Affiliate Marketing as a profession.

[sam]

Dear friends,
I was just thinking today given the amount of studying, research, testing, constant education updates on new trends etc. would it make sense to consider what we do a Profession? (for those that take it seriously)

I mean professional fighters, golfers, gamers, etc. are all outside the norm of Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants... but are still considered Professionals.

I dunno, maybe I'm just off the handle today, but given how "make or break" some of our decisions can be financially, I would think its a justified title.

Thoughts?

[imkathy]

There are many high end skills needed to be a successful affiliate marketer: coding, graphic design, ad writing, marketing strategist, webmaster, bookkeeper. How is a person with all those skill sets, earning money, not a professional?

Thanks

[Kahnsee]

ya
Some people out there have a product, we promote it, we get paid per sale of that product. It takes a bit more training an panache than working in a shop, but we do have a substantially larger customer and competitor base than a physical store. Also a larger product range to chose from and maybe specialise in.

It's not to say that End of the day though, we're sales people. And the ones that put in the extra time to learn the sales tactics and the products are the ones that do well, just like the guy in a suit with slicked back hair trying to sell you a Nokia.

[Kelly]

The PR (brandking) value of PPC compaings is often ignored. Primay reason is that it is hard to measure the value. 
 
AdWords campaign I ran had a good ROI for the leads it was generating. What was interesting was the cost for the total impressions that were recieved was lower than a small banner in an industry info portal. From the VP Marketing's perspective he was getting leads and good branding. Remember the impressions were for targeted search terms, where on the info portal there was limited control just where the banner would show.