Affiliate Marketing Techniques: Scatter Gun or Shot Gun

David McKenzie Affiliate marketing question - Should you join every affiliate
program you can find or just a few?

There are many thousands of affiliate programs on the net that
you can join. Every man and his dog is running one. But how do
you decide which ones to join?

There are two trains of thought in this area. First you can take
the scatter gun approach, which is quite popular on the net, and
join as many programs as possible. This ensures that at least
SOME of them will pay off. Well, that’s the theory.

The other alternative is to take the shot gun approach. Join
some leading affiliate programs in just a few areas and put more
effort into each one. Do some affiliate marketing research by
reading as many articles on the subject as possible. This way
you can narrow down your candidates.

Well, as always there are pros and cons to both but why not do
what everyone else is not doing. It seems to me most sites are
taking the scatter gun approach. For example: We have 3,000
affiliate programs listed on our site. We have the largest
selection of affiliate programs!

Why not focus? Find your own niche. Find a particular area that
you are interested in.

Example: Perhaps your interest is in selling rare papyrus from
Egypt and you find there is only one affiliate program dedicated
to this. You join. You focus your affiliate marketing strategies
on this product. You are not thinking about selling papyrus from
Egypt one minute and then long distance phone calls the next.
With fewer products and services you are able to focus more
energy and effort onto the products and services that you have a
genuine interest in. You may even be considered an expert in
this particular area because of your knowledge.

There are many webmasters doing just fine with their hundreds or
even thousands of affiliate programs, but the market for the
scatter gun approach now appears to be cluttered.

This is where the specialists enter. The new breed of webmaster
that focuses on particular products or services. Alternatively
your focus may be on one area, and selecting only the
best-selling, highest-paying commissions for that field. Then
you target your affiliates with high level affiliate marketing
techniques. Now there is room for the specialist to succeed.

Target your affiliate programs.

Pick just a few.

Concentrate all of your time into marketing these programs
- because you are so passionate about the product or service you
are selling, you will drive more targeted traffic to your
affiliate program.