What Can You Learn From The Affiliate Marketing Leaders?

I was going to post about the what many affiliates (including myself) do wrong.

But I'm a naturally positive person, so here's what you can learn from industry's best. Basically this post could have the subtitle: "How to create a long-term, successful affiliate business".

So here we go:

1) Provide something useful

Whenever I'm thinking of a break away but don't have a particular destination in mind I pop over to James Avery's Flight Mapping site.

James started his site a good few years ago and at the time was the only one that offered an interactive flash map of airports, airlines and the routes that connected them.

I know James has had his ups and downs with the site with Google rankings having a negative effect on where his fantastic locks start. But it's still a great site.

Obviously I'm not even sure of it's profitability but I'm sure he's made a good amount from it.

So what can you learn from James?
If you have a novel way of bringing affiliate links to the market or can produce a site that actually adds value to the internet you'll find it a lot easier to create a long-term, profitable site.

2) Focus and build on your strengths but cover your backside

Kieron Donoghue has done very well out of focusing on PPC. He's tested many different market sectors and niche products with PPC and has extended the breadth and deepend his investment into the areas that have given him the best returns.

He's reinvested some of earnings in keyword sourcing tools and (I believe) competitor/merchant analysis with Hitwise (I could be wrong mate). But Kieron has also built up sites focused on obtaining natural search engine traffic and built brands around niche topics and marketed them accordingly (more on these two topics later).

So what can you learn from Kieron?
If you're good at PPC try stuff out, work out what works, increase your knowledge of this strategy but always keep a "Plan B" to fall back on if CPC providers change the rules.

3) Think branding

Jason Dale's (well his business's) Loquax site is a great example of how to create a brand. It takes some marketing to build a site that has 153,000 mentions in Google.

For the past 5 years Loquax has been in the top 100,000 sites according to Alexa (yes I know it has credability issues). But to build a site that is pretty much resistant to the fickleness of the search engines is a huge achievement.

So what can you learn from Jason?
You can learn about building a strong site that offers people what they want but is supported by a strong brand that is put in front of users at every opportunity. His marketing strategy has branding at it's core - this is where many affiliate fail.

4) Be Passionate

There are two affiliates that come to mind when it comes to being passionate (3 if you include me). The first is Paul Wheately.

When something pisses Paul off we all know about it. And 99.99% of the time he's got every reason to be. If it's spyware, merchants that put phone numbers on their site, networks that don't communicate or whatever, Paul is always there letting the culprits know.

So we've got Paul that is Passionate about the industry. But there's also passion about your niche. For this I go back to James Avery. At any Get2Gether that I attend (far fewer these days) we always have a good natter about the travel/airline industry. Basically what James doesn't know about the airline industry isn't worth knowing. He turns up to the majarity of press conferences and get's his face out there. P.s. James, I wish you had a blog!

What can you learn from Paul and James?

5) Communicate with your users

Clarke Duncan, has been around since the start and has honed his sites to reduce the reliance on the search engines by incorporating newsletter subscription as a central revenue generating element of his Free UK Offers site.

This is something I brought into my own business model far too late (due to a lack of technical knowledge).

His mailing lists are massive and can make any affiliate manager get a stiffy when they think of the potential eyeballs on their offering.

What can you learn from Clarke?
Don't think of a visitor as having a short life span. You can earn from a visitor for years. It's far cheaper to keep a user than getting a new one. Build in an email subscription option on your site and communicate with them properly.

6) Use technology wisely

Chris Young runs CompareStorePrices. It may not be the most visually appealling site on the internet but it does the most important thing - make money.

CSP's may have had it's ups and downs, but a useful site it is. One thing I hate about Kelkoo and PriceRunner is that products are improperly categorised and you often get a load of rubbish in there. CompareStorePrices gives you the right products for your searches - and that's all you want.

What Chris has done well at is harnessing technology to make a very useful site. Many affiliates use technology to polish their egos. They make clever little scripts that do all sorts of crap, but Chris has used technology wisely and hasn't let any ego get in the way of his business.

What can you learn from Chris?

Less is more, technology should be used to enhance the user experience and to get them to the righ merchant's checkout as quick as possible.

7) Think outside the box, think niche

What I like about Keith Budden is that he doesn't get caught up in the general shopping sites that are two to a dozen. He thinks ahead and thinks of the niche sites that people get attacted to and stick with. Sites like Charles and Camilla, was a great coup for Kieth and got a fair bit of press and his Find cheap petrol sites hit the mark big time, but for a short period.

Site's don't have to be like Jason's, James's or Clarke's to provide great revenue. A great approach (which I've certainly learned from) is to create sites that go with a bang, they earn very good revenue in a short period of time. If you hit the mark, you'll rake it in.

What can you learn from Keith?

Think ahead, take risks and build sites around future events or around topics that bring the nation together.