As an affiliate marketer, the ability to communicate the right message to your audience is an essential skill necessary for success. Those who have made a living in this industry continue to thrive because they know not just what to say, but how to say it – without overwhelming their readers. The same idiom applies here as in many other business practices: sometimes, “less is more.”
Clear for Landing
Developing a crisp, clear landing page for your website is a good idea if you want to reach your audience effectively. As tempting as it is to place as many banners on your web space as it will allow, a landing page inundated with banners (or worse, with embedded music) will turn an audience off before they even process the offers you are trying to convey to them.
Think of a busy webpage as the brightly-colored ad pages at the end of a newspaper. People most often use these advertisements for pet cage lining or skip them altogether: while the intention may be there, too many ideas thrown at your audience simultaneously dilutes the effectiveness of your advertising strategy.
As for forced or automatically-launching audio on a webpage, consider the novelty of a musical greeting card: remember how quickly the appeal wore off after the third replay of “The Chicken Dance?” You probably relegated it to the bottom of your keepsake box at home or maybe even your trash bin. If you’re populating your webpage for the first time, or find you’re not getting the results you projected, consider these techniques: utilize simple tabs and menus, promote only bold yet effective images, and a place a few banners (at most) above the fold.
Engaging Experience
There is a distinct difference between “speaking to” and “speaking with” your online audience. The former seems almost archaic nowadays, as consumer feedback in the retail landscape has been observed to dramatically change entire marketing campaigns overnight. and it’s precisely why the latter notion involves responding to the feedback you receive on your site: through your hit count, revenue, or actual messages sent from audience members.
By adapting to the subtle changes that work for your website and providing an opportunity for your site traffic to make the decisions you would like them to come to on their own accord, you may find your online efforts to be much more effective.
Direct (e)Mail
A mailing campaign is another tool that can be either a calculated windfall or turn into an unmitigated disaster. Reaching your audience by having them voluntarily submit their contact information in order to directly inform them of the latest promotions available on your website is an effective method. The dangerous side effect of this strategy is that you can “drown” your audience in too many messages in your efforts to reach them.
The best path: If your audience can expect concise, comprehensive newsletters that introduce them to the best promotions you have available, they will likely return to you instinctively for other deals as well, due to the trusting relationship you have forged together by not wasting their time.
A Mindful Marketing Maverick
Combining innovative ideas with tried-and-true methods (used sparingly) to reach your web traffic can turn into an effective mantra for many affiliate marketers. Knowing how to engage your audience with finesse and not overwhelm them with your intended message is a skill that separates veterans from novices and success from dire situations. Keen minds know to take every “surefire method for success” available online with a grain of salt– but sometimes, “less” really is more.