Building a business of any kind is not complex even if it does take much hard work. This is true of any money making endeavor including internet and affiliate marketing. As ecommerce continues to grow, many households are attempting to enter affiliate marketing as a home-based business. This article provides a look at a nine-step plan of action taught in various MBA programs around the country including the University of Phoenix. It is a formula any business owner can follow in order to grow their enterprise. If you wish to build an effective affiliate marketing business, the nine-step plan will be an excellent guide for you as well. Step 1: Describe your current situation in vivid detail. Take out a pen and paper and thoroughly describe your current situation. Be brutally honest about your business and the circumstances contributing to the present state of affairs. For instance, Sammy is struggling to make money with his home-based affiliate marketing business. He has subscribed to the bum marketing system and has written 20 articles about a certain product which he has posted on Ezinearticles. He has written a review of the product that he has posted on a well-known blog carrier. His click-through-rate (CTR) to the review has been fairly steady. Yet, he has not made any sales. Sammy’s wife is growing impatient with his new venture because he is working overtime on the internet marketing, neglecting his family to add a little extra income. The current economic conditions have contributed to the need for another income stream. Step 2: Craft a broadly stated problem statement that will lead to many possibilities for a solution. After you have thoroughly described your situation, boil it down to pinpoint the most glaring problem or problems. Then, frame the problem in broad terms in order that it might lead to many possibilities for a solution. Write a problem statement that does not include a solution within it. The statement should answer the questions: (a) what do you aspire for your business and (b) what is the major challenge you face that must be overcome to accomplish your purpose. For instance, Sammy will increase profitability as an affiliate marketing agent by becoming more effective and efficient in his affiliate work thereby adding extra cash to the family coffers while returning balance to the various parts of his life. Step 3: Describe what your “end-state” goals. In this third part, the business owner or affiliate defines what he wants the business to look like when it has attained its ultimate end. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, calls this part seeing the end from the beginning. In Sammy’s case, he might write something like: Sammy’s home-based affiliate marketing business exists to take advantage of online opportunities by putting into practice efficient and effective affiliate techniques thereby (a) establishing a viable source of extra income while (b) maintaining a fair balance of time with the family. Step 4: Identify the possible alternatives relevant to your problem statement and end-state goals. In this section, the would-be entrepreneur will want to go to the internet to research companies or individuals who have experienced similar problems as he or she has. This is called benchmarking which basically means finding the best practices of others within your business or of those in other businesses. Once the business owner has identified many possible solutions to his problem then he can list them out and summarize them. For example, Sammy might write: Issue: Sammy is not getting potential buyers to click through the blog review to purchase the product he represents. Opportunity: Sammy has the opportunity to improve his click through rate by improving his review article posted his blog. Alternative solution: Sammy will improve his click through rate by rewriting his review article. Benchmarking: Affiliate marketing expert Travis Sago, owner of Bum Marketing, improved his click through rate by fine tuning review pages. This process may take much time but it will pay off for those who sincerely work through it. Step 5: Evaluate the possible alternatives After identifying a wide variety of alternatives, the next step is to evaluate those alternatives. When assessing the various possibilities, a business owner or affiliate marketer will want to compare each alternative with his or her end-state goals. By this evaluation procedure, the affiliate will want to decide which three or four alternatives present the best-case solutions. Step 6: Identify and Assess Risks The sixth step is to identify and assess risks of each alternative. For an internet marketer like Sammy the risks are generally seen in opportunity costs, which basically means time or money spent on one alternative that might have been better spent on another. For Sammy, one risk could be weaker relationships with his wife or children due to an inordinate amount of time spent on developing his affiliate marketing business. Step 7: Make the Decision After identifying the possible alternatives and assessing the possible risks, the business owner must make a decision. There is a time to research and evaluate possibilities but some day a decision has to be made. In making the decision, the entrepreneur will ask such questions as: What are the most reasonable choices to consider? What are the pros and cons? Given the facts, which is the best decision? The alternative that is most relevant to the problem and the defined end-state goals will be the most appropriate choice. This will be so unless the apparent risks are beyond the affiliate marketer’s ability to bear. It is wise not to spend the family’s milk money on endeavors that pose a large amount of risk. Step 8: Develop and Implement the Solution The next step in the problem-solving model is to design an implementation plan. A solution is only as good as its implementation. For Sammy, he may decide that he has to write more than 20 articles to get a fair rate of interest in his product. He may then develop a plan by which to write the extra amount of articles deemed necessary to get the overall response he needs to make his marketing campaign effective and profitable. Effective affiliate marketing agents will not only define a problem and research solutions; they will make a decision and develop a plan to implement that solution. Step 9: Evaluate the Results The final step is to evaluate the results of the decision and implementation. In this step, the business owner will compare what happened with what he wanted to happen. He will judge the results against the end-state goals and then make adjustments as necessary. This article has attempted to apply the nine-step problem-solving model to affiliate marketing. It is an effective tool for evaluating a business’s current status and developing an appropriate scheme to take it to the next level. Any would-be entrepreneur wishing to develop a home-based business into a money-making venture would do well if he or she followed this planning model.
Continue reading Effective Affiliate Marketing: 9-steps to Building a Solid Internet Business
