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 Although we prefer to
think of affiliate marketing as making recommendations, it is still
a form of sales. Much as a good salesman will understand his
customer as much as his product, affiliates need to understand
their target audience and what they are looking for. Getting to
know the people in your marketplace is key to success as an
affiliate, no matter what product or service you are promoting on
your website.
As a poker affiliate, your market
place is made up of poker players, and you want to send these
players to the poker rooms you recommend. Poker players cover a
wide demographic and fall into a number of categories, such as
beginners or professional players. If you are not a poker player,
you really need to spend some time trying to learn about poker
players and what they want. Even if you do play poker, it can help
to get know more about what other players think and what they are
looking for in a poker room.
There is one excellent way to get
to find out a lot more about poker players - Internet poker forums.
There are many poker related internet forums on the web – all
populated by poker players who looking for a place to talk about
poker. Some of these forums are huge; covering every possible topic
related to poker and many more besides and have a huge membership
base. Others focus on a particular aspect of poker and some are
small communities with a smaller, but loyal, amount of posters.
It is highly recommended to take
the time to read through some of these internet poker forums and
try and get a feel for how poker players think. It will also give
you an idea of just how big the market place and how many different
types of players there are across a broad demographic. While it is
unlikely you will uncover an earth shattering strategy to suddenly
convert every poker player in the world, if you don’t know much
about poker it will help you understand some more and for anyo
will help gain some valuable insights into the mind of a poker
player.
If you want to go a step further,
why not join one or more of these forums and engage in some
discussions? You can ask questions about anything you specifically
want to know about and it could really accelerate your knowledge
about the poker industry.
In the long-run you may even end up
building relationships which could be useful to you. A lot of poker
players choose their rakeback affiliate based on trust and
reputation. If you have a presence on forums and become reasonably
well known, this can help you attract new players. Be very careful
though, most poker forums are run by poker affiliates and they
won’t stand for you spamming their forums with offers. Try and
view poker forums as a place to learn and ask questions to start
with. If you can add some value to a discussion, then do so. Any
players you end up attracting should be considered a bonus
by-product of joining a forum – not the reason to do so.
Another good method to learn more
about your potential customers is to look at what your competitors
are doing and offering. You should never try and copy another
affiliates’ website or try and simply replicate what they are
doing – but it can help to see what else is being offered to
players and use that to develop your own ideas.
Remember, the idea behind
affiliating is not just to build a website full of content and try
and attract visitors. You need to give your visitors a reason to
stay on your website and a reason to follow your recommendations.
The better you understand your target market, the more likely you
are to succeed and make money.
Read Next Section : 9 - Becoming
a Successful Affiliate |
