted affiliates they can for their business (which should give them the most targeted visitors to their sites)...  But it's short-sighted of them to think only in terms of web-based affiliate marketing.

If I didn't have or want a website and had other marketing ideas I wanted to pursue, I'd just contact such a company and explain my plan...  And perhaps they'd even modify the restrictive wording on their site once their eyes were opened by a creative marketer!  Or, as I mentioned earlier, perhaps they'd set up a joint venture with me individually.  [For an article on someone who did just that, see the "Profile of Real-Life Joint Venturer Jim Crawford" on my website www.ThinkJointVenture.com.]  And if they didn't want to play... on to another affiliate company.

So even if others are a little narrow-minded about how to go about affiliate marketing, you can keep an open mind.  What could you do that's different from the mainstream?

Copying the successful marketers is a time-honored guideline for advertisers.  Well, sure... just don't forget that there's more to the world than websites, and more to the world than online!  In the Web 2.0 environment, people are marketing online via websites and ezines and blogs, and pay-per-click ads (like Google AdWords), and social media (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and YouTube videos, etc. etc. - and in various ways offline.

It also could be said that without innovation, the world is dead.  And did not someone, somewhere pioneer all of those time-honored techniques? - as well as those new, cool online strategies.  There's no doubt at all that there are more innovations to come - maybe you'll discover them!
 

Following is a list of creative marketing techniques that you can use as a base for brainstorming.  These are, after quite a bit of reading and observing, off the top of my head - I know you'll be able to come up with a number of other methods that would fit in with your own particular area of expertise or interest.  (In fact, the free affiliate manual for the "5 Pillar Affiliate Program" - see the SiteSell site - takes up where my list leaves off, besides going in-depth into a number of useful avenues.)

I also highly recommend that you get hold of a copy of a great book called Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business (or any of the other Guerrilla books), by Jay Conrad Levinson.  Get it at your local library on interlibrary loan if nothing else.  (In that original book, most of the ideas relate to offline merchant marketing... in any case, they are saturated with creativity!)  Then brainstorm some more!  You just want to spread the word... and keep your affiliate coding intact.

(Jay also has a book called Guerrilla Marketing for the New Millennium which I've enjoyed and gained from... I believe you will too!  It's a succinct review of many highlights from his Guerrilla books, with a focus on the strategies particular to online marketing.  In it you'll find checklists, rating charts, and action steps all designed to help you in developing a great marketing plan.)
 

Back to creative marketing ideas - here's a list for you to start with...

---Place brochures at flea markets.
---Create fliers to pass out.
---If you've linked to other websites from yours, ask those webmasters if they'd like to link to your site.  (But avoid link pages filled with any old links - remember, there's a cost to linking away if people won't come back; be sure it's likely to be worth it!)
---Figure out a way to give the company's product/service as gifts to family and friends you'd normally give gifts to.  (Make up a gift certificate and give it along with a check? Offer to reimburse them when they make a purchase?)
---Consider advertising in narrow-focus print media (like newsletters or trade magazines).
---Set up a webpage (either on your site or by itself) devoted to selling/informing people about just that one product or service.  (Or how about more than one such website, each focusing on a different aspect of the offering, and a different niche market?)
---Send press releases to newspapers and magazines if you can come up with a new twist to give a company's offerings.
---Market to other countries (get your marketing materials/website translated into other languages, perhaps); recruit sub-affiliates in other countries.
[See this article - and other expert information about foreign search engines, plus directories of SEs in other languages - at mplw.net.]
---Partner with businesses to offer something their customers might benefit from.
---Market the product/service as a solution to a problem in a narrow market sector you're familiar with (or someone you know is familiar with - get him/her to help you!).
---View lots of websites (especially those with similar content) and get ideas from them.
---Think about whether you might market a product wholesale (in bulk) to anyone.
---Write an article about the industry/service/product line the program represents and highlight the company in question as a great example of its genre...
---Post the article on your website.
---Allow your sub-affiliates to post the article on their websites.
---Submit the article to Cagora.com (where it will likely appear in multiple Communities).
---Publish the article in your own ezine.  (Many affiliates find that more referrals are generated from newsletter reviews of offers than from webpages.)
---Offer the article to others for their ezines.
---Submit the article to print media (trade magazines, for instance; or foreign publications).

Once you've established an initial basis for marketing one or more affiliate programs, you can add in more layers as time allows:  Helping your affiliate downline team/s and, as you branch out with creative marketing plans, tracking the results from them so as to make your efforts the most efficient they can be (i.e., pay well!).
 
 

Helping your sub-affiliates can be as simple as passing on to them information on ads or promotions that you've found to work well for you.  (When you think about it, this isn't really different from using blogs or social sites like Twitter to push out good information to people following you.)

You could email them - you could even set up an RSS feed from you for them to subscribe to.  (SiteSell's "5 Pillar" program gives you a means of contacting those sub-affiliates.)

You could let them know about ideas you've had or read about but haven't yet tried, in case some of them might be interested in pioneering them. 

You could pass on or refer to articles that have inspired you in some way. 

No doubt as you progress yourself, you'll come across other techniques or insights that would be useful for others - so why not put them to even further use for yourself by letting your sub-affiliates have a crack at them?  Perhaps you'll even find that you have enough material and interest for a regular newsletter.  Or you might consider developing a marketing plan your downline could easily follow...  Don't forget to encourage them to be creative with it!

It might be well to interject here a reminder that you could also encourage your sub-affiliates to sign up for the SiteSell "5 Pillar" affiliate program here - even if they're in your downline for another program (hey, even for folks in your upline!)...  Because of the great value of the 5 Pillar Club affiliate manual, for any affiliate program.

Um, in fact, you could see that they know about this website!

Particularly, you might want to encourage other affiliates to set themselves up to track each of their advertising efforts, both online and offline.  While this can be done via inexpensive affiliate program management software (I mentioned SimpleAffiliate above), the 5 Pillar Affiliate Program offers free software called "The Ultimate Link Tracker" which does the same thing admirably.  Review the "AFFILIATE TRACKING..." section in the previous chapter, "How to Get the Most Out of Your Affiliate Programs, Part 1".

The only insurmountable barrier to your doing any of this would be your not knowing who your sub-affiliates are (or not having a means of communicating with them anonymously).  That knowledge or ability must come from each affiliate company.  If yours doesn't have such a mechanism, ask for it!
 
 

DON'T FORGET THE DETAILS!:

And before we leave the subject of getting the most out of your programs, two little but vital points...

Don't set your links up within a frame on your website (if you insist on using frames - I don't like them as a visitor, myself; and they have several disadvantages other than this one)...  If someone bookmarks your site from there, s/he might not get back.

The other point:  View your site live with a variety of browsers, and TEST ALL YOUR LINKS!!! - make sure your visitors can actually get to where you wanted them to go!
 

And you're off!

Now that you've "primed" yourself with what you need to succeed as an affiliate marketer, I hope you'll also read through the next section, "Setting Up an Affiliate Program"...  Because to be a really good affiliate, it's important to understand what an affiliate company's problems and needs are.
  

And what can help you boost your affiliate programs and any other features you may wish to promote?...

  
Copyright February 2000 and onward. All rights reserved.
"The Affiliate Marketing Primer"
www.AffiliatePrimer.com

You have permission to LINK to this report from any website, email message, or ezine.
Please do not COPY it or portions of it without seeking permission. Thank you.
Sherry Gordon

Affiliate section last updated 1/2010

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