Thought Leader Thursday – Rae Hoffman

Posted by Wildfire Marketing Group | May 7th, 2009

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with us today Rae. In the Internet marketing community, you’re well known for your SEO and affiliate marketing background. I’ve seen plenty of content on your websites, Sugarrae and Outspoken Media, that even the most experienced people can learn from. Can you tell us about yourself, how you got into the industry and how you stay up to date on the latest strategies?

I’m an absolute workaholic, a mother to three fantastic kids, never shut up and know that I’m way to driven and outspoken for my own good, LOL. I am the CEO of three companies. Sugarrae and Outspoken Media as you mentioned, and I also am the co-founder, co-owner and CEO of MFE Interactive (which is a website publishing company based in Guelph, Canada). MFE essentially builds evolved affiliate brands.

I actually ended up in the industry after my oldest son suffered a massive bilateral stroke. It definitely wasn’t planned, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else at this point in my life.

How I stay up to date is by doing. I never have and don’t think I ever could “sit on the sidelines” in regards to my sites. I am always creating new sites and testing things on the current ones. I try to always push the envelope (not in terms of tactics but in terms of getting more traffic). I get to see a lot of interesting stuff via client sites now with Outspoken as well… mistakes I know better than to make (and the results of those mistakes) and different types of sites (like large e-commerce sites). I’m not really a “blog reader” though I do read interesting posts when I see folks dropping links to them on Twitter.

You’ve consulted for a lot of merchants to help improve their affiliate marketing efforts. For companies that are considering offering their own affiliate program, what advice do you have?

To be honest, the main thing we express when we do consulting in regards to performance marketing is for merchants to respect their affiliates and understand that they need to work with them and not view affiliates as merely people who work “for” them. Affiliate marketing is a partnership in reality, at least when dealing with super affiliates (and the “supers” will be the ones who drive 90% of your sales).

I think the other advice I’d give is to remember that your affiliate program isn’t going to promote itself. If you choose not to go with a network, remember you’re going to have to work hard to promote your program to the affiliates who will make your program a success. If you go with a network, don’t think you can sit back and relax. You’ll still need to promote your program, though being with a reputable network will make that process a bit easier for you.

Also make sure that if you do go “indie” (independent, not with a network) that you don’t use affiliate software that will screw up your SEO efforts. Either use software that will be friendly to your SEO efforts or get very familiar and diligent about using the canonical tag.

Since you’ve also consulted for a lot of companies and individuals who were trying to get into affiliate marketing, you’ve probably seen a lot of mistakes as well as success stories. I think most people approach affiliate marketing with the wrong mindset, and as a result, they don’t achieve the success they were hoping for. What does someone need to know before getting started with affiliate marketing?

That it isn’t a get rich quick scheme and that the only folks that truly make 4000 dollars a week while they sleep either 1. Put in a ton of hours for quite a while before they were able to do so or 2. Make it by selling you false hope and bullshit “systems”. You need to be realistic about affiliate marketing. When I write about affiliate marketing, the one thing you get from everything I put out there is that it takes work to do affiliate marketing on a long-lasting and legitimate scale. There is no “quick” or “scheme”… It’s about hard work and building a true brand if you want to do it in a way that will last.

I’ve seen a lot of businesses launch a website with the “build it and they will come” mentality. When the site didn’t generate the revenue they were hoping for, they fill it with ads in an attempt to get a return on their investment. I believe that you can utilize advertising on a corporate website, but it’s a delicate balance. Do you have any input for a business owner considering this?

It is a very delicate balance. First off, when a website doesn’t generate the income someone was hoping for, it usually boils down to one of (or a combination of) three reasons:

You didn’t promote the site well enough
You didn’t monetize the site “properly”
Your site sucks

I find #3 to big the biggest culprit. People put up so-so content, do minimal marketing and expect extraordinary results. It doesn’t work that way in the real world.

Look at your site and ask yourself, “Is this one of, if not the best site on [your topic here]?” and if your answer is, “no” then you need to make a decision of whether or not you can change that answer to a “yes” with more work and the resources you have available. If not, the likelihood of it ever being extraordinary in regards to income is almost nil. If the answer is “yes” than shame on you. You’re too lazy to make the income you want because you refuse to put in the effort to promote your site with everything you have or monetize it properly and deserve a swift kick in the ass.

When it comes to generating revenue from a website, the default solution for most people is AdSense. Most people that have spent more than a few minutes in the industry would look at that as a last resort, especially if they’ve been following your advice. What are some other options out there for someone who is willing to get off of webmaster welfare?

As mentioned in the post, my first choice is always affiliate marketing, for multiple affiliates whenever possible. There are so many opportunities for those who “get it” and are willing to do it in a legitimate fashion. CPM (banner based ads sold by number of impressions), CPL (selling leads), RSS ads (assuming you have a well subscribed RSS feed) and mailing list ads are some other favorites.

Targeting also has a lot to do with it. It’s one of the reasons I use Thesis on almost every blog based site I own (any we don’t use it on are because they were built before we found it, LOL). Even though I’m not heavily technical, I am able to give myself exceptional targeting options with it. It’s a good way to make sure the guy reading a post in the blue widgets category in your blog is getting an ad for blue widgets and not for green widgets. Better conversions equates to higher revenue per visitor.

If someone doesn’t already have an existing website that they can monetize, what can they do to improve their chances of success when selecting a subject?

It really depends on the person. A lot of folks will tell you to create a site about something you love. I disagree. I say make a site on something you can learn to love and are willing to learn everything about. Now of course, if you love something in a highly profitable category then go for it. But, you’ll have a hard time ever making a full time income off your love of action novels.

Find a category where you’re willing to engulf yourself within it and find and create yourself a point of difference from the rest of the niche. Make sure that categories main search terms show ten or more AdSense ads (this helps you see if there is enough profit in the niche that it has a steady supply of folks willing to pay for traffic within it) and that the top competitors aren’t propped up by millions of backlinks. Lisa Barone gave some great advice about finding a niche – it is aimed at bloggers, but works the same for almost any site type.

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