Q: I have read many articles regarding Affiliate Marketing, but NONE have really answered or refuse to SHARE their knowledge. My question is WHY don’t marketers talk about the “HOW” of affiliate Marketing? They talk about everything else but!
A: I guess the problem could be that you’re not looking in the right places. There are a number of recent guides that I read and thought they’d be useful to folks new to affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Jonathan Volk has created a free guide called Affiliate Marketing 101, and another affiliate, Nicholas (NickyCakes) Koscianski created an Affiliate Marketing Newbie Guide.
Both of these are fairly brief and easy to understand guides on getting started in affiliate marketing. And they’re free.
If you’ve got some money to invest in learning materials, check out the ShoeMoney System from affiliate Jeremy Schoemaker.
This is a video training program that walks affiliates through the steps to make money online, based on what Schoemaker did to achieve success.
Also, I have a short overview for affiliate newbies on my blog to get started in the business.
The “HOW” is out there.
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another thing on people not leaving behind documentation or information when they leave a job… this is also BS sometimes.
Many times the former employee does document and try to transition work even spending weeks with their future replacements. However, it is much easier for the people taking over just to point the finger for 6-12 months and say “John did not leave us any documentation and he was the only one who knew this stuff!!”. It’s an easy cop-out i have seen used over and over in the workplace.
People ask us (my wife and) I all the time how we do what we do, traveling and working from anywhere using the Internet.
When I explain “why”, people are all ears.
As soon as I start getting into “how”, people’s eyes glaze over and they don’t really listen.
One time, someone actually walked away while I was giving them some great how-to strategies that they had requested. They later came back and said, “I’m sorry… You were saying?”
I think most people aren’t willing to put in the time and effort to really learn it… when they learn that it’s not as easy as eating a gourmet meal on a silver platter with a slice of mango and salsa on the side (or a bowl of mango chutney on the side as Yanik Silver says), they realize it’s more difficult than some affiliate marketers make it look.
Maybe I should start telling people “It’s REALLY hard. You wouldn’t be interested because it takes SOOOO much work.” But that’s not exactly true.
We do work hard, no doubt… even when it doesn’t look like we’re working hard. But I also don’t want to tell people it’s REALLY hard, because it’s not. And I want people to have the time and income to travel the world with us, volunteer at/donate to charities or church, be there more for their kids, or do whatever they want in life.
Using affiliate income as the vehicle to getting whatever you want in life really creates an awesome life.
Anyway, that’s the why side of things.
How to…
I’ve made 30+ free videos and posted them to YouTube about the How-To’s of affiliate marketing.
There are thousands of other great videos and tips. Heck, people sharing how-to information for free or cheap is the only reason I’m even able to be an affiliate marketer.
I almost started name-dropping here for all the people I’ve learned things from (most I’ve learned from for free), but I realized I would be here commenting for a very long time.
I’m also not sure where this person is looking, but I think you’re dead-on with your analysis here Shawn.
Warmest,
Jonathan
I’m very careful about referring people to Affiliate Summit if they are still in the learning mode. I believe with the upcoming Affiliate Summit in New York there is a change afoot to label some of the sessions according to the potential level, which could include beginners. I think that will make it better for newer people but the money needed to attend the conference where you have access to the sessions is a bit of a barrier for most new people and no guarantee that as a newbie you will get an ROI from that investment.
Generally, I guide newer folks down the path towards Affiliate Summit if they already have a strength in some area (SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media usage with a purpose, Web Design). If a person has a core strength in one or more of those areas, then I’m much more likely to refer them to Affiliate Summit to learn as a beginner how to become an Affiliate Marketer.
There is a flip side to that, if it is an existing company looking to market their wares, I WILL refer them to Affiliate Summit to get the immersion course and I typically provide personal referals to companies I have met myself at Affiliate Summit that might be likely to assist them.
To the actual question of why people don’t share?
Its a competitive marketplace. For those that come up with a good working system, if they share that information, they risk increasing their competitors in their own space. Only the super creative can keep ahead of the tide and invent new methods, new systems, new applications of working systems to new environments and products.
The industry needs the ground breakers to find new things, but they also need the type personalities that will come through and farm the hell out of a system, optimizing it for everything it is worth and growing the industry.
Its the latter type that needs to share, and they tend to share from what I have seen by starting and growing small firms, hiring employees and teaching those employees components of the system so that they can specialize in those components.
The ground breakers like a Rockefeller mixed with an Edison by nature don’t want to share because they move in and out of things a little faster. Their brand new system from their perspective has a shorter shelf life because they demand a very high and more immediate return than the personality type that will grow, milk, mine, farm a process slowly.
The session speakers often times tend to be the flamboyant ground breakers that have achieved something amazing or the uber specialists within a company that know one aspect really well.
Its very difficult to find that Generalist that is also an excellent trainer. Tim Ash does some amazing work and his book is awesome, but he’s not really a trainer. His business model is to move folks ultimately to do business with his company. Nothing wrong with that and I recommend him all the time btw.
Jeremy Palmer does a pretty good job providing very useful PPC learning material for begginers, intermediates and advanced, although I think the sylabus would be greatly helped with a kick ass editor stepping in from a company like Total Training or Lynda or something.
Those are two examples of people that do share and in different ways and with different business models, but I think the industry is missing something else. . . .
The major Affiliate Networks also try to teach through online universities and their own conferences. Personally, I have found these to be awkward and difficult to access despite what appears to be a major investment of time, money, and people from the major networks. Obviously, they have the most to gain from a larger network of successful affiliates! But I think what they are missing is the ability to recognize that most affiliates work with multiple networks which dillutes the attention and learning necessary to become successful. I think there needs to be a third party such as a University of Phoenix (a real university) that puts together a ful fledged marketing program both at a Bachelors and a Master’s level.
I think there would also be a big benefit in running specialty programs through tech schools as well. Most colleges, tech schools and universities are in the dark ages when it comes to internet marketing.
There is plenty of information out there if you look hard enough. And many good affiliate managers would love to help affiliates learn how to succeed. But the fact is there is a serious learning curve and most people aren’t willing to make the required commitment anyways.
But it all comes down to a few things.
1. People are looking for the easy way and aren’t willing to really do the work.
2. Sometimes a technique or strategy works for one person but not others (everyone has their own skill set). What works for one may not work for others.
3. Most successful affiliate marketers worked hard to learn how to succeed. Why would they want to share their “secrets” for free. That’s why all the gurus try to sell you their “way”.
pimping the shoemoney guru product? ugh.
just find a traffic source, a CPA network, and put the 2 together with a damn landing page and TEST over and over and over. its not that people don’t want to share, its that people want campaigns HANDED to them instead of doing real WORK. You don’t need a guru product to teach you this, especially since those 2 free guides probably offer more value.
> You don’t need a guru product to teach you this…
Agreed, but he breaks it down into easy to understand steps.
It’s clear as can be to people already doing it, but for the guy with an 8 year old computer that doesn’t know a thing, that sort of hand holding is helpful.
If everybody starts doing the same thing the process will become ineffective. This I think is the leading concern. However, there are hundreds of blogs dedicated to affiliate marketing that have a lot of valuable information.
Do you know of any free more advanced courses? A lot of the courses are very basic. I have joined the Keyword Academy which has some nice tools in addition to training. Thanks
Once you have a background in affiliate marketing, I’d suggest spending time in forums, reading blogs, and attending conferences to learn more and get tips.
I found this posting fascinating as it is very similar to a question in corporate america and in the government. As people leaving companies, why don’t they share knowledge. It cost companies big money to retrain people or build new knowledge systems because employees don’t diligently document their experiences or corporate knowledge until the very end of their tenure. The federal government is having the same exact problem as people begin to retire (or the supposed 30% by 2012).
Looking at marketing and knowledge management (there is an IT/Education discipline for sharing knowledge), many things can be considered common. It takes many attempts to find the bulls eye in both disciplines. Companies don’t want to document their failures only the success stories in the form of case studies. All affiliate marketers or marketing experts do the same thing.
Look at Coke – how many bad products have they shelved when sales went south. However, when a product was hot – they called it the ‘next big thing.’ Even beloved Google has had some products that they thought were going to be ‘hot’ but didn’t really gain much traction due to marketing and branding issues.
Knowledge sharing is only done when it is absolutely necessary. You need solid research and a case study to prove it. Gaining that knowledge and building a rock solid case takes a lot of effort but when done right – it can be a gold mine. AM and Corporate are similar in that they don’t want to reveal the failures, only the success – and when the success is substantive, why provide the keys to the kingdom.
The one creating the success story has a right to ride the wave to the top until the ‘formula” is figured out.
There’s so much hype and misleading commentary associated with Internet marketing “training” programs that a newbie might easily conclude there’s no affordable help. Certainly no “quick,” “easy” or affordable help.
As Shawn mentions–there are good resources available in various price ranges to get started Iff you do your research there are also blogs and newsletters to help build a foundation of knowledge.
Most of all — just begin. That is truly the key to success. Be patient and set realistic expectations about how long it will take to develop the sites and an income. It’s never overnight and there is no guarateed perfect formula.
Good luck!
They should attend Affiliate Summit and take some time to talk to people. They will find plenty of people there willing to share information and resources. Even aside from the sessions where you are essentially paying to get the information from the experts, the casual conversations at meals, parties, etc. are an unbelievable opportunity to learn not only the basics but a lot of advanced tips as well. Exchange information and follow those people on Twitter or their blogs or wherever else they are and you will find an endless stream of affiliate marketing information that you won’t even be able to keep up with!
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