Affiliate marketing is an industry allowing marketers from all walks of life to show their true personality while selling a product or service to others. Affiliate marketing is an industry where marketers from all walks of life can start a business from scratch either unemployed or gainfully employed with the potential to earn residual commissions , sometimes tripling the income from the current day jobs. A good thing about this industry besides the fact marketers showing their true personalities when selling products or services is not having to worry about "meeting affiliate sales quotas," as this gives affiliate marketers more leeway to try different Internet marketing mixes to see what particular marketing mix works best with their target audience. In all you do, you'll definitely need a content site, whether it be a blog, forum, or website. Why? It's your unique online brand identity. This is how people will become accustomed to you and earn respect from your target audience.
Affiliate marketing pretty much has been around for decades. Going back into time, DrewryNewsNetwork believes affiliate marketing started as a word-of-mouth thing in the heyday. For example, if I put a buzz in someone's ear that I would pay them so-and-so amount of dollars in commission if they help me sell a product or service to people in my neighborhood or to so-and-so's company and they successfully pull off the sale, I as the business owner would come up out of my pockets and break them off a commission, or as some would say scrilla, or long $ gUaP $. I would include a marketing mix of not only putting the buzz in a person's ear in the neighborhood, but probably go to family and friends.
Millionaire blogger and full-time affiliate marketer John Chow discusses making money online
This is one classic example of an old-school affiliate marketing mix where business owners diversify their marketing strategies to pay affiliates commission "before the Internet came into existence." The World Wide Web today is an immediate avenue of affiliate marketing, giving affiliates-publishers leeway in being "creative beyond the norm" with creative mass appeal to their target audience. The impact of the Internet today allows affiliate marketers to create and execute creative marketing mixes that doesn't require them to do door-to-door selling or seeing people traditionally face-to-face. Additionally, affiliates can market businesses online from the comfort of their home or laptop computer.
'Creative Affiliate Marketing Mixes That Cost Nothing'
E-Mail - This is one of the most successful Internet marketing mixes today. Why? E-mail marketing is one of the most successful Internet marketing mixes because it's a personal way of reaching people. Reading an e-mail sometimes creates silent emotion, enticing e-mail readers to quietly respond to affiliate links or banner advertisements in the body or footer of the e-mail newsletter. E-mail marketing is also a successful ploy in an Internet marketing mix because it encourages people to share what they've read with family and friends in addition to coworkers. The end result of a reader sharing their e-mail is free advertising for the affiliate that sent the mass personalized e-mail message. MarketingProfs.com makes an interesting statement in their online article when they mention "Like email marketing, those channels help companies disseminate information to large audiences rapidly and cost-effectively."
For the affiliate marketer who manages their own dedicated web hosting, they can easily send customized mass personal e-mails through the administrative section of their dedicated server, avoiding the need to use a third-party e-mail marketing service and spending extra money on an e-mail newsletter marketing management service. That costs nothing extra out of pocket. Are you now thinking of the creative and free ways to promote yourself online and possibly make money in affiliate marketing full-time? Opportunity awaits. E-mail newsletter marketing will always be one of the most successful marketing mix ploys for newbie and savvy affiliate marketers. Why? You can collect e-mail addresses free of charge from your site viewers that opt in to your e-mail newsletters and always send them personalized mass e-mails free of charge. You can capture e-mail addresses easily via YouTube and engaging with people on your favorite social networks.
Mobile Marketing - This is another wonderful opportunity for affiliate marketers to personally appeal to their target audiences. In this case, the best way to appeal to the target mobile marketing audience would be to specifically format e-mail newsletters and optimize the HTML templates of blogs, forums, and websites to be compatible with tablets and cell phones. Then, market, market, and market away those pretty affiliate links. Mobile advertising is an absolute Internet marketing mix must if affiliates seek to earn long-term affiliate commissions. The impact of the Internet today allows affiliates to reach domestic and global mobile markets through various marketing mixes, whether it be e-mail, video marketing, content marketing, and mobile marketing.
In a nutshell, the internet is open season for anyone looking to earn serious $ gUaP $. However, making money online is not a get rich quick scheme. This is a slow money making process. Yup, that's right. Slow bucks. It's better to earn slow bucks vs. fast bucks and think you're earning good money, because that good money some people think is good money is actually illegal money with no potential to flourish into a pension. Kapeesh?
Mobile marketing proved time and time again to put more money in pockets of marketers. A Forbes article discussing the power of mobile marketing mentions "Mobile is arguably the closest you can get to the consumer. There is no other device that is as personal (everybody has their own phone), as pervasive (is with you all of the time), and provides the opportunity for proximity. As marketers seek to understand and leverage a consumer's path to purchase, mobile devices have the potential to be a tremendous enabler. The power (in the future) to determine that a target consumer is driving in the proximity of your restaurant and then feed them an immediate message or coupon is unprecedented. In a 2011 study, Americans spent 2.7 hours per day socializing on their mobile phones more than twice the time they spent eating. 75% of the globe now has a mobile phone offering access to developed markets as well as emerging regions. Mobile will truly enable marketers to connect at the right time, in the right place, with the right individual." This solidifies the reason why marketers should never overlook the awesome power of mobile marketing.
Most people don't have the time throughout their work day to sit down at a desktop PC or a laptop. They're consistently on the go with their Internet ready cell phones. When marketers reach people personally through their phones, it results in drastic increases of responses and consumer retention. There's something about the power of appealing to people personally that quietly encourages immediate responses. Mobile marketing is one of those successful Internet marketing mixes that does the job.
Social Media - The internet allows marketers to capitalize on word-of-mouth advertising on a completely different level. The impact of the Internet allows marketers to take word-of-mouth to a new level use social media. All they have to do is build up a bunch of followers on social networks like Twitter.com, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Pinterest.com, or YouTube.com, create unique and compelling content, include a link to a blog, website, or specific link to a deep page "specific landing page" within a blog or website, sit back and watch people share those links with their family, friends, and coworkers on social networks as time goes by. Social media is the enhanced version of old-school word-of-mouth.This is a marketing mix businesses of any size can't ignore. Why? Simply because advertising a business on social media and creating buzz is a zero cost effort. This is a marketing mix marketers can yield much fruit from simply by investing effort and time. Time to change your way of thinking and stop being a stock flop and start getting that good money from affiliate marketing. There's no room for stock flopping in this industry.
The thing about social media is that it can impact a business in a positive way if the marketer learns to have patience. Organically marketing any business on social media requires adhering to the unwritten rule of "playing the patience game." You have to deeply interact with social media followers before they consider buying from you. A blog post from Hubspot mentions "You are also creating great link bait and engaging with your subscribers, customers, potential leads, industry professionals, etc." Link bait comes from sharing links on social networks when engaging in conversation with followers. Playing the patience game requires investing effort beyond the norm in hopes of yielding fruit from time invested when least expected. Another words, when businesses put in the work on social networks and advertise a link to a product or service their selling and don't look forward to making money right away, they will possibly earn good revenues from invested efforts when least expected. Put people first and watch your online business flourish in due time.
YouTube - This is a must have marketing mix for any business. It allows anyone to create a free account, use their creativity and energy, and mass market streaming web video with the ability to include links in the description of the video to any blog post, webpage, or landing squeeze sales page without shelling out one red cent. This is also a marketing mix many businesses fail to stay consistent with using either because they don't have the dedicated manpower to upload videos daily to their YouTube channels, or simply don't comprehend the big picture using video to organically boost visibility of their online business while possibly deploying additional marketing mixes such as the ones mentioned in the beginning of this post to appeal immediately to their target audience. Streaming web video converts eyeballs into customers faster than blogs, articles, forum posts, and website content. And that's not a debatable statement!
Conclusion
If more companies today had a dedicated PR and social media team, they would be more successful in their marketing mixes vs. spending unnecessary funds for PPC advertising and overspending on ad networks. With a dedicated social media team, companies can test the waters on numerous marketing mixes and not worry about losing money. And if all else fails in their tested marketing mixes, any company can successfully rebound alone just with the marketing mix of putting streaming web video to work in gaining immediate attention.
References:
Forootan, D. (2010, February 16). Maximize Your Digital-Marketing Mix: 10 Ways to integrate Social, Mobile, and Email. Retrieved November 2015, from MarketingProfs
Haahr, E. (2010, October 19). Breaking Down the Inbound Marketing Mix. Retrieved November 2015, from Hubspot
Whitler, K. (2013, April 25). Why Should Marketers Care About Mobile Marketing? Retrieved November 2015, from Forbes
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