‘O wretched countrymen! What fury reigns? What more than madness has possess'd your brains? Like the poor unsuspecting Trojans as the Greek’s executed a surprise attack from the ‘Trojan Horse’, I sometimes feel in a stupor after reading just the first few paragraphs of an article from one of my respective industry publications that is trying to provide help for cell phone customers. Even after more than a dozen years in the wireless industry, it takes me a few minutes of reading the article to get my brain in gear and start translating acronyms and trying to connect thoughts, multi generations of cell phones, wireless services, incompatible cell phone provider networks….sigh, breathe deep…. emerging wireless technologies, concepts and realities. Scary enough most of these articles appear to be targeted towards the average cell phone consumer. I often wonder how complicated it must be for the cell phone end user to read through this techno babble and figure out how it applies to them and what they are trying to accomplish. It certainly gives new meaning to the term ‘creative interpretation.’
Too often we wireless and cell phone industry professionals spend too much time in ‘work mode’ and do not learn how to ‘disconnect’ ourselves. As a result every time we are in social and personal non- work related environments we start transitioning into tech talk. Initially we are using a few acronyms and referencing a few wireless products by name, then the next thing you know we’re moving at full blown speeds, talking cell phone carriers, the latest wireless gadgets and spectrum bidding. Our interpretation of describing an acronym is usually saying what it ‘spells out’ or describing the wireless product or service by using more technical terms like The Motorola Q is the name of the Blackberry like, Palm like, Pocket PC like, Razr phone like handheld with Bluetooth, a mini SD Card drive and 1.3 megapixel camera sold on the Verizon network. Yeah well, tell me something I don’t know and can’t easily find on a search engine, like how to set up and use the darn thing?
This wireless non sense tech babble infiltrates our mind, our personalities and ultimately our existence and then the next thing you know it is set up in our mental default language. The big problem is when we are speaking or educating others we have to remember that the wireless and cellular industry has not been nice to them as far as providing industry specific information in a sensible format. Log on to every major news and media publication and you will find wireless hiding somewhere under technology or maybe IT or maybe mobile computing. Surprisingly not even the wireless providers or vendors have worked to get wireless into its own ‘category’. Essentially, we are still an orphan in the public eye. I can understand from the days of the digital pager where we didn’t have much going on beyond a few major wireless vendors and a pretty similar product but over 8 years, wireless has emerged as its own beast and unfortunately we have little real documented history on the emergence on the wireless industry, aside from industry trend reports and articles written as subtle advertisements. So the consumer does not know where to begin when they are searching for wireless and how it works overall.
There are so many elements and niches upon niches of wireless that it is hard to know where it began or where it is going. Then there is the hype and talk about the convergence of developing and emerging future technologies which still have to be tested and approved before they are actually integrated into our current technologies. Yet, these technologies are promoted and advertised ‘as the next best thing’ leaving consumers confused and believing that they are behind the curve. So they go to their local retail store to learn that nobody has a darn clue what on Earth they are talking about, making the whole situation even more confusing and frustrating than it already was. So in order for the wireless industry to evolve and improve its communication and the way it disseminates information to the average consumer we need to consider the following:
1.Realize there are generally two types of wireless consumers: Technical and non-technical. We need to be able to provide the same information to both groups in their ‘respective language’.
2.Go beyond wireless: Write in terms that people can connect with, even if you have to go outside of the wireless industry to make an analogy.
3.Think of the way it was, the way it is and the way it is going. With so many generations of wireless technologies and so many idiosyncrasies specific to the industry, consumers need to have some reference for a starting point. If they cannot understand the way it was, then they cannot see how a specific wireless technology has improved or advanced or even its relevancy.
4.Solve a problem first. Address a common consumer problem or misnomer. Try writing or drawing pictures or coming up with practical everyday analogies to address the problem without using wireless tech babble.
5.If 1 through 4 doesn’t work, try writing for your audience and not yourself.
Affiliate marketing was a six billion dollar business in 2006, and shows no sign of tapering off any time soon. But as good as business has been for the top affiliate marketers, it could be a lot better for the majority. A real obstacle to achieving the sales goals of many affiliates involves their credibility. If I say a product is great, and I am being paid to convince you to buy it, why should you believe me?
The fact is, most affiliate sites on the web today are poorly constructed, and these beggars any authority the owner of the site hopes to convert into sales. Often these sites are thin conduits designed to ferry traffic from search engines to the sites of merchants who have neither the resources nor the time to figure out how to find the customers they need to ensure their business success. Despite this, and because the web is growing more and more congested, the value of a *quality* affiliate marketer nonetheless continues to increase. Unfortunately this simple fact is not at all recognized by the buying public who often begrudges affiliate marketers and views them as interlopers who put themselves between the customer and the merchants they are searching for. In short, the affiliate marketer has long suffered, and continues to suffer, from an image problem.
This image problem is not confined just to the public. Google, which derives huge advertising revenues from affiliate marketers, nevertheless regards affiliate marketing sites with complete disdain. Of course, affiliate marketers themselves have contributed to this problem because their websites very often contain little in the way of new or unique content, which is what Google values and believes its customers (web searchers) value. It is no surprise therefore, to find that some of the top affiliate marketers differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack in precisely this area. They offer not only critical assessment of the products they promote, but also take the time to blog and build a comraderie with the visitors to their sites. By offering unique and regularly updated content, they appease the Gods of Google, and are rewarded with organic (non pay-per-click) traffic that very much contributes to the bottom line. In other words, the top affiliate marketers know how to project a good image--to their visitors, to Google, and to other search engines that might bring in prospects.
Blogging is a great way to produce unique content. But it is time consuming, there is a limit to how much daily content you can produce as an affiliate, and not everyone finds the task of writing content easy work. What if instead you could have the content create itself automatically? Well, actually you can. If you offer customer reviews of the products you promote you accomplish this and more. Not only is the subject matter on target, but the reviews themselves promote the products for you (supposing you have carefully chosen only the best products to promote, which is what any *good* affiliate marketer knows to do). Even better, you no longer have to worry about that credibility problem. If ten people come onto your site and say "Buy product XYZ, it rocks!" that recommendation is a heck of a lot more convincing than anything that you might say, no matter how truthful your utterances.
So, all you have to do as an affiliate marketer, to get people to "click through" to a merchant site in a buying mood is to promote good products and let people express their opinions about those products on your site. If the products are great, the reviews will reflect that. If instead it turns out that the reviews are consistently bad for one of the products you promote, and then drop it! Replace it with another.
"But collecting reviews is really difficult!" I hear you object. "I simply do not have time for that. Do I?"
There is nothing inherently difficult about putting customer reviews on your site today. It does take a little time to set things up, but low-cost commercial quality reviewing applications are available to do the bulk of the work (see the one mentioned in the resource box below if you want to get a jump start on implementing customer reviews on your website). Not only does a customer review section on your site substantially increase your overall credibility, but search engines will love the content--especially if the review pages have been optimized for the search engines (as all good reviewing engines will certainly do).
There is another benefit to collecting customer reviews. Some review engines allow you to publish the reviews as RSS feeds. What this means is increased traffic. You can submit your feeds to the RSS directories. Moreover, if the reviewing application also allows you to create RSS feeds compatible with Google Base (as does the application mentioned below) you can upload your entire review database (or the first N characters of each review) to Google Base and make your reviews accessible to the various Google marketing avenues.
Given the clear benefits to implementing customer reviews on affiliate marketing sites it is surprising that so very few marketers have actually adopted this strategy to date. But as the web continues to mature, and affiliate marketing grows more professional, it is to be expected that this strategy will become more and more common on the sites of top affiliate marketers.
Both Shonika Proctor Proctor & Manishh Kumarr are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Shonika Proctor Proctor has sinced written about articles on various topics from Phones, Mobile Phone Reviews and Phones. Shonika Proctor is the New 'IT' Girl. Her company creates training tools and programs for frustrated cell phone account users and administrators,