Top Affiliate Marketers Explain the Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Niche Marketing

Several weeks ago I received an email from a subscriber asking me what the difference was between Niche Marketing and Affiliate Marketing. Hmmm... I "kinda" knew but that wasn't good enough. So I emailed some "experts" to find out what they think. Here are the answers I received:

1. Rosalind Gardener: (Author, Super Affiliate Handbook)

As for the difference between affiliate marketing and niche marketing.

That's kind of an 'apple and oranges' question.

Affiliate Marketing is performance-based, partnership marketing in which a merchant pays a commission to an affiliate for generating clicks, leads, or sales through graphic or text links displayed by the affiliate on his/her website or newsletters.

In other words, affiliate marketing is a marketing 'channel', or a way for merchants to gain wider distribution of their products.

Niche marketing is the process of finding small market segments with large profit potential.

Affiliate marketers can (and should) be niche marketers by devoting one domain to highly specific markets like dating sites for singles, golf shoes or dog training, for example.

2. Michael Wong (Owner, Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com)

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based online marketing system whereby online merchants recruit, with minimal upfront cost, hundreds even thousands of agents to promote their products or services on their websites, newsletters, blogs, ebooks, forums, or in major search engines, and pay a one-time or recurring commission fee for each visit (pay-per-click), sale (pay-per-sale), registration/subscription (pay-per-lead), or action such as a software download (pay-per-action).

Niche marketing is the process of marketing to a specific group of buyers, such as people located in a certain geographical region, or people with a specific hobby or interest, with the objective of achieving dominance of that market segment.

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Bio: Michael Wong is an internationally recognized internet marketing expert, and the author of a leading SEO book and reviews of marketing tools and ecommerce software. Visit his website at http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com   or his new site at http://www.GoDefy.com   - the world's first internet marketing comparison shopping search engine.

3. Teri & Doug Champigny (Owners, MarketMy.com)

In most cases Affiliate marketing involves the sale of some else's product, which can be mainstream or in any niche. Niche marketing is generally used to refer to marketing to any sector outside of the actual internet marketing realm.

As such one could be marketing an affiliate program in a niche, but they could also be promoting their own product. So basically the options are as follows:

1. Pushing your own internet marketing product - neither.

2. Pushing an internet marketing affiliate program - affiliate marketing

3. Pushing your own niche product - niche marketing

4. Pushing a niche affiliate product - both.

Market My Dot Com!

Strategic Internet Marketing Specialists.

Welland, Ontario, Canada Phone:905-734-9499

Fax: 905-714-9040 Toll-Free: 877-932-2183

Blog: http://champigny.blogspot.com   

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Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen, for clearing up the muddy waters!