Using the Five Elements in Affiliate Marketing

Some martial arts and certain life philosophies utilize the five elements of fire, water, earth, air/wind and void as ways of being, or ways of approaching life.

One really neat way to work on improving your affiliate marketing or blogging results is to utilize the unique forms of expression present in each one of the elements.  For example, you could make each weekday one of the elements with Monday being Fire, Tuesday being Water and so on.  Or you could simply approach each individual challenge, milestone or goal using one of the five elements.

Allow me to explain a little bit about the different elements and how they could relate to something like affiliate marketing or blogging.

Firstly, let’s start with the element of fire.  Some of the characteristics that embody the behavior and being of fire are:

• Spreads very quickly.  Moves fast.  Explosive.
• Very direct.  Fire burns through things, it doesn’t go around them.
• Utilizes the very thing it’s burning as fuel to burn it.
• It envelops things from all sides.
• etc.

So, how could we utilize the strategy of being like fire in making money online?  Well, a “fire strategy” would be a quick attack from all sides, so as a blogger you could create a lot of value from all sides very quickly to completely overwhelm the competition.  For example, imagine writing 100 blog posts without publishing a single one, and then scheduling them all to be published at a rate of 5 posts a day, every day for 20 days straight.  At the same time, imagine launching a banner campaign driving traffic to your blog on the top 25 blogs in your niche, or something to that effect.  That could be one way to utilize the feeling of “fire” to plan out your strategy.

Another example could be to use a viral video that spreads on the Internet.  That’s using the very thing that you’re marketing to as fuel for your marketing.  Basically a viral video properly executed targets a group of people and then those same people you targeted end up fueling the next wave of people to see your campaign and so on.

Another element we can look at is water.  Here are some characteristics of water:

• It flows in and out in waves of increasing / decreasing magnitude.
• It’s patient, waiting and looking for a way to flow through something.
• Seems week, but in reality can create a lot of momentum and destroy things with it’s power.
• If it can’t go through something it will go around it.
• etc.

So, a water strategy could involve working on things like improving your affiliate campaigns or blog by testing, surveying and responding.  For example, putting up a survey on your blog asking your readers for their opinion and then utilizing the information gathered to improve your blog in waves.  The same thing can be done with affiliate marketing.  You could think of each day as a wave cycle and each day you log into your AdWords account and check the stats and make a tiny improvement to your campaign, and you let it run for another day and gather data.  This flow of gathering and interpreting data and then improving slowly over time is a very water-like strategy.

Another element is earth.  Here are some characteristics of the earth element:

• Steady and strong like a large boulder or a mountain.
• Heavy, dense, impenetrable.
• Unmoving.
• Stable and slow.
• etc.

Utilizing an earth-like strategy could involve things like backing up your data and websites  to maintain long-term security, or employing a long-term pay-per-click strategy where you put yourself in a position in Adwords for a particular keyword or keywords and not moving from that position.  The stability and constant visibility of being in one place all the time is an earth-like feature.

Another thing in an earth-like strategy would be to focus on improving an existing affiliate campaign, instead of runing off to start another new one the minute the first one gets a bit profitable.  Another thing about earth is that it’s stable and long-term, so maybe in terms of affiliate marketing, employing an earth strategy might be to build out a long term site with a tonne of content on the niche topic you’re in.

The next element we’ll cover is Air / Wind.  Here are some characteristics of this element:

• Invisible, yet all around us.
• Can also come from all around, enveloping from all directions.
• Likes to spin things, move things.
• It’s light and quick.
• etc.

So, what would a “wind/air element” strategy look like in terms of affiliate marketing or blogging?  Well, it could be to launch a whole bunch of “light” websites that aren’t so extensive at first.  For example, you could put together a strategy to launch one landing page per day for 25 days.  Each landing page / site will be unique, but similar and you could attack your niche market from all angles with all these small websites.

Another thing you could do is test your affiliate offers across multiple networks, jumping around from one to the next to see which network has the best converting offer and why.  You could learn a lot from doing something like this.

The final element is Void.  Here are some characteristics of this element:

• Void is nothing, yet at the same time everything.
• Void is tricky, deceiving.
• Void is invisible.
• Void is distracting.
• etc.

Employing a void strategy could involve employing tactics to keep your affiliate campaigns safe from competitors, or utilizing misdirection to focus your competitors attention on one thing (something neat and shiny), while you make money somewhere else.  The tricky / deceiving part of the void element could involve using some kind of clever link-bait tactic to get more traffic to your Blog.

There are just very rough and beginner level descriptions of the five elements and some very brief ideas on how they could be applied to our business of making money online, but I’m sure you get the gist.  If this speaks to you, I would suggest getting familiar with each of the elements and then trying to see ways in which you can implement the feeling of that element to your online money making efforts.

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