Affiliate marketing process (please help me fill in the blanks!)
Hi all,
Complete affiliate marketing newbie here, but I've been avidly perusing these forums and have (at least I believe) pieced together a very general understanding of the affiliate marketing process. Alexa's posts have been very enlightening, in particular.
However, I feel like I'm still missing a few pieces of the puzzle so to speak and am wondering if somebody would be kind enough to help me fill in the "holes" in my knowledge (or there lack of). So far, my take on the process is as follows:
Step 1) Establish homepage.
Step 2) Fill homepage with well-written and engaging articles (1200+ words).
Step 3) Select one (or more) of the best articles and attempt to contact established eZines/blogs etc. in hopes of getting my article published.
Step 4) Assuming my article has been published on an external website, receive a certain amount of traffic from said website via a link to my homepage.
Step 5) Ensure I have a "opt-in" mailing list and present potential visitors with a carrot (short e-book, for example) to lure them into subscribing.
Step 6) Send out informative emails/updates...or recommend the specific product?
Being a hardcore cynic, I would assume that any users on my mailing-list would be extremely annoyed to be receiving "promotional offers" (aka my affiliate products) and this would destroy my website's reputation? How to combat this? Or am I just being extremely pessimistic in regards to people's propensity for mindless consumerism?
This is the big one: what should be the core premise of my homepage/where do I even begin?
Do I start it off as an informative website built around my own specific passions/areas of expertise? AKA a regular blog that inadvertently sells my specific affiliate product, long after its establishment?
OR
Should I build a website specifically designed around the product I'm interested in selling?
Basically, I could follow the old "make a webpage built around my own areas of expertise and passions"...but I think it would ultimately be fruitless; how many affiliate programs for guitar gear are there? I assume, not very many. Politics (my other area of expertise) would most definitely not be lucrative...unless there's an affiliate program for riot-gear.
If anyone can help me out, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm really keen to wrap my head around the core ideas in a general sense and begin the trial by fire and just start working on something (and learn even more along the way)!
Cheers.
PS I understand that this is just one of many ways to do affiliate marketing; but this process in particular caught my interest.
Complete affiliate marketing newbie here, but I've been avidly perusing these forums and have (at least I believe) pieced together a very general understanding of the affiliate marketing process. Alexa's posts have been very enlightening, in particular.
However, I feel like I'm still missing a few pieces of the puzzle so to speak and am wondering if somebody would be kind enough to help me fill in the "holes" in my knowledge (or there lack of). So far, my take on the process is as follows:
Step 1) Establish homepage.
Step 2) Fill homepage with well-written and engaging articles (1200+ words).
Step 3) Select one (or more) of the best articles and attempt to contact established eZines/blogs etc. in hopes of getting my article published.
Step 4) Assuming my article has been published on an external website, receive a certain amount of traffic from said website via a link to my homepage.
Step 5) Ensure I have a "opt-in" mailing list and present potential visitors with a carrot (short e-book, for example) to lure them into subscribing.
Step 6) Send out informative emails/updates...or recommend the specific product?
Being a hardcore cynic, I would assume that any users on my mailing-list would be extremely annoyed to be receiving "promotional offers" (aka my affiliate products) and this would destroy my website's reputation? How to combat this? Or am I just being extremely pessimistic in regards to people's propensity for mindless consumerism?
This is the big one: what should be the core premise of my homepage/where do I even begin?
Do I start it off as an informative website built around my own specific passions/areas of expertise? AKA a regular blog that inadvertently sells my specific affiliate product, long after its establishment?
OR
Should I build a website specifically designed around the product I'm interested in selling?
Basically, I could follow the old "make a webpage built around my own areas of expertise and passions"...but I think it would ultimately be fruitless; how many affiliate programs for guitar gear are there? I assume, not very many. Politics (my other area of expertise) would most definitely not be lucrative...unless there's an affiliate program for riot-gear.
If anyone can help me out, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm really keen to wrap my head around the core ideas in a general sense and begin the trial by fire and just start working on something (and learn even more along the way)!
Cheers.
PS I understand that this is just one of many ways to do affiliate marketing; but this process in particular caught my interest.
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