Affiliate Marketing Strategies That Work

How to leverage bad situations for your digital marketing good.

No matter what business you are in, especially now, loss prevention is critical. Unlike a student who can retake a test or use another grade or another project to pick up the slack there are no grades in business. There is just one grading system in business. This system is called profitability.

Profitability is one of the most important things in the entreprenuer’s life. However it is one of the hardest things to accomplish. Most businesses, if they are going to fail, fail within the first 5 years of existence.

One thing that I know for sure is that I am very committed to your success. Another thing that I believe, is that all things work together for my Good. I believe that things happen for a reason, and I believe that is the same in every area of life. This includes digital marketing. I believe when life gives you lemons it is imperative that you make lemonade.

Tough Business Decision

When I had to make a tough business decision, I felt good about it because I know that I am committed to my company’s profitability and to learn from every single experience, good or bad. I recently had an experience that was not the most pleasant. I was dating some guy, and we were interested in each other. It was long distance “talking.” He was on the east coast and I was on the west.

As time moved on we ended up collaborating together for a tour for the artists, THE GS Boyz. I was asked to be the digital marketing director for thier upcoming tour, and if you remember the GS Boyz were the group that had the 2009 hit, STANKY LEG. STANKY LEG was certified Gold in 2009.

So I was really excited to be working on this project, and because of the relationship that I had with their tour manager I verbally agreed to be on the project. During the course of this project I found that the artists did not have a website, their social media strategy was in shambles, thier wikipedia page was outdated, and I was working quickly to put everything together so that their entire digital marketing presence was organized and on point. I also did extensive keyword research. My research found that 57,000 people are looking for GS Boyz related keyword terms monthly! Since the man that tapped me for this Return of the GS Boyz Tour project was a personal friend, I did not adhere to my typical on boarding process of a statement of work being signed and a deposit made to start work. I trusted this relationship (i.e. my guard was lowered), and I consented on starting the project without payment up front.

So during the course of this month and a half I put in a lot of work. I created all of their tour social media including instagram, graphic designs for tour eflyers, created a web page on this domain to raise awareness of the 57,000 people search monthly for GS Boyz related keywords. I created and posted content to their social media channels, and began designing a website that I was going to host on my company servers. I even updated their wikipedia page!

Everything was progressing, and the website was very close to launch until I was asked to sign a non disclosure agreement.

Back to Reality

When I was asked to sign the non disclosure agreement that completely snapped me back to reality and I remembered that I am running a business, not a non profit. At that moment when I saw the amount of work building, and payoff date was not specified I moved to fix this. I spoke with the GS Boyz manager the wednesday before the saturday morning that I sent him the statement of work. This conversation was the basis of the information that I used to draft a Statement of Work that I sent him. Over 24 hours passed before I recieved a response from the statement of work. In the next conversation I was accused of being behind schedule in the website launch. I was confused because I made it clear from the very start that my paying clients come first.

Again I was asked to sign the non disclosure. I communicated clearly that I would not sign the non disclosure until my statement of work was signed. After the statement of work was not signed in a timely fashion, and I knew the website was on a time schedule I had to make a decision. Do I spend more time on this website without a clear path to compensation? Do I put the website up and use it as a “backlink” to my own site to boost my seo? Is the time and materials necessary to complete the website worth it? I had to conclude that no, there are way too many cheaper methods to get a backlink then to build a website for free. And, unlike my younger self, my older self is not so star struck that I just HAD to have this website in my portfolio as a client. I knew I would be fine.

So when I communicated that I could not sign the non disclosure with out a compensation agreement it was clear that that was not the right answer. The GS Boyz Manager was upset, and my hands were tied. I ended up downloading and sending the work I did do via email to them for future use. However I still had the page on my website that I created to promote THE GS BOYZ. In analyzing the content there I saw a way to monetize my work that the GS Boyz did not want to pay for. I decided to use an affiliate linking system.

I am an AMAZON affiliate, and I just hyper linked content from that existing page with my affiliate links, and VIOLA, the traffic that page gets will go to Amazon and if a purchase is made, I will reap the benefits financially.

Affiliate Marketing Strategies That Work

There are three lessons I found from this episode in the life of THE SEO QUEEN:

1. Be Consistent: When you have a process that makes you money, stick to it. When I let my guard down because of a relationship (that has now ended),
I was put in an ackward situation. I should have drawn up paper work no matter what. Recently my mom expressed interest in doing business with me. I told her that
I will draw up the paper work when the time is right. You have to make sure that all expectations are clear.

2. Be Creative: Sometimes you make mistakes, you are human. It happens to all of us. However, you can turn that situation around if you have a mind to always
monetize your pain, disappointment, and set backs in a creative way. I was able to monetize some of the work that I did by simply adding links to amazon using my affiliate account.

3. Be Cautious: Never sign a Non Disclosure agreement unless the path to compensation is clear!

The Seo Queen has been my full time focus for over a year now. It has been one of the most exhilarating, frustrating, challenging, and gratifying ventures that I have engaged in to date. Since I have been working The SEO QUEEN full time in September I have generated 100+ leads for The Seo Queen alone. I would love to chat with you in more detail about how I can help you sell more music and more art. If you have a difficult situation that you believe is holding you back from the revenue that you desire in your business: we should talk now. I help musicians and artists attract more fans and customers so that they can sell their music and art to a broader audience.