Is Traditional Affiliate Marketing Dead?
I'm going to share with you what I have observed over the past few years when it comes to 'making money online'...And how this incredible opportunity called 'crypto' is re-shaping the industry that I've essentially earned a living from for over 20 years.
Here is the old formula that has been practiced for decades online when someone makes the decision that they want to 'earn money online'....
- Discover product or service
- Join product or service
- Promote product or service
- Earn affiliate commissions from product or service
- Keep promoting / selling to continue to earn
This worked for a select few in the industry that were....Really good at selling. For everyone else, it was always a struggle.
For the skilled, developing relationships and building mailing lists was second nature. They could do it with ease but sadly what we saw from everyone else were examples that I just witnessed on my own Facebook wall recently. In context, I mentioned to my followers that I was suffering from a gout flare up which one individual thought it would be a savvy idea to promote his 'magical MLM' to me:
Now if this was someone I spoke to daily or even monthly, and had a standing relationship with...Sure! Because we spent the time developing the relationship. However I had not spoken to this individual in years and even then it was very casual...
Somewhere along the lines, it seems to be taught to would be affiliate marketers to use these kind of tactics to shill their products or services. It's not 'build relationship, develop trust', it's literally...Spam social media networks and try to make sales that way.
I believe this is a direct result of...Sales is a skill, and not everyone has it. And it's why there was always this huge success gap in the affiliate marketing world.
Guru vs. The rest of us!
And here's why I feel the industry is setting up for a seismic shift, crypto and the blockchain are changing the old method and levelling the playing field.
Why?
Because these new methods of 'making money online' no longer require one to be...A sales guru!
Here's a few examples of what I mean:
A DPOS blockchain like Hive is just filled with opportunities because without even doing a thing, one earns 3% or so...Just by powering up their Hive. No sales. No pitching. On top of that, there are elements on this blockchain where an individual can earn even more. Examples would be delegation, curation and of course the HBD savings account.
That's why I always tell new members coming into the community, the success on Hive begins with powering up. Everything else seems to come from that on a layer 1 level.
But wait...There's more ;)
How about all the layer 2 options?
You can literally plug into a community of your liking or a tribe, add value in the form of...Being social...And get rewarded as well.
Again, no sales needed. No referring either. And of course....No home meetings needed!
What about something like Splinterlands or the GameFi revolution?
I think this is brilliant because while you can set up your accounts to essentially become a digital landlord for asset rentals, they have even added some nice traditional affiliate marketing tools as well. So heck, if you have the power of sales in you like a Zig Ziglar, by all means, promote the game!
But buying assets, renting them out, and getting into the finance side of the game...Requires no sales skills at all.
There are just so many ways in today's day and age to make money online, we no longer need to be pitched the dream. And we most definitely don't need to pitch it either....
There are a few hurdles though from me declaring this is 100% going to be the future of making money online:
- There is a learning curve - It goes without saying, sometimes it feels like DeFi requires a PHd in computer science and figuring all this stuff out is for the kids at the front of the class. However it is becoming more streamlined for every day people.
- Onboarding is still rough around the edges - By no means, is this 2017. However it still takes a few hoops to jump through to get people to join the chain. Projects like LeoInfra are sure to help and things are getting smoother, but we're still not there yet.
So while the gurus may hate that their gravy train is leaving the station, it's fantastic news for the rest of us right now. Those of us that have the dreams of working full time from home. Making a living off our passions. And the dreamers and entrepreneurs that are willing to invest their time into learning this stuff now...So that in the future, their dreams are a reality!
Sales experience. Not needed.
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So while I was sidelined this last few weeks, I made a snafu paying bills and overpaid one of them. The ole' lady wasn't happy because it left the checking account low. So I did some quick thinking and told her I would replace it quickly without robbing a bank or taking any of our money from other bank accounts.
I finally sold my first Hive a few weeks ago (before the pump damnit) and made our bank account whole again.
Now I know that may not sound like a big deal, and it really isn't, but that is just a small example of how Hive is changing things and helping people. I have met and am friends with people on here who pay their bills and feed their families with what they do on Hive. They are not whales, or even Orcas either.
I guess what I am saying is that in the years of my dabbling in traditional affiliate marketing I never met as many average people with "real-world" liveable or secondary income as here on Hive. Never saw that in traditional affiliate marketing stuff.
Just my 6 am pre-coffee share.😀
yeah man, it's awesome. and it's going to become normal here for a lot of people on the blockchain. slowly, more and more people are making a living off everything happening here.
Without the need for any gurus lol
I think affiliate marketing was dying, but like a lot of things crypto is saving it.
More people are turning to affiliate marketing and MLM to make money online again and in some ways that is how they are getting introduced to crypto in the first place.
As an affiliate marketer you now have something else to juice up an offer.
Offering a crypto incentive is a great way to boost your affiliate marketing sales.
Before adding value was only something the elite and established could afford.
But now with crypto and platforms like Hive there is a ♪ "whole new world" ♪ LOL.
It is leveling the playing field😎
You are one of the good ones @jongolson
Awesome post my friend
yeah it's amazing how we are just scratching the surface of what we can do with this stuff. especially with all the layer two options as well.
Absolutely @jongolson we are only just scratching the surface for sure.
There are other things that can be done as well.
Not just saving dying industries LOL
BUT....
For example because a lot of people don't think about it.
If you upvote someone that engages with your content with money value on Hive and that person lives in a poor country you could be the reason they feed their family.
What is a measly dollar in America not going far at all, is much more substantial in lets say Africa.
I have been thinking deeply on affiliate marketing of late and how we can incorporate that into Hive even at the second layer level. I think its one gem we've not yet maximized on Hive. Referral benefits and even ad promotion on posts should be great options to consider. WIll son share my thoughts and will tag you. I know its something the CTP community should leverage on. Meanwhile, Hivelist store has provision for affiliate rewards.
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Yeah I mean don't get me wrong, I still think there is a huge market for this stuff...Just the way people approach it. The top down stuff doesn't work anymore, and the more level it is, the more adoption there can be.
Definitely, we've underutilized it yet. I personally expect more of the affiliate marketing models from you and the CTP team. Are there plans?
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@jongolson - sometimes a comment, post, tweet, etc. comes along at the right time and this post is bada$$ timed for me.
As you know, I've been following your for years and a lot of what I've learned on the centralized marketing that actually worked was the core things you preached into action; especially when I went back into a handful of years later. Went I went back in, there was no doubt it was with brand you, relationships, etc. I remembered how hardcore you were about that.
Then upgrading my CTP membership and being introduced to HIVE was the single biggest impact for me since my first workout at OTF (trust me that is saying a hell of a lot).
My point? I make my affiliate marketing commissions here and there, but at what cost?
In all the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years that I put into it; not once; did I feel as excited as my first upvote on HIVE. That is my word.
So whether affiliate marketing is alive and kicking, dead in the water or cash cow and don't get me wrong I'm still doing it daily - it is the same old shit every frickin day for YEARS lol.
My mindset for 2022 is even more HIVE and less of the centralized marketing affiliate or social.
Appreciate the kind words man....Honored to have you on the journey here!
There is something truly magical about that first 'ah ha' moment you have on hive. It'll change your life lol
It has been dead for a while now. Even the new ad-blocking technologies are killing it with affiliate codes being blocked automatically by default. Those where you have to manually paste the code in order to get a discount still work these days though.
I find it remarkable that the 'leaders' in that industry refused to see the writing on the wall and see how to adapt. Ahh well, I'm not crying about it...Less top down approach now, and spread out for everyone.
I think it's a good change to affiliate marketing but I wonder if throwing out referral links all the time would count as traditional affiliate marketing. After all I throw out some of my game links as well for the extra bonus.
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Yeah it does for sure, I think Splinterlands does a great job of combining the two methods.
A job spec would read something like
Job Title: Crypto Kid
Description: Multiple Opportunities
Experience: None Needed
Preferred Skills: Enthusiastic, Likes Technology
LOL I have to show this to my kid so he starts applying like this.
I saw an ad for the coin Floki on one of the busses here in Denmark yesterday :D
Guess that tells Jon to go search what Floki is lol
I did aswell haha :D
It looks like another "meme" coin with some utilities :D
Not sure what to think about it xD
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I have noticed few issues in traditional marketing.
I think industry will surely go through reforms as influencers are pushing most of the affiliate income for many. I think the days of anonymous blogs and sites without persona pushing affiliate links on readers is kind of over.
You'd be surprised to know that I used to promote pluarlsigh and Linkedin affiliate links in my dev blog but ever since I found the income out of crypto, I have literally stopped on affiliate side of things.
I feel getting paid to write or even getting paid to delegate your resources kind of stops my chase for affiliate income. Which I think leofinance and splinterlands both are solving as of now.
Yup, it's really changed my approach to it as well. I was always thinking 'relationship' first with my career, but now I can really focus on that and grow it on chain.
I do not think that traditional affiliate marketing is dead. I think that its market is just overwhelmed by noobs affiliate marketers that create a massive confusion among all the products sold through affiliate marketing.
And well, now the market is already full of fools selling courses on how to sell courses (on how to sell courses?)
Ahhh yes the famous...Selling a course, teaching you about selling a course lol
The hive community have so many ways to progress with the options you gave as well, to socialize with others too matters in the blockchain which is also helpful in promoting oneself especially in commenting on other people's post as well.
Yeah, that's a fantastic way to work on the relationship side of the equation for sure.
This shows how far we are in the future. and in addition now both your hard work and money helps you a lot, not to thinking how to sell things to others that are a hit 👊.
Welcome to the future.
Future indeed....Brand new world for so many people!
Hey @jongolson, sorry to jump in off-topic.
Your support for our proposal this year has been much appreciated but it will end in a few days!
Do you mind renewing your vote for 2022 so the team can keep up with its work? Thank you!
https://peakd.com/me/proposals/199
Absolutely. Done and done!
Thank you for your unfailing support, much appreciated!
https://twitter.com/Jon_G_Olson/status/1471341672059473920
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Affiliated market is always very good but some people join the project sometimes not for good reasons that's why affiliated is sometimes not considered
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