The Foundations of Affiliate Success

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Simplifying the Affiliate Marketing Business model

Too often I see posts and articles attempting to explain the various business models under the affiliate marketing banner. These posts explain these concepts in such a way as to over complicate the matter, written in such a way as to confuse the uninitiated and leave them feeling lost and confused -until the supposed ‘super affiliate Guru’ comes along to save them – thus perpetuating the ‘scam’ mentality associated with internet marketing.

Well, it doesn’t have to be like that – and quite frankly its not like that at all. Affiliate marketing, under all its guises is a business just like any other business, and at its core is a primary mission statement. Understand AND implement this mission and you are well on your way to building your first online business. See my post Any Customer is a Good Customer -But at what cost? for an example on how taking action and ‘implementing’  increases your learning curve and the growth of your business exponentially.

This mission statement is a clear and precise actionable framework. A framework off which you can hang almost any affiliate marketing business model, and it is quite beautiful in its simplicity…

• Focus on Creating Value

• Use Innovative Techniques to deliver that value

Now let’s look at these core ingredients in more detail

Focus on Value Creation

This is quite self explanatory, but allow me to translate what this actually means. Value is like Art in that it is ‘in the eye of the beholder’ so don’t naturally assume that valuable content means sitting down and writing/recording an epic post of mind boggling brilliance (although this is always nice). If you are building a brand and/or a blog then creating unique, engaging, and entertaining content is an integral part of your ‘value add’; But if you are building minisites that utilise organic search rankings to drive traffic, or you are starting any business venture that is not directly associating yourself or brand with any income streams, then value to you would mean quantity and diversification (read: spun articles submitted on mass – web 2.0 bookmarking and social media etc)

Use Innovative techniques to deliver that value

This relates to my previous post Thinking outside the IM Box and is quite simply about finding unique ways to drive traffic. If you can’t find unique methods, it’s about being unique in the way you follow mainstream traffic generation techniques, for example: Using audio and/or video to distribute your content (see my post on The EcoFriendly Guide to PLR for a specific example on using a unique method to promote your individual value within an already crowded traffic jam.

So that’s it! Plain and simple really. Granted there are hundreds of variations on the affiliate marketing business model, but they all rely on these core values to provide them the necessary framework for success.

In an upcoming post I will look at goal setting and how important it is to develop a routine around SMART Goals and the ‘Small Wins’ business mentality.

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Tagged as: affiliate business model, affiliate marketing, smart goals, unique traffic, unique value, value creation, value delivery