A friend and I were chatting last weekend about the art of the sale. She’d gone into an offline business in which she needed to sell a tangible product (think Mary Kay or HerbaLife, etc.).
Knowing that I sell things online, via affiliate marketing, she asked me for some advice. The advice I shared with her applies to all facets of sale whether online or off.
The first thing I asked her was her goal. How many of the products did she intend to sell? Once we had a (reasonable) goal mapped out, I then told her she needed to pay attention to the people around her. When she’d found their specific need, offer to fill it.
Needless to say, she gave me the most quizzical look ever. But if you think about it, that’s all selling really is: Identifying a person’s needs or problem and then providing the solution.
If she wanted to sell her products, she needed to find the people who would most benefit from it rather than bombarding everyone in her path. It’s the same thing with online traffic; one should seek out targeted traffic (people interested in what’s being offered) rather than generic traffic (people who are just passing through).
It’s a question of where to find that traffic. In her case, she needed to think about what complemented the product she was offering. Find those businesses and seek out partnerships.
The same applies to online marketing. Find the websites and other services which complement what you have to offer and seek out relationships. Consider creating alliances for mutual benefit.
To give an example, if you’re selling fish bowls, you might want to track down the seller of fishes. He’ll send you business after he sells and fish and you can send people interested in purchasing fish his way.
Change the way you think about the other websites online–see them as partners rather than competitors–and you’ll change the way you earn money.