Learning Outside The Affiliate Marketing Box

I’ve described myself, and have been described by others, as a “help-a-holic” online. I absolutely love helping people get started and do well with affiliate marketing. While that certainly does help those that I work with, it also helps me.

I think it helps keep me sharp and in touch with all those little beginner details and skills that we come to take for granted after we’ve worked online for a while.

However, I am also a “learn-a-holic” — I am always learning new things, and I choose things to learn outside the affiliate marketing arena. I truly believe this helps me be a better affiliate marketer.

How Can Learning New Things Outside Affiliate Marketing Help Me Be A Better Affiliate Marketer?

Let’s talk about that, and I’ll show you some examples.

Seeing The Big Picture

This past week, I spent a day or so learning about the Amazon FBA program. FBA stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon,” and it’s a nifty program for those that want to sell products on Amazon. Not as an affiliate, but as an actual product seller.

In a nutshell, you (as a seller) would find products in your area and then ship them to an Amazon warehouse. You then can list those products for sale on Amazon, and Amazon handles all the order taking, shipping, and customer service.

It’s a pretty lucrative program if you have a knack for buying in-demand products at low prices to sell on Amazon. Buy low, sell high, right? That absolutely applies with Amazon FBA.

Now, I wasn’t necessarily learning all that to learn how to sell on Amazon (though it is interesting to me and I’ll keep that idea in my back pocket in case I want to explore it someday). I was looking at it all from the angle of being an affiliate marketer.

I am an Amazon Associate and do a lot of affiliate promotions for their products. While I understand how the site works as an affiliate and as a customer, I never really knew how it worked from the selling side.

Where do all those products come from? Does Amazon literally sell ALL of them? Which ones are eligible for commission to Amazon Associates? What stats in an Amazon product listing are relevant and telling for those that are thinking of promoting that product?

By taking the time to learn all those things, I am now able to make better choices in products I recommend and promote because I have a better understanding of the site as a whole.

I can now see the big picture — not just the little bits and pieces we are taught when learning to promote Amazon products.

Really helpful!

Another Example: Text Message Marketing

Last summer, I spent a lot of time learning about text message marketing for local businesses.

That doesn’t have a thing to do with affiliate marketing, but I sure learned a lot that helps me be a better affiliate marketer by learning it.

Think about it, how good do you have to be to get people to take action just from one short little text message? I found a lot of good insight and tips from learning about this topic that has nothing to do with affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is just one tiny piece of the big picture that makes up making money online. The more you learn about all the pieces, the more you’re able to take your affiliate marketing efforts to a whole new level.

Do you agree? Have you spent time learning something that has nothing to do with your main goal of affiliate marketing? Do you think it helped or hurt you?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Jennifer Ledbetter

Jennifer Ledbetter aka "PotPieGirl" is most known as an affiliate marketer who went from zero to six-figures a year starting with all free methods (like she teaches at OneWeekMarketing.com).