Before I even start, if you haven’t watched the companion post to this one, please check this out, first:
Here, I would like to start by talking about Swiss watches. Yes.
Why do we admire them so much? Why do we want to own them? Why are they so much in demand?
Because of one thing: precision engineering.
In fact, in a Swiss watch engineering meets art. We are reminded, instantly, of Leonardo Da Vinci — who is credited with bringing the two realms together. Da Vinci characterised everything that defined the Renaissance. Long before the word synergy was coined, Da Vinci became a living example of it himself, both in himself and his creations.
Worn on the wrist, the Swiss watch symbolises all those things and the wearer, in turn, is perceived as to be exuding those values.
There, now I may have written an ad copy for a Swiss watch. My intention, though, is to draw attention to the idea that the kind of calibration that goes into a Swiss watch also goes into affiliate marketing. Both have one thing in common: precision.
From Swiss Watches To . . . keep reading
When words such as, “performance-based advertising model” are used, they may not be referring to the Swiss watch model but to the fact that the affiliate is paid when the traffic they send to the brand converts. That’s the affiliate’s performance.
However, that performance comes from their performance equipment — the affiliate program they belong to.
More pertinently, the analogy holds up when we take into account that affiliate marketing is a collection of identifiable components — the ‘moving’ parts — that make it possible for it to function smoothly.
So, the question is — what are the moving parts of affiliate marketing?
Let me explain next.
The Moving Parts Of Affiliate Marketing
What are these?
- The marketing — blogging; social media; email
- The brand — the merchant or manufacturer of the product
- The affiliate — you
Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
Having explained what the moving parts are, I would like to elaborate on marketing because it encompasses the other two components implicitly.
First of all, what is the incentive for the affiliate? It is to earn an income from a sale. While that may seem self-evident, it is the nature of this motivation, profit, that needs to be delved into a little bit. If someone is interested in coins, stamps, or other antiquarian objects, what incentive would they have to promote pole vaulting equipment?
Unless after spending the whole day in indulging their antiquarian appetites, they limber up clad in lycra and go for a vault, pole in hand. Highly improbable, wouldn’t you say? (I mean personally I have nothing against antiquarians pole vaulting — may be it could be a niche within a niche — who knows?). An antiquarian is more likely to gravitate towards the paraphernalia of those interests . . . magnifying glasses, loupes, precision tongs.
The point is this: choose a niche appropriate to your interests to stay motivated. Mine is affiliate marketing. Ask me about fishing rods and you’re likely to draw a blind. For a better understanding of this concept, see . . .
Niche Ideas For Affiliate Marketing
Assessing Niche Profitability In Affiliate Marketing
Top Niche Ideas For Affiliate Marketers
Your approach can only be systematic, organised when you have an emotional investment in what you’re promoting. The targeted audience you seek will become alienated even before you start. How can you even empathise with an audience you’re not connected to and other way round?Finally, I have to state that even focussing on marketing alone will not cut it: you have to develop what is called a holistic approach — the whole is greater the sum of its parts. That’s Aristotle for you. This is also called complexity . . . and, I might add, an enriching complexity. That word, “complexity,” has a troubled history.
Complexity Revisited
The word “complexity,” sadly, suffers from an unfair cultural bias against it. And, I would like to change that for you. Most of the time when we use it, we use it in opposition to simplicity. Simply put, we have been conditioned to perceive complexity as the antithesis of simplicity. Actually, when people use “simplicity,” they mean “oversimplified,” which is a perversion of simplicity. For example, an ad for insoles proclaims, “With our product X, no matter what your foot shape, you’ll be walking on clouds. No more expensive podiatrist bills ” Oversimplification. Foot geometry is inherently complex and highly specific to each individual. There’s no such thing as one size fits all. Advertising is notorious for oversimplification. Hopefully, you’ll now be able to identify oversimplifications at fifty paces.
Complexity in itself is neither good or bad but what we make of it can render it so. The meaning that we have come to attach to complexity has been inherited from a set of incorrect assumptions. But what if I were to point out that complexity is the result of many simple, individual components that cohere to make it a complexity? What then?
Think of complexity as adding many small individual no.s to make up a very large number. Take, for instance, the relationship between a million and ten. The former is larger than the latter. The question is by how many orders? A million is 10 multiplied by itself 5 times — also written 10 to the power 5.
That mathematical principle — the complex is simplicity multiplied by itself — runs deep through everything around us even without our consciously knowing it. In fact, we ourselves are complex beings: biologically speaking, we are a collection of individual cells — something we share with other living beings. We owe our very existence to complexity. In fact, we are beneficiaries of complexity, especially when we are in good health. However, should our health decline, we dread complexity — we become its greatest critic. But we don’t stop there, do we? We consult a specialist in biological complexity — otherwise known as the doctor — so that they may reset our complexity, returning the dial to the “good” side, as it were.
The basis of benefiting from complexity, therefore, is understanding it, first, then leveraging it to our advantage. And, as you may gather from the above analogy of health, this is nothing new. We have been doing it for centuries.
If that’s the case, why try to run away from complexity — even if that were possible? Everything around us (including ourselves) is the result of complexity. Every sphere of human existence is pervaded by complexity.
Has complexity held anyone — anyone successful, that is — back? Successful people intuitively grasp one thing: they have to discover the component elements of complexity . . . the tens that make the millions; and then manipulate them to function as a single unit.
Actually, from my experience of teaching countless students over the years, I have found that out to be true, too. The difference between the effective learner and the not-so-effective learner, is not always a matter of talent but one of technique. The effective learner has intuitively grasped what the less effective learner has to be taught overtly — the technique. Universities around the world strive to enhance learner performance. Humans are symbol-using creatures — think language, no.s. The higher the ability, the higher the level of success. Sadly, instead of explaining this basic fact we tend to mystify it. Thus the myth of the “good” student — just as the myth of the wildly successful entrepreneur. Whenever I explained this to my students — the struggling ones — there was an immediate change in how they approached the complexity of their disciplines (medicine; engineering; English literature; architecture . . . the list goes on).
Could we apply that same principle to other areas of life? Absolutely.
Now Getting Back To Affiliate Marketing . . .
So, the only logical step would be to appreciate complexity and find ways to leverage it for our desired ends — in this case, affiliate marketing. If we can understand this much (who doesn’t admire Swiss watches?), then we have already embraced the necessary mindset required to thrive. So what’s next? . . .
Leveraging Complexity
Affiliate marketing is not a matter of chance but one of precision — when all the different components work together in a synchronised manner as a single coherent mechanism they produce rich outcomes. What do we need for this to happen not just occasionally but consistently? This is precisely where a platform comes in — with all the relevant tools (key word research; niche research; affiliate links; on-going support; training; community) in one single place.
To Illustrate My Point . . .
Let me introduce Kyle Loudon — one of the Co-Founders of Wealthy Affiliate. His video pictured below elaborates on the virtues of working within a platform. Watch Kyle’s video. What’s endearing about Kyle is his inspiring, never-give up attitude and his self-lessness in teaching others. Enjoy.
Finally, if there’s any aspect of affiliate marketing that you would like me to post on, please let me know — here’s my official email: soheil@affiliatepathways.com.
Cheers.