Affiliate Marketing is a bit like martial arts.  There are a lot of basics we need to learn before we ever get in the ring, otherwise we get obliterated.  Learning how Google Adwords works and how to create landing pages is the equivelant of learning martial arts basics like proper punching and kicking.  If you don’t know how to properly punch, you could easily break your wrist just trying to hit a punching bag.  You have to learn how to align things properly to make things work.

However, once you become proficient in the basics, most people get lazy and never take the time to begin studying the more subtle and more advanced aspects of Affiliate Marketing.  In martial arts terms this would be the equivelant of going beyond punching and kicking and blocking which are just actions you take, into the realm of learning human psychology or understanding the power of proper breathing for example.  The best martial artists in the world go way beyond the action steps involved in fighting into more subtle and unseen levels.

I believe Affiliate Marketing is very similar to this.  One of the techniques I’ve been looking into lately is to take the time to assimilate, absorb and visualize the World View of my potential prospects who I am marketing to.  What does this mean?  Well, let me give you a quick example.

Let’s say that I want to promote for a Satellite Sports Package .  What I would do is I would start to create a profile of the ideal customer who would purchase such a product and try to get into their World View .

What’s a World View?

A World View is a set of subjective beliefs that a person or a group of people have about the world.  Most people assume that their world view is the only real world view and anyone else who doesn’t see things the same way they do is dellusional.  In reality though, we all have very different views of the world.

So, let’s continue on with this example.  I would ask myself "What is the World View of this client?"

How does a person who purchases a satellite sports package see the world.  Well, lets start with some basic questions:

Does this person believe in competition or co-operation? Most likely, they are of a competitive nature, and their beliefs probably tell them that competition is good for us, it’s good for the economy, it’s good for humanity etc.  They probably believe that being competitive is a strength, not a weakness.

Does this person watch his sports programming alone or with friends? Most likely this person either watches his sports with his friends or always dreams of watching it with his friends.  The typical sports fan dreams of having a group of buddies over to "watch the game " over some beers.

What motivates this person? Social interaction with friends.  Staying in line or ahead of the "Joneses".  Probably works hard at work, and cherishes their time to get home and watch a game, etc.

These are just a few simple questions, but the more of these types of things you begin to ask, the more likely you’re going to be able to get into the heads of these people and understand their World View.

Let me give you an even more specific example so you know how this type of exercise can become practical.  I personally don’t follow sports much anymore, but I have some friends that are still very much into the local hockey team here (The Vancouver Canucks).  By getting into their world view, I know that one of the most important things to them right now is our star goalie Roberto Luongo and his injury.  Canucks fans here in Vancouver probably talk about Luongo every day.

So, knowing that information I can easily discern that they probably search for the keywords "Luongo Injury" quite a bit.  So I could bid on that term, using Google’s geographical targetting to limit my bids within the Vancouver area.  In fact I could probably come up with a list of hundreds of variations of the keyword phrase related to Luongo and his injury.  For example:

"luongo injury, roberto luongo injury, luongo injured, luongo return, luongo first game back" etc.

When I search for those keywords right now, I get 0 people bidding on any of them via Google PPC.

So for like 5 cents I could get #1 paid spot for a term like "Luongo Injury".  Then I could get into the world view of my prospects to figure out what is the most important thing to them and write an ad based on that.

For example, I could write an ad that might say something like this:

When Is Luongo Back?
Watch Luongo’s First Game
Back in Full HD At Your Home!
www.whatever.com

And then of course I would point that ad to a landing page selling them an HD Satellite System.  So while everyone else is busy bidding on "HD Satellite" "Buy Satellite" "Install Satellite" etc. and paying high bids, I’m going after the types of keywords that the people who would buy the satellite would actually search for.

You see, most sports fans in Vancouver might not specifically be thinking about buying a Satellite system right now, but they sure as hell are concerned about their star goalie!  They are all hoping to see him play in the next few weeks so why not put the idea in their heads that they could have a big party at their house to watch Luongo’s first game back on their brand spankin new HD Satellite system.

So there you go.  That’s the Inspired Affiliate Marketing Technique #68 revealed – Get in Your Prospect’s World View and see the world through their eyes and only then will you know what’s important to them and what they are searching for on Google so you can be there to present them with the amazing offer you have for them.

This technique is nothing new or nothing profound, and it is one of those things that we all know as common sense, but very few of us do it.  We get lazy and don’t want to get into the world view of someone else and instead just end up bidding for generic terms like "buy satellite" and then we wonder why our campaigns are not profitable.