Once I landed in my hometown and exited the plane, I felt the cold weather hitting my body as I walked through the boarding bridge. It reminded me I was back in reality, and work was waiting for me the next morning. I didn’t have a lot of luggage, so I decided to take the subway home to save some money. It was about 11 at night by the time I arrived home. My mother greeted me with a hug, and my cat gave me a perplexed, “Where were you hiding all this time?” look.
Making sure my mother was doing well and continuing my affiliate marketing journey were the two good things about returning home. Everything went back to normal until Dean Holland surprised me with “The Beginners Advantage” course and its new software platform, which had not yet been seen by the public. It was during this training that I understood the importance of giving people value by providing content.
How I Progressively Came To Understand The Meaning Of ‘Content’
My Story page and my first two posts were more like introductions to myself. I wrote about why I created this blog; I also wrote about my first failed attempt at affiliate marketing and why I’m still motivated to keep trying (my mission).
In this third post, I wanted to write about ‘content’ because it’s an important component of affiliate marketing these days, and it’s also crucial to know what it means. In case you’re not familiar with this term in relation to affiliate marketing, content is basically the written information/posts you’re reading throughout my blog that can provide some type of value. Maybe if I describe my experiences on how I came to understand it, you will be able to grasp its meaning a little better.
1_ During my first failed attempt at affiliate marketing in 2018, my strategy involved more numbers and statistics. I had very little room for creativity in written form. I might have been able to write a small paragraph on my landing page describing the benefits of the product I was promoting and a few sentences throughout my advertisements. Besides those two scenarios, I had no need for writing.
2_ As the weeks passed, students brought up the topic of subscriptions and email lists. The affiliate marketing course I was taking didn’t provide a lot of help regarding those strategies. I don’t think the coaches were against it, but I guess it was considered an advanced method. The way I interpreted the coach’s response was: First, I should become good at gaining profits with paid ads by promoting products through a landing page before considering building an email list. At the time, I had no clue or desire to build an email list. It seemed like a daunting task to accomplish anyway.
I used to get annoyed at emails from companies I didn’t remember subscribing to. The idea of putting in the tedious effort of writing emails and believing that I might annoy people by sending irrelevant content to their inboxes puts me off.
3_ Years later, once I came across Dean Holland’s book The Iceberg Effect, he described the importance of building an email list. He also talked about the types of tools someone will need to build a list. My mind was finally opening up to this possibility and that there might be a better way of doing affiliate marketing than just promoting Clickbank products through a landing page.
4_ As I was getting involved deeper and deeper with Dean Holland’s affiliate course, I learned more about opt-in pages, thank-you pages, and lead magnets. He also guided us through a lot of technical stuff. The analogy he used was that every technical component, the pages, the blog, the email list, and the products all put together are like an assembled car. The car might look good, but you still need to add fuel consistently to keep it running. In other words, you still need to create valuable ‘content’ consistently to keep your affiliate business running.
Everything was starting to make more sense, but I still felt I wasn’t fully aware of how to write content for my blog page properly. Thankfully, Glenn (one of the coaches in the Beginners Advantage course) gave us a good explanation that resonated with me very well.
5_ For me, it took different explanations from different coaches (Dean, Sophie, Glenn, & Alex Jeffreys) to better understand the meaning of content, but it was Glenn who took a different approach to describing it. For example, Glenn went back to the basics and clearly defined the word BLOG, which is short for WEB LOG. When I looked at the definition of the word log, it simply says: “To make a systematic recording of events.”. Glenn suggested that we treat our blog page like an actual diary for sharing our thoughts. That very simple explanation opened my eyes and gave me clarity on not only what to write but also how to write.
Whenever I write content, I try to make sure my ideas are coming from a place of real personal experience and without manufacturing anything. This helps the writing sound more natural and believable while at the same time being less sterile. This way, I can also provide better value and engagement to the people who read my posts and content.
But I still Get Stuck From Time To Time!
Even with my mission in place, reminding me to keep going, I’m still not perfect. There are days when I struggle, especially when I don’t have a creative way to articulate my thoughts in written form. I have a lot to say, but transferring my ideas onto a blank canvas in an organized and simple-to-understand manner does take me a long time.
It was said on the course that at least writing one post per week is the ideal way to go. I believe I can still do that whenever I have something short to say, but whenever I have something long, it takes me more than a week to put everything together. I think this is something I can hopefully get better at with practice.
New At Affiliate Marketing?
You might be wondering: How is content connected to making a profitable affiliate marketing business? All you are doing is writing stuff!
That’s where the other components and technical parts come into play. You need a place where you can deliver your content so people can read it and hopefully build a relationship with you. You’ll also need various web pages in case someone is interested in an offer you’re providing. (in other words, the parts of a car assembled together).
As I finish my introductions throughout my first two posts and the importance of ‘content,’ maybe now I can provide short explanations of some of the other basic components of affiliate marketing in the next few days. Hopefully, you’ll get some value out of those!
Warm Regards,
—Albert
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