A couple of weeks ago I went along to a triathlon exhibition to get some ideas for a cycling site I’m developing (and to drool over expensive space-age looking carbon gear), and I sat in on a talk by Mark McKay about how to get faster on your bike. The short version is, do little chunks very fast so your body gets used to what it feels like, then string them together into a whole race.

So what has this got to do with online marketing? That’s what I thought to myself as the blood drained from my brain to my legs the following weekend as I crawled my way up to Newlands Corner.

It struck me that the riders who Mark was talking about were like the affiliates and merchants I talk to on a daily basis who have got themselves started with a site , maybe done a little bit of PPC had some small success but have then come face to face with the giants in their sector and feel a bit overwhelmed, wondering how they can ever gain the resources to compete.

It’s how I felt when I saw Lance Armstrong finish his last Tour de France in Paris. He was so good it almost made me want to give up, then I saw the sprinter’s final charge and realised that he wasn’t the best at everything and that by picking your battles you can still pick up a few points in any race.

I had a similar conversation with a new affiliate a couple of weeks ago who had started off in the incredibly competitive motor insurance sector and was about to pack it in when he realised the budget he’d need to get any traffic at all. What we did was focus on the ’short sprints’, little battles he could fight to hone his skills, test with smaller budgets, then repeat until he had the legs of Lance Armstrong and the marketing budget of Moneysupermarket.

I won’t tell you what sector he went for, but let’s imagine it was far ice-cream van insurance.

With in an hour we’d found a decent domain name, 2 merchants, worked out that a page 1 ranking in Google was possible with the amount of time and budget he had available, and that the returns were worthwhile - there is enough traffic to tell the difference between doing it right and getting lucky.

The other thing we found is that this ’short sprint’ could be repeated in a string of other sectors using the same tactics as we found ones that work. Sandwich vans, removal vans etc etc, you get the gist.

By the time the first site is making consistent sales he’ll have a better idea of merchants that convert, keywords that convert, sites he can get links from, sources of inspiration for content. All very valuable stuff that can be strung together into the full ‘race’ for the big prize of a major motor insurance affiliate business. In short he’ll be stringing together the short sprints into a complete race.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the challenge of competition with bigger sites, try going as fast as they do, but just for a little bit.

My final quote is this clip of Al Pacino in “Any Given Sunday“, the best reminder ever that the game isn’t won in one go, but in little bits (caution: contains Al Pacino’s usual brand of strong language)