There has been some chatter on Twitter lately about affiliate marketers and videos. A common chorus seems to be that affiliates are waiting for merchants to provide them with video.
While some merchants, like Gaiam and Moosejaw, are producing quality video content for affiliates, I think it’s a mistake for affiliates to sit on their hands and wait for everybody else to follow suit.
Successful affiliate marketing is all about innovation and offering up unique value propositions, so why are affiliates no shows when it comes to video?
Well. not all of them. One example of an effective affiliate video is “Small Schooling Bass on Lake Fork” from Scott Hazard at BigBassCountry.com.
Scott combines a short, entertaining video with a text description of his fishing trip. the content includes contextual ads, as well as being flanked by AdSense.
But he is an exception.
So my Affiliate Summit partner Missy and myself decided we’d get in on the action with a video affiliate site.
And so, WeViews.tv was born. We figured if most affiliates choose to wait for boilerplate video creative from merchants, that’s cool, but we’re going to pounce on the opportunity.
We’re going to churn out bunches of videos reviewing products and services that we use, and point the readers to our affiliate links.
Now that I think about it, it’s cool if affiliates don’t want to make videos. After all, comScore Video Metrix reported that nearly 75 percent of US Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video in May 2007.
Ambitious, entrepreneurial affiliates would certainly want to seize this opportunity. But don’t mind me. Run those 468×60 banners and rock on.