Learning by Doing is a good way to gain experience.  And for our youth, teaching them Affiliate Marketing can better help them understand what it is that we do.  And build a solid work ethic for our kids at the same time.

As some of you saw on my Facebook status…  My Son has joined Cub Scouts.  I couldn’t be more proud.  I was a Scout at his age, and for a lot of years.  And what is one component of their fund raising effort to pay for camp, programs, craft items, and their badges and awards?  Affiliate Marketing!

So my Son is learning how to sell, online.  Below is his first email effort.  Not bad for a 9 yr old (he did have a little help, but I’m happy to say not much).  And yes (shameless plug), click his link and help him reap some rewards for his efforts.  He gets to earn his own way to camp next summer with Affiliate Marketing.

Did you know you can help me earn my own way in Scouting?

Just click here and place an order for Trail’s End Popcorn on my behalf.

http://www.trails-end.com/estore/scouts/email_referral.jsp?id=7957459

You know the “Seven P’s”?  Oh come on now…  It’s Q4.  The busiest and most profitable time of the year.  The time when your PPC and Affiliate Marketing competitors are raking in the dough.  And it’s all related to the “Seven P’s”.  It’s a cliche’, and I know you’ve heard it before.  But just as a reminder…

Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!

Do you have your promotions, specials, email newsletters, twitter campaigns, etc. all mapped out through the end of the year yet?  If you do, it’s time to review them.  If you don’t, well, repeat after me…  “Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”…  That means it’s time to plan.  NOW!  Not next week, not tomorrow.  Today, now.

Let’s do this step by step so we get it right.  You may or may not have some of the specifics here but ignore that.  Just apply it to what you do.  And if you do things we don’t include.  Fine, just add them to your mix.  It’s okay.  Let’s just define what types of promotional venues, then add in some time constraints, then put it all together.

Let’s say you have your site (only one in this example, multiply for each site you own) and that site has some social pages like Squidoo, Hubpages, etc.  A Twitter account, a blog, a newsletter, and a friendfeed, myspace, facebook.  You get the drift.  Places where you promote your site.  You can easily add in your PPC adverts, etc.

Here’s how I plan it.  I use a spreadsheet.  Yes, a spreadsheet.  There are columns across the top for the various types of promotions.  Kind of like this:

AffSpot Promotion Planner Spreadsheet

Easy right?  This is where you brainstorm.  Go through your links, Check out the AffSpot Affiliate News for the latest merchant promotions, etc. and begin to build your plan.  Notice that I’ve started at Halloween and went right through Christmas Day.  Yes, that’s three months (2.5 now really).  But if your not planning ahead..  I mean, come on, do you want me to make you repeat the “Seven P’s” again?

Now comes the fun part.  You take the notes you’ve made while researching offers, etc.  And you brainstorm a little bit on how you want to craft your message for each promotion.  This takes time, and sometimes you get a little goofy (like the time I ran a “Hangover After Halloween” promo).  But that’s okay.  And yes, here’s some help for you there too.  I have a second sheet just for recording this.

Now are you getting the idea?  It’s not that tough.  And if you looked at the second sheet close enough you’ll see I didn’t choose “On Sale” items for the Goulish Golf promotion.  I chose stuff that I could tie into a Halloween theme out of golf items.  Day glo golfballs, bright green shoes, safety orange golf bags, etc.  Just because it’s a promotion doesn’t mean it has to be a special price.  It just has to fit the theme of a promotion.  Don’t avoid pushing price.  But don’t avoid pushing regular price items either.

Now, here is the most important part…  Putting the two sheets together.  Creating some good graphics.  And doing all the work at the right time to promote your sites.  But you have everything on your spreadsheet…  Right?  So you can just sit down and do it.  And if you visit your plan every week, review it, do a little more research, etc. you can do something the “big boys” can’t do…  CHANGE!  You can turn on a dime since you have the format down.

Just doing “The Seven P’s” and getting your promotions planned and on your calendar now will help you make more money.   Oh, you want that spreadsheet?  Sure thing.  I’ve added it as a post in the AffSpot Forum thread tied to this blogpost.  It’s right HERE.  Log onto the AffSpot Affiliate Forum and it’s all yours.

Now repeat after me……

I love minisites…  I mean I really LOVE minisites.  You see, minisites are easy to deploy, low maintenance, and if you build your templates right you can just plug them into your favorite CMS and really make things easy for yourself.  Which means you can target niches like crazy.  Which is good.

This also means I manage lots of domain names.  I target locally as well as a niche.  So if I put up a minisite to sell gas caps I’ll have domain names like londongascaps.co.uk, stlouisgascaps.com, gascapsoftoronto.ca, you get the idea.  With each site targeting a local area (remember, “go local” is a movement now).

I also target multiple niches..  Gas caps, Oreck Vacuums , Bunn Coffeemakers, Wordpress Themes, etc.  So you do the math..  10 niches in 75 markets = 750 minisites (for example).  that’s alot of sites.  And building a mesh of links between my niches and sites just can’t be done manually without driving yourself crazy.  But this is fixable.  It would be easy if you had your own advertising network, wouldn’t it?

With your own advertising network you can pre-build your link code for each site as your building out the site…  Copy/Paste the code, upload the banners, and your done.  And they rotate too.  I use broad patterns like Oreck ads on my Coffemaker sites, hubcap ads on my gascap sites, etc.  Niches that go well together.  With a slight dose of my other niches at a lower priority which will bring in a stray nugget often enough to do it.

And if I want to push affiliate offers through my network of minisites?  Easy, I plug my affiliate program links and banners into my advertising network system, enable the campaign, and I’m off to the races.  In less than 10 minutes I can search ShareASale or Affiliatefuture, or CJ, or whomever and find a program I like, get approved, and deploy up to 750 of my minisites with the offering.

So people find my minisites because they want what I’m selling.  If they buy, terrific, if they don’t, that’s the breaks, but I’m offering my visitors links that will take them to other niches and offers I’m promoting through the banners, badges, and text links from within my own network of minisites.  In other words, I’m maximizing the potential for my site visitors to buy.

And it’s fairly straightforward and not difficult at all to run an advertising server of your own.  I use OpenX (GPL, Open Source Software) that runs extremely well, is easy to manage, and I don’t even have to host it.  OpenX has a hosted solution for lower volumes that is perfect for affiliate marketers.  At no cost.  Oh, your a control freak?  Not a problem, many control panels (like Virtualmin) will install OpenX for you.  Now that’s almost as easy as the hosted solution.

And that’s how to take the networks of minisites you build in your localized niches and cross promote them.

We have all seen it in other blog posts, twits, and when talking with AM’s out there.  Offline Marketing.  The most visible of these has been in the dating segment of affiliate marketing.  You’ve seen the signs on the street corners…  “Single?  NameOfYourTownSingles.com”.  Add to that all the other methods of offline marketing I’ve seen.  Stickers stuck to the drive-thru window at Krispee Kreme, Flyers at the convenience store, etc.

But what if you can do offline marketing…  online?

Now I’m sure someone has thought of this before (as a matter of fact, I’ve seen versions of it).  But every time I’ve seen it it’s been someone promoting their own thing.  Like people entering a contest to win a prize while submitting their address, phone, and email at a Clinton Anderson horse training event.  But let’s digress and show you how I’ve come to the idea of Offline Marketing – Online.

A good example in the physical world is my brother in law.  He owns several car/truck aftermarket stores.  Does very well with it.  He rented an empty store in a shopping mall last Christmas season.  And parked a fully tricked out pickup truck in it.  Added a few items from his existing inventory.  Had plenty of his catalogs, brochures, etc.  And proceeded to “kick butt and take names”.  He paid for the entire Christmas season in one day.  Found customers he never would have had before.  Sold more product, garnered more name recognition, built his brand, and made profits above and beyond what he normally would have.  99% of the sales involved the customer driving across town for installation as well.  How is that for Offline Marketing?

This would also work at a Mall, flea market, etc.  All you have to do it contact the manager of a high traffic venue and work them a deal.  Generally a copy of the email list (which is actually entered by the people you talk to) will more than make their day.  Oh, yes, you’ll need to contact your Affiliate Manager and walk them through what your going to do.  I mean, come on…  300 email submits from the same wireless connection?  You’ll need to talk with your AM first and make sure your doing it right.

Devious people could go crazy with this… So you need to mind your Ps & Qs.  Find email submits and surveys that are very reliable, very up and up.  Mix those offers with offers of your own products and services that your website sells.  How about a Christmas Kiosk with 20 of your top selling items you demonstrate and best of all, your new customers can handle the online order themselves at your kiosk after they fill out a survey for a discount?  Adding themselves to your marketing list?  With their items being conveniently shipped right to their door?

Offline Marketing does work.  Doing your offline marketing while being online could provide a way to give your online efforts an edge over your competitors.