One mistake new affiliate marketers make time and again is thinking that their 'product' is
merchant's product. While one can certainly view their business from this perspective, it puts you in mindset of 'pushing link', rather than building a relationship with potential customers.
Super successful affiliates understand that their job is not to sell, but to presell – and their real product is content.
Let's look at this from a customer's viewpoint to see why building a content-focused and interactive site is so powerful, and why this type of site can radically boost your commissions.
1. Shopping and Connecting
When average shopper goes online, he or she is likely to have a list of trusted sites already in mind. This is particularly true for certain classes of products in tangible goods marketplace.
However, there is a large pool of potential customers seeking information and doing research before they buy. These may be first-time internet shoppers – or they may fall into a special interest group and have a lot of comparision shopping to do before they make a decision.
These are customers you can draw to your site with quality content.
But I would like to recommend you go one step beyond just linking up some articles or putting up a newsletter. Instead, build a site that creates a sense of community.
In other words, provide a place where people can connect with their interests and with each other. Why?
Simple: Any site that creates a sense of support is going to generate trust, spawn word-of-mouth referrals and attract repeat visitors. Your site becomes a 'hub' or 'authority' on a subject, making it an ideal 'jumping off point' in buying process.
It's like shopping with friends. There's safety in numbers. There is also much more activity where ideas are shared freely. Not only that, a customer-focused, interactive site allows you to collect feedback and quickly adjust to needs of your target market.
2. Designing a Community
Setting up this type of site is no more difficult than setting up a static content site – it just requires a little more advanced planning.
What you need:
- Structured content - Message board system - Newsletter - Multiple related affiliate products
This affiliate site model relies on having multiple products to promote within your niche. For example, let's say you've chosen “The South Beach Diet” as your niche.
In your profit model, you would have a selection of products like following: a south beach diet e-book, a south beach diet recipes e-book, a recommended merchant for supplements or vitamins and so on.
