An Example of Thinking Outside the Box

Today I was driving home from work when I heard a radio commercial for a website where you can “enter your email address, follow the redemption instructions, print out a coupon and have a free xbox 360 mailed right to your door”. I immediately thought “affiliate site!” and went online to check it out when I got home. Sure enough, I was right.

While Nate and I certainly don’t have the kind of money necessary to buy radio time — especially a national spot, which I’m assuming it was. Maybe through the AdWords radio option — doing so must really be paying off for the affiliate whose running the ad (with the cost of radio advertising, they definitely wouldn’t be running the ad if they weren’t seeing some serious ROI!).

I’m sure none of you have the money necessary to run radio ads either (if you do, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. heh) but my point in writing about the commercial I heard is how important and how profitable thinking outside the box can be. Doing what everyone else isn’t doing is the key to making money with affiliate marketing when you don’t have a ton of money upfront to put towards pricey and competitive keywords. I’m sure there are dozens of ads competing for face time within the “free xbox” niche, so the particular affiliate running the radio ad went elsewhere where his competitors aren’t.

Whether its PPC with long-tail keywords which have fewer competitors; free classified listings sites like craigslist.org; Facebook & MySpace advertising; print classifieds (which are getting cheaper by the day); radio or television; or anything else you can think of, thinking outside the box really is the key to success.