How Are You Adding Value?
I was sitting in a meeting the other day with a marketing company showing some of the side projects I’ve been working on. I’m not much of a marketing dude myself (although I try), so some of the observations they made on first look were very interesting.
One of my websites is a computer hardware review website that pulls in a few positive points about the product, some shipping details (like weight and likely package dimensions), and also points to 3 longer related reviews about the product and what their overall scores were. It’s basically a review aggregation service.
The site makes money by using affiliate code pointing to Amazon listings and I’m hoping to grow it to be another of my multiple streams of income.
I haven’t made a lot with it yet, it’s only be running for a month and a bit and the reviews are only just being indexed by Google, but I’m happy with it’s progress so far considering the amount of time I’ve put in (not much).
The Amazon affiliate program for new affiliates also only pays a 4% referral rate but if you push enough product can get up to around 8.5% I’ve been told.
This is my first attempt at making money via an affiliate program with any concerted effort. So expect to hear more about it in the future as I work through all the challenges.
My previous attempts at monetising using the Amazon affiliate program netted me a grand total of $3.79 USD. Hardly anything that can be counted as a stream of income!
Anyway, back to the point of this post. There I was in the marketing company’s board room with a couple of marketing dudes who really knew their stuff when one of them points pipes up with “What value does this really provide? How are you adding anything here?”
It really got me thinking…
How am I better than any of those stupid spam sites that rip of other people’s content? Sure I’m doing it under the guise of aggregating information and providing an information hub, but really, what extra value am I adding?
I put it out of my mind for a week or so (I got a lot going on right now), but after reading this article on how to write product reviews that convert by Wanda and Paula of Affiliate Blog Online I really got back to thinking about this.
Their premise was that in order to help the customer decide if they want to buy the product you need to give them all the information they need to make a decision.
I want to do exactly that. My whole idea with the site was to make it the “last line of defence” before the customer clicks the “buy” button.
Currently I’m not really following the rules. In it’s current form as an aggregation service it will end up on the pile of pointless Amazon knock off websites found all over the web that make it so hard to find unbiased review information on products (trust me, after looking for computer hardware reviews this is definitely the case with the majority of “review” sites).
By making it more personable – adding my own personal take on the product including a small run down of it’s features – I think I’ll finally be adding that value the marketing guys were talking about.
So what’s your take on it?
Do you sell a product or a service? How are you adding value?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Photo Credit: Dwonderwall
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G’day mate, found your comments on website in a weekend and figured I’d stop by and see a fellow Aussie in all his blogging glory.
I am pleasantly suprised at the quality of the posts and have to say that you have manged to write a post about asking what value is being added whilst adding value of your own. Clever that.
In regards to the Amazon affiliate and review scenario, I agree, but also remind myself that unless you are involved in the process you are ignorant to the fact that its a bias review simply asking for the referral (I hope so because I have over 20 minisites all promoting Amazon and clickbank products)
On this note, and in agreement with your point, I provide no value add on these sites, but I also dont associate my own name or brand with them in anyway. That I save for my blog.
Adding value is about being consistent- you are not going to see any monetary reward from it any time soon. But keep at it and once it starts – well, its hard to stop isn’t it
.-= Alex´s last article: MLM systems designed (to leave you) in tiers. =-.
Hey Alex, cheers for the visit mate.
That’s a good point. In the end it really is just a biased review asking for the referral, but where I think that we can make a positive difference (and here’s where most people go wrong) is by adding that extra piece of value.
If we do that, it’s no longer just an off hand suggestion to buy something. We are really showing that we do care if the buyer purchases the item and give them the reasons and incentive to do so.
.-= Josh Kohlbach´s last article: How To Set Your Price: Value vs. Value =-.