Matt Lloyd Tips To New Affiliates Marketers: Don’t Work at the Post Office

That’s a strange headline, isn’t it? As an affiliate marketer, you are primarily a promoter of offers—an advertiser. You don’t need to take a job delivering mail … or learn the publishing profession … or get a degree in computer science. You just need to market. If you adopt this viewpoint, you will simplify your work and speed up your success.

The First Marketers

I got curious about how businesses originally advertised their products and services, so I did some research. The answer might sound like a history lesson but stay with it and I promise I won’t bore you. It’s leading to something interesting and worthwhile.
MOBE Training - Technophobes, Don’t Despair! You Can Be a Great Online Marketer

It is likely that the first advertising was done orally, though there is little documentation of it until Middle Age Europe, where farmers used town criers to direct the public to their carts to buy fruits and vegetables.

Some ancient Chinese writings indicate that oral advertising existed as early as the 11^th century B.C.

There’s no specialized technology involved in oral transmission of an advertising message. Technology starts to enter the picture with printed advertising.

The earliest evidence of printed advertising dates back 2,000 years, as found in the ruins of Pompeii as well as in China. There, a bronze plate was discovered that was used to print posters advertising a needle-making shop.

Moving into the more modern era, the first newspaper to feature paid advertising was France’s La Presse in 1836. From there, it spread to magazines and other publications and then to the airwaves with the introduction of radio and television.

These are all examples of general advertising—messages that are not targeted at a specific audience. The first appearance of direct response marketing was when Aaron Montgomery Ward started sending his mail order catalogs to people in 1872.

Do you think that Ward had to become a post office employee and process and deliver mail for a few years before he could effectively sell via mail order? (He didn’t.)

The businesses that advertised their products in newspapers likewise did not have to apprentice in the publishing industry before running their ads. Nor did the early adopters of radio and television advertising have to be schooled in the technology of broadcasting and program production.

So why do so many new affiliates get caught up on and overwhelmed by the technology of internet marketing?

Okay Matt … so What Are You Getting at Here?

In the old days, advertisers didn’t necessarily have printing presses on their premises. Later on, they didn’t have radio or television transmitters in their offices. So all these businesses had to concentrate on was creating their marketing message. They entrusted the transmitting of the message to experts in that medium: the newspaper people or the television-radio people.

Today, a large percentage of advertising is being done online. (The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported $27.5 billion in online ad revenues in just the first half of 2015.) Unlike the past, today nearly everyone has access to the medium: a computer and the Internet. I think this explains why so many online marketers get caught up in the technology end of online marketing: it’s sitting right in front of them.

However, the task of today’s online marketer is the same as it was for the Pompeii merchant 2,000 years ago: to deliver a message that motivates people to make a purchase.

That is what you, as an affiliate marketer (brand new or otherwise) need to concentrate on in order to succeed.

So don’t get overwhelmed with the technical end of things. You can outsource most of these tasks to people who are extremely skilled and fast with the technical parts. They understand all the little ins and outs of creating a sales page, lead capture pages, and the rest. You can find them on freelancer sites like Upwork or Fiverr and it doesn’t even have to be very expensive.

Spend your time on marketing, sales, and continually improving your response rate. Hire an expert to handle the technology stuff.

- Matt Lloyd