The Income Access team was able to sit down with some of the top affiliates of the iGaming industry to gain their insight on the expansion into multiple verticals. In Part 1, the affiliates shared their thought process behind their decision to diversify and in Part 2, they shared the challenges they faced and how they overcame them.Now, in the final instalment of our Affiliate Diversification Blog Series, we asked:

What advice would you give existing affiliates looking to expand their businesses into new verticals?

Simon Jones – Focus Online Management

First you’ve got to have the desire. Next comes ability and capacity. You need a balanced scorecard approach really. Without desire, need or want, you’ll find it difficult to succeed. Ability and capacity can be uplifted and resourced so this shouldn’t be an issue, but the main thing to think about is the marketplace. Is there a gap in the market? Can you do something better than is already out there?

Sometimes working on your existing vertical and innovating can reap higher rewards than expanding into other verticals. But then that can become boring, and we all want a new challenge don’t we? It all comes back to desire for me.

Jesper Søgaard – Better Collective

Passion and understanding of the new vertical is key. The users are the determinants of whether or not you will be successful, so you need to know their language and needs in order to satisfy them.

Expansion requires one organic step at a time—it can’t be overly forced. We’ve been fortunate in our expansion efforts so far, but we will only expand if we are absolutely certain that we will be able to deliver the best job and turn our new venture into a market-leading product. We remain focussed on nurturing our current projects, and allowing our organisation to grow, attracting new talents with other passions. As this variety of passion grows among our workforce, we are fostering new opportunities internally, while also looking to changes in the industry that will inspire new pathways.

Roxana Blaj – 2iVentures

The best piece of advice we can offer has to do with hard work and doing your homework: learn everything about the new vertical and everything there is to know about the product. Scan the information, ask questions, discuss with other users and identify its strengths and weaknesses.

Jocelyn Wood – Rakeback.com

Try to look at the new vertical in a different way to everyone else. It’s not about being radically different, it’s about having a small edge that you can press to make long-term revenues.

And note that I’ve not mentioned SEO. If you can provide people with what they want, the SEO rankings will follow. SEO is what you do with good quality content, not what you do instead of producing good content. In entering a new vertical, high search rankings don’t come immediately, but with quality content they will come.

Inspired to make your own vertical leap?

Did you miss parts 1 and 2 of the series? Be sure to check them out:Planning Your Vertical Jump – Affiliate Diversification Series Part 1Making Your Vertical Jump – Affiliate Diversification Series Part 2Have you recently made a move to include a new vertical in your affiliate portfolio? We would love to hear about it!

Leave us a comment below or join us on social media: LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook