Learning to Survive the Affiliate Marketing Jungle
Affiliate marketing can be intimidating from time to time. It’s a world almost as vast and complex as the incredibly beautiful and complex Amazon rainforest. The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest covering some 2.72 million square miles and containing over 390 billion individual trees. This massive jungle also teems with life—roughly 30 percent of the whole world’s plant and animal species are found in the Amazon.
In addition to the man-made threats that the Amazon faces, there is also a constant battle every day for the many creatures who live there to survive. Every action and adaptation of each species is there to help them live another day. Those who work in affiliate marketing can learn a few lessons from the tenacious tactics of the animals of the Amazon.
Embrace the Competitive Environment
Like the Amazon rainforest, affiliate marketing is a crowded space with a lot of competition. And as frustrating as it may be on occasion, overall the competitive nature of affiliate marketing can be a major positive. The high level of excitement and energy in the affiliate marketing space is the sign of a healthy and robust industry.
Competition is vital because it pushes innovation and creativity. If you had no competition and simply did the same campaigns and strategies every year it is likely that your business would become stale. A competitive marketplace fosters growth as well—with so many other affiliates the most logical path to sustained success is to be creative in how you scale up.
Own Your Niche
One surefire way for an animal to survive in the jungle is to fill a unique niche, like the amazing glass frog. The glass frog has translucent skin that allows you to see its internal organs but also helps the frog better camouflage on whatever surface it sits upon. When you work as an affiliate marketer, it is up to you to develop clever strategies that will give you an advantage.
The ideal way to develop your niche is to have a good understanding of your strengths and work towards leveraging them as much as possible. If you work with an affiliate network, discussing your strengths with an affiliate account manager could help you pin down how exactly you can find the perfect niche and exploit it to outflank your competition.
Be Your Best
The jungle is a game of survival of the fittest and the same goes for affiliate marketing. You have to be ready to go above and beyond if you want to build a successful business with sustainable growth. Some ways to improve your capabilities are to automate certain practices like email marketing or lead filtering. You should also take a detailed look at your website and make sure it is optimized for mobile so that you don’t miss out on the incredible recent increases in mobile search.
Similarly, make sure to audit your sales funnel and try to spot any specific spots where you may be losing prospects. By looking at every aspect of your business, you can push it towards being the best it can be—turning your organization into a lean, mean, lead-generating machine.
Keep an Eye on the Competition
While competition certainly is healthy, you’ll also need to always regard your rivals with a watchful eye. Every once and a while, take a good look at what your competitors are doing and try to gain an understanding of what they are doing differently—and most importantly why. If they suddenly shift their marketing strategy, they may be doing so because of market trends or they could just want to shake things up. It’s up to you to figure out what the actions of your competitors are telling you. It is wise to not copy them exactly but to figure out what trends they are learning from and see if you can manage such changes in an even smarter way.
Like the many species of the Amazon, it takes a deft mix of smarts, strength, and flexibility to stay alive in the world of affiliate marketing. Once you’re able to find your niche and leverage it to grow, you’ll not only survive the affiliate marketing jungle—you’ll thrive.
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