The Art and Business of Affiliate Marketing
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where an individual promotes another
person’s product or service and makes a commission from each sale. The affiliate
marketer has no responsibilities for the product quality, delivery or maintenance of
product – other than the moral responsibility to their customers of promoting
products of high value to them.
Why participate in Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing allows you the opportunity to work part-time or full time while
building a generous residual income.
“Residual income (also called passive or recurring income) is income that
continues to be generated after the initial effort is expended.” -Marty Foley
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest methods I know of to make money with
little or no startup costs and very little technology knowledge needed.
There are also effective low-to-no budget marketing methods available — the
product owner is doing the major marketing to gain product or service exposure.
Affiliate marketing is something you can start immediately while you’re learning
to create your own products and websites.
Affiliate marketing is a revenue-generating activity that you can do while you
build your main Internet profit stream >Learn more buy clicking here<
Affiliate Promotion Process
Below you will see another flow chart I have put together for you that helps you to
see the basic Affiliate Marketing flow process that you will be involved in during
your Affiliate Marketing
Common Ways to Promote Affiliate Products
At this point I am just going to list some great ways that I feel you could
concentrate on to promote your affiliate products when you are just beginning your
Affiliate Marketing venture. In the following pages we will go into more details
on the ones that I feel would be best for a beginner to get started with.
List Promotions-By developing a relationship with your list, you can promote
items that you feel would be valuable to them. >Get Started earning money today<
Blogging- Blogging is another incredible way to promote affiliate products. Paid
blogs, where you purchase and host your own domain, are the most effective.
However, there are free alternatives that can also be effective.
Some sites where you can set up a free blog:
Blogger Blog – http://www.blogger.com
Weebly – http://www.weebly.com
Social Media Marketing
HubPages – http://www.hubpages.com
Squidoo – http://www.squidoo.com
Article Marketing
Ezine Articles – http://www.ezinearticles.com
Go Articles – http://www.goarticles.com/
Article Dashboard – http://articledashboard.com
Easy Articles – http://www.easyarticles.com
Video Marketing (product reviews/benefits)
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com
Real People – http://www.realpeoplerealstuff.com
Revver – http://www.revver.com
You need to perform a search for the niche forum that fits your marketing needs.
Classified Ads
CraigsList – http://www.craigslist.com
USFreeAds – http://www.usfreeads.com
Backpage – http://www.backpage.com
Kijiji – http://www.kijiji.com
Oodle – http://www.oodle.com
Social Networking Sites
Facbook – http://www.facbook.com
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com
Yahoo Groups – http://groups.yahoo.com
Ning – http://www.ning.com
Pay Per Click Advertising
Google Adwords – http://adwords.google.com
Yahoo Search – http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com
Microsoft – http://advertising.microsoft.com
Quality & Stability: There is a huge quantity of Affiliate Products, do not
SETTLE for a program that is sloppy just to have a product to promote..
o Look for good reputable companies that are stable.
o Ask to speak to existing affiliates
o Make sure that full contact details are provided.
Commissions: As far as commission percentages go, look for products that
you will earn a minimum commission of $20.
o In order to achieve maximum profits, I recommend that you aim for
commissions at the 50% -100% level.
o High end product will usually be lower commissions 25%-50%
o Lifetime Commissions. (your customer you sent is cookied to you for
life)
o Residual Commission
o When are commissions paid
Affiliate Support: The best companies to work with provide plenty of
support >>CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE<<
o Promotional material available: sample ads, banners, logos
o Advice about maximizing sales provided.
o Statistics on click through sales and earnings should be provided and
updated regularly.
o Able to get your questions answered in a reasonable period of time –
say, within 24 hours. Be reasonable. If a product owner is in a
middle of a major launch his support will generally be heavier and
they may be a little behind.
Sales Page or the Pitch Page
View pitch page to help you learn more about the product and get ideas on
how to promote it, such as what keywords people might search to find it,
benefits you can highlight in your promotions, and more.
Look for products with good sales page to market as an affiliate
Is there a good strong and Catchy headline
Is sales page text or video sales page
Is sales page clean and easy to navigate
Good valid, solid, legitimate testimonials from real people!
Is there a good strong clear call to action
Does sales page have leaks that will rob your commissions
Turn knowledge into content. Then convert your content into income.
There is once again a flow process you can set into place to help you achieve the
desired outcome of turning your content into income
Traffic Generation
A growing Affiliate Business must have Traffic in order to survive properly. If
you do not have traffic to the content the monetization process will not occur.
Traffic is considered by many the lifeblood of any online or offline business.
An online business is no different than an offline business without traffic.
Of course you also need the right kind of traffic in order for monetization to
happen properly as well. >>ClICK HERE TO START EARNING MONEY TODAY<<
With no website traffic, your website isn’t going to make you any money or
generate any leads. Not surprisingly, most people don’t know this. They wrongly
believe in the “Build it and they will come” principle thinking they just have to
build a website and traffic will automatically flock to it.
This is completely wrong. And for this reason, several websites end up being
abandoned. Although some random visitors will come across your website, the fact
remains… significant money-making traffic doesn’t just appear.
Start with one avenue first and master this avenue of traffic before moving on to
new methods.
Many times new Affiliate marketers will get so caught up in trying to generate
many avenues of traffic they never really get good at any of them and their efforts
remain stagnant. Choose a avenue and stick to it until you mastered it. >Click here to view main page<
Pre-selling for Affiliate Monetization
Pre-Selling is positioning your offer in the mind of the visitor so it makes sense to
buy!
The biggest thing you have to remember is that you are dealing with a complete
stranger, and you are a complete stranger to your new visitor. They do not know
you, like you, or trust you YET! Until the visitor meets you at your website they
have no means of establishing a relationship with you yet.
Pre-selling is the time to build visitor confidence in you… (The trust factor)
How? By Over-delivering… Over-delivering is when you go beyond what your
customer was promised or ever expected… your visitors will “LOVE” you.
(Unless you already have a big brand name like Amazon, Immediate “selling” on
Web sites is ineffective.)
List build is very important to your overall marketing and it is especially
important to your pre-selling efforts. Getting a person on your list gives you the
upper hand and puts you in control and offers you more pre-selling opportunities.
A couple of these pre-selling opportunities you have available to you are
Follow Up email series
Webinars, Teleseminars, Broadcast messages >>CLICK HERE TO EARN MONEY TODAY<<
These methods are great to continue to deliver more content and value to further
your preselling to those not sold at the website.
Monetization Process of Affiliate Marketing
Out of all the steps we have covered I would have to say that monetization is the
easy part.
Everything you have put into place if done properly will lead to monetization. If
you go through each of the last 3 steps and still are not seeing any kind of
monetization, you need to go back and take a look at where you went wrong in the
first 3 steps.
Your Affiliate product recommendations (if well-chosen and positioned) should
provide an additional service and provide appreciated value for your visitors who
will in turn reward you when they open their wallet and give back to you! (You
have now monetized)
The affiliate model is an excellent revenue source. (It always makes sense to add
Affiliate Marketing as a great source of income into your business. I recommend
that you always diversify your income sources.)
A very important part of the monetization process for you to realize is that,
monetization is where you now have some control. Up until this point the visitor
was in complete control.
They could leave and you would never see or hear from them again and lose the
opportunity to provide more value and make further sales.
Content Blog Affiliate Marketing
Creating niche sites and/or blogs can be a great option for affiliates who have more
time and creativity than money.
If you are looking for some method of Affiliate Marketing that delivers instant
results I have to say right up front this is not for you. Like article marketing, this
technique can take time before you start seeing results, so it’s not something you
should expect to show immediate returns.
It is however a great way to create sustainable long-term profits, and a great
credibility builder with a minimum of money spent. Think consistency!
Like many other aspects of online marketing consistency is the key to Affiliate
Marketing through a content blog.
Cost for creating your own self-hosted blog;
Domain name and hosting, but these are typically pretty small. $20-$50
to get started.
Small monthly for hosting. Generally under $20 a month.
Although I do not recommend the free option for your professional blog, there are
many options to get your own site or blog that is hosted for free.
Drawbacks of a free blog are, you may be more limited on options like, the look
and feel of the site, how many pages your site can have, your monetization may be
limited if at all, and control of content, and a big Credibility destroyer!
Be very careful buying ready-made sites… these sites may have limited functions
such as SEO!
Plan Well and Stick To the Plan
Plans for monetization of your content blog require you to plan well and stick to
your plan.
The hardest work is at the start. The first sale is always the hardest and most costly
to get!
Blogging gets easier once you have built momentum. Be Consistent!
Once you have momentum it is hard to change directions
Think about your current readership… Will they accept the change? If you have
readers that are reading your blog for the way you are now, you have to take into
consideration that fact that they might not like the new changes and jump ship.
Generally changing your mind means starting over and re-building from scratch. B
changing directions mid-stream means a lot of lost time and pain!
The Important First Impression
New visitors arrive at your blog everyday as more content is developed and
optimized. What is the visitors very important First Impression?
Right now they are nothing more than a visitor that is a potential customer. They
are not familiarized with you or with the advertising, or content on your blog, and
further more they do not care about you. (YET)
Let’s take a look at some things that will help you create a great first impression
for your new blog visitor to keep them wanting to come back time and time again.
Keep your site simple and clean, and easy to navigate!
It’s not time for flashy banners and buy now buttons. It is all about building
a relationship with people through your content and your brand. My favorite
saying at this point is, “Just because you can does not mean you should!”
Just take a moment to think about what I just said and I think it will sink in
as to what I am talking about.
Provide good relevant Niche specific, problem solving content. Remember
that the purpose of content is to provide value to others. Do you provide
genuine value, and is it the best you’re capable of providing?
Once you gain visitor trust & love in what you give them you can slowly
begin to monetize them.
Takes time and dedication, and consistency, but if you create great content
which people want to read then multiple revenue streams open up
Never believe that your website visitor cares about you or your product!
Your visitor takes one look at your website and turns around and leaves….
Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. Here is
something even worse to think about; after they leave they’re going to one of
your competitors’ sites and buy something.
What visitors care about when they show up to your site is, does the content
solve their problems?
A couple things to write down and place where you can see them as your building
your website:
The only reason my web site exists is to solve my customers’ problems.
What problems do the page and the content I’m creating solve?
Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about. Do not mislead
them!
If you want better results stop the entire displaying of cleaver little tricks.
You want your visitor to find exactly what they came searching for.
Don’t use little disposable content just to increase page views and ad
impressions.
Your goal should be to truly help you visitor that shows up to your blog, and
my personal opinion is that anything else is wasting their time as well as the
time you spent adding it to your site.
I find that content rich articles that really give some meat to the visitor are
better at generating links and referrals and building traffic.
Make first impressions count. You want the visitor to feel like the visit to your site
was time well spent, and that the visitor leaves feeling they enjoyed some serious
take-away from the content you provided Advertisements. >Learn more here<
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