I have been involved in affiliate marketing for more years than I care to disclose. The main reason for my secrecy is due to my lack of success. To be frank I am a terrible marketer. In a nutshell, I HATE selling with a passion. And the thing I HATE even worse than selling is being sold. So, being involved in an industry where I have to be contantly selling and that people are constantly trying to sell me something was a complete drain on my psyche.
Then a couple of years ago, I got involved with the Hive Blockchain. I saw that as a way to make money online without having to be contantly selling and having to wade through a barrage of ads on a daily basis. I could make money be just talking about what interested me. I could talk about playing games. I could talk about family history. I could talk about watching The Chosen. You get the picture. While I have not yet made my first million, I have been able to create a cache of a crypto worth a couple of thousand dollars (not a retirement, but MUCH more than I ever earned with affiliate marketing).
Now, with the relaunch of ListNerds, I am being thrust back in the the affiliate marketing scene. I am dutifully reading my emails every day and staking my earnings to help my income grow (standard "in for the long run" blockchain mentality). Then it hits me, every day I am receiving two types of emails in ListNerds. Those from affiliate marketers (the barrage of ads I was talking about) and those from Hivers (the ones that point to a blog post). I get the reasoning behind both, but this is where I had an epiphany. I still don't like being bombarded with ads, but I am receiving links to posts that actually catch my interest (some of which involve affiliate marketing).
So, let me ask you a thought provoking question. If all you had to watch on your television were commercials, would you even turn it on? I know...there will be a boatload of inspiring and comical Super Bowl ads on this weekend, but that is not what I am talking about. No dramas, no comedies, no sports...just someone trying to sell me their product or service all day long. THAT is what your standard affiliate marketer is trying to do. Their mantra is that if you throw enough against the wall, some of it will stick. It's all a numbers game. Well, I, for one, am done with it. So for every email I get on ListNerds that sends me to a site that wants my money or my email address, expect a downvote. However, if you are interested in sending me information I might find useful, interesting, or beneficial to me in some way, expect an upvote.
The moral of the story is this...STOP PUSHING YOUR CRAP AT ME SO YOU WILL BENEFIT FROM IT!! Start thinking about the person that will read your email. How will what you have to say benefit them? I'm not talking about a list of bullets points with features of your product/service. I'm talking about telling people how you have benefited from something or how much fun you had doing something or just what you enjoy doing. Let people get to know you. Here's another though provoking question...would you rather do business with someone you know or someone that just walked up to you on the street?
It's time to rethink your marketing strategy. It may take longer to "build your list" of people that want to do business with you, but the ones that do will be much more likely to stick around and listen to what you have to say.
