Written by: Simon Slade, Guest Blogger

This is Part 3 in my “Competitive Niches” series. Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already!

#3 – Thinking outside the box

It’s difficult to tackle competition head-on. Like any great battle commander will tell you, it’s more effective to attack your enemy from the rear or even the side. Similarly, affiliates can be more successful by thinking outside the box and coming up with new ways of doing things. Dell was able to shake up the computer industry by selling direct to the public online, rather than through retail outlets. So instead of thinking about what your competition are doing, think about what they’re not doing.

If you’re in the weight loss niche, is there something other affiliates are not giving customers? For many customers in this niche, a sense of community support is vitally important and has been the basis of success for offline weight loss services such as Jenny Craig. As an affiliate, could you fill this gap? For example, you might try some of the following ideas:

• Add a weight loss widget to your blog that allows readers to enter this week’s losses
• Build up an online discussion forum around reviewing weight loss products
• Allow visitors to your site to create their own profile page where fellow members can post messages of support
• Add a Twitter list to your site that collects inspiring and encouraging tips for people trying to lose weight

Stay tuned for Part 4 next Monday, where I’ll talk about organized link building campaigns.

About the author

Simon Slade is the CEO of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers free video training, education, and affiliate tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers. You can follow them on Twitter.

Take a look at these related posts:

1. Competitive Niches: 5 Ways to Beat the Big Guns- Part 1
2. Competitive Niches: 5 Ways to Beat the Big Guns- Part 2
3. Competitive Niches: 5 Ways to Beat the Big Guns- Part 4
4. Competitive Niches: 5 Ways to Beat the Big Guns- Part 5