SOLD OUT! But try this instead…

Have you ever been our shopping for a certain product only to find the shelf empty with what you were looking for? After looking around for the product and not finding what you wanted, you start to look for quick alternatives. The product right next to your empty shelf might be just the same thing with a different logo. If the price isn’t extraordinarily higher than compared to the original price of your once sought out product I’m sure consideration for this new purchase might be in order.

This correlates DIRECTLY into affiliate marketing and what is called herding. A study, recently taken, shows that people are more likely to purchase something knowing that their original intended purchase is no longer available to them.

Read more on the study taken, here

Scarcity can be a very effective marketing tool as long as it’s used properly and in moderation. Try to implement this slowly in your campaigns and see if there’s any effect on conversions. But proceed with caution, you don’t want to overuse the scarcity tactic too much or it won’t have the full effect of your initial intentions.

Introduction to your goals!

“Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can’t. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.” – Kathleen Norris

So everyday we wake up and get to the grind (except for some of us on Sundays who have cocktail flu) but that’s a different story. We hit the road on projects we’ve either started or need to get started. Think about the goals you’ve set for yourself. Is it turn for you to accomplish a daily or weekly goal? Or is it time for you to get working on that long term year end goal?

Having a goal can make a persons drive THAT much stronger. In order to continue growth as an individual, there must be something you’ve wanted to get accomplished or want to get started.

This follows affiliate marketing very much in the sense that if your goals aren’t set in perspective then you’ll never amount to much. Try panning out a goal for the month. you’d be surprised how much you’ll get accomplished in a few months time.

Greener Pastures

I hear from time to time about another new affiliate network starting up from an affiliate who wants to make more money in the industry. I get asked, how much does it cost to start an affiliate network?

I tell them that it’s not about how much is COSTS, it’s about CASH FLOW.

So I ask them, how much cash flow do you have to cover your first month or two of payments? Take in consideration that your net payment terms are not going to coincide with advertisers and you need to manage and carry the balance from your affiliate’s earnings. Do you have the cash flow for that? What happens when you don’t get paid at all?

Another thing I think about is why this affiliate would even want to start an affiliate network? Do they feel the need to progress in this direction to maintain stability in this industry? Is this just something they think is an easy task to do? What’s the motivation here?

How is it that the already established networks can leverage their traffic for better payouts, payment terms, and campaign management? And then in turn, become mega affiliates themselves?

Is the Grass really greener on the other side?

My answer to these questions is no. If you’re an established affiliate looking to expand in the industry, don’t. Expand in yourself. Why would you want to compete with other well established networks, some of whom you’ve been working with for years?

You remember how hard it was to initially get into this game? It’s like starting over again. Only now you’re a ‘network’ and you have ‘affiliates’. Keep in mind some of the points I said in my previous post.

Being an established affiliate is great! Why would anyone want to venture outside of that? If you want to build, build relationships and partners. Leave the negotiating payouts/offers/payments/terms up to the guys who already have those relationships with the advertisers.

For those who will continue to strive to build quality networks after becoming great affiliates. Good luck, and may the best network win!

Twitter getting a clue

Today I read about twitter implementing what they should have started off with initially. Advertisements. I know that you can only run an ad-free platform for so long before you have to start making money. It’s just too bad they had to wait this long to finally go about doing it. some of the small edits are as follows;

Following a large amount of users or following and unfollowing, or following and unfollowing the same users in a short amount of time

- Having a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following

- Updates that consist mainly of links.

- Large number of people who are blocking a particular user

- Posting duplicate content over a number of accounts

- Attempting to sell followers

- Posting multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #

- Sending large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link

It was only a matter of time before they figured out they need to MAKE money for this upcoming social network.

What do you think you’re going to start promoting on twitter now?

The two way road of business

When people actually do business together it shows cooperation, teamwork, collaboration, and good ethics. There are some relationships in business that are this way, and there are some out there that think creating good business is a one way lane. I’m here to tell you that if you run yourself down this one way lane, you will burn, and you will crash. On the other hand, people who understand that creating good relationships are centered on the “give and take” conduct.

There have been many instances where I’ve worked with people in the past and eventually generated a good revenue stream. The relationship was good, the communication was there, but when it came down to reciprocating business together they didn’t think twice to bail. This is not only frustrating, but puts you on an untrusting level for any other person you view as potential partners.

There have also been instances where my relationship was very generous from both parties. If I ever needed any suggestions or help with something I knew I could go to them and have no problem getting what I need. And I would like to think that I was able to provide my partner with any experience or knowledge to better themselves. This relationship has lasted years and our partnership has been prosperous.

What it boils down to is, building a partnership in order to conduct long term big business, is never a one way road. If you’re thinking of using a person for what they have, and not being reciprocal, chances are then, you’ll burn through partners faster than sage grass on fire, and your reputation only diminishes each time until eventually you’re not in business.

Take a minute to think about what it is you have to contribute to your current partnerships and ask yourself who you haven’t been able to share this with.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931)

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