Friday, August 27, 2010

Affiliate Marketing Secrets

One of the easiest and fastest way to make money online in through affiliate marketing. This is when you send visitors to someone else's product sales page, they make the sale and deliver the product, and you get a percentage of the sale price as you commission (usually 50% or more for digital products).

The benefits of this are

  1. You can get started almost immediately because you don't have to create a product, write the sales page, design the website, develop marketing materials, or set up the ordering, billing & delivery system.
  2. You have almost no investment of time because you don't have to do the customer support or deal with billing or technical issues.
  3. You have nearly zero risk because you already know the product sells. So if you send visitors you will get paid.
Looking at these benefits, it's clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

The downside is...

After all your hard work of generating traffic to the sales page, you will never see any of those visitors again. Most of them will not buy on their first visit, which means you're losing over 90% of the traffic right off the top. And of the 10% or less that do buy, the product owner will be able to sell to them again, but you will not.

What's the solution?

Simply put, you need to capture the name and email of your visitors *before* sending them to the product sales page. This way you can follow up with them and keep sending them back to the sales page to increase your chances of making the sale. And if you're really on top of your game, you'll then send to a pre-sales page in between.

Here's what these affiliate marketing strategies will do for you:
  1. You'll be building your own list of potential customers that you can market to again and again.
  2. You'll be pre-selling them by providing valuable information and then casually linking to the product sales page in the context of this information.
In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following affiliate marketing tools:
  1. A Video Squeeze Page (with video)
  2. One or more content-rich Pre-Selling Pages
  3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series
The video squeeze page is where you'll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. It captures the name and email of your visitors and puts them into your autoresponder, which then begins sending out the 5-part email series. Then it redirects them to your pre-selling pages after they subscribe to your email series.

All of this together increases your chances of making the sale by up to 500% so it's well worth the effort of setting it up. And once it's set up, it runs automatically - you just keep sending visitors to the squeeze page.

If you don't have the time or expertise to set it all up yourself, you can use something like Affiliate Silver Bullet. Services like this design the enter system (the video, the video squeeze page, the email series, the content pages, etc). The benefit is that it's much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it's instantly set up. The downside is that other people will be using the same affiliate tools as you. But the internet is pretty big, so this isn't much of a concern.

The other route you can take is to hire people on Elance to create and implement the various aspects for you. Either way, it's an important step that you need to take if you're going to be serious about your business.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Wanna Make Lots Of Money? An Online Affiliate Program Just Might Be Your Answer

The Internet is an amazing thing. Never before in history has making money been so easy. You have instant access to hundreds of thousands of people with just a couple clicks of a button. To be successful with your online affiliate program, you MUST know how to market a website.

The first thing you should understand is that a website is an advertising tool. If used in combination with the various marketing ideas, you can make a hefty income in a relatively short amount of time. If you learn to properly use these pay per click search engines, it could mean thousands to your bottom line in just a couple weeks. Use them incorrectly, and you're out some cash quickly. Lucky for you, we will give you the inside scoop here.

Just like all of the other elements of your marketing plan, website promotion can cost money. Fortunately, what you pay for the exposure is still dimes on the dollar compared to traditional advertising, but it is an expense none the less. Pay per click search engines are a great idea, although they can get quite expensive if you aren't careful.

The main benefit of using a PPC, is you are getting highly targeted visitors to your website and you only pay when someone visits your site by clicking on that link. Opt in newsletters are basically a service you offer on your website that lets people sign up to read about your valuable information.

If you have knowledge about a topic that others could benefit from, you may do well with having a newsletter on your website. The first step is to gather a list of email addresses...and not just any list either. You have to get permission from the email address owner. Let me say this loudly....we are talking first-hand permission here.

You can do that by offering a newsletter sign up form on your site, by giving away monthly goodies or by petitioning door to door. The key here is to re-kindle in them a burning interest in your website offering. You can offer some sort of Newsletter Specials, industry news, how-to advice etc.

Once you have your list, schedule your email program so it is consistent and relevant to the needs and interests of your audience. Devoted advocates spread the word to their friends, relatives and office chums. And it doesn't cost you a penny for all of this free advertising.
If you do your job well, your reading audience will not only re-order they will become advocates.

You can also make good money from your newsletter once you get a couple of thousand subscribers. It is only a small amount of money if you look at how greatly it is going to benefit you in the long run and offers things such as text for a popup window, the scripts that handle signing up new subscribers, letting people unsubscribe at any time, lets you send email to your subscribers and more.

Researching more about what all an affiliate program can do for you and for your financial growths is truly important, so dedication and remaining very determined is the key to your successful future.

Things To Remember About An Affiliate Program

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on. Don't spend any money to join any affiliate program. Almost all the affiliate programs offered today are free to join. So, why you go for those that charge you some dollars before joining. How are referrals from an affiliate's site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system?

You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

Know conversation ration per hit. With this you will be able to know how much traffic needed to make sale for your affiliate program. This is based on average number of hits to a banner or text likes it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. Every program is some different. some issue their checks once in a month, some issue twice or some issue every quarter. so, choose that one with which you are comfortable.

Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued. What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? so, choose that affiliate program which is capable of offering detailed stats. And one more thing they always available online anytime you decide do check them out. A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated.

A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee. So, it is important to know about affiliate program is it one tier or two tier affiliate program.

Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links. and impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site.

Is affiliate program also paying for the hits and impressions besides the commissions on sales? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

Things To Keep In Mind When It Comes To An Affiliate Program

Affiliate Programs has exploded on the Internet. Thousands of people join them everyday. The Plug-in Profit Site is one of the best examples of such phenomenal success. If affiliate programs are so popular, so widely available and booming like mushrooms...Why do most affiliates have a hard time making them work? It could be that theyíre not effectively marketing their business, or they did not develop a solid foundation for building their business. Nevertheless, some affiliates are making big bucks.

Many successful affiliates easily bring in incomes of $100,000 or more per year. Making anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 per month is easier than you might think. Of course, many affiliates never make much money at all. They either fail or just plain give up.

One of the most important things to do when trying to succeed with a Home Based Business is to have a compelling reason why you want to work from home or start a home business. Write your reason (WHY) down and refer to it often especially when you need motivation or just to stay focus. For example, if you wanted to spend more time with your family, make your own schedule, or quit your job...write these reasons down and make them apart of you life.

Many people fail because they donít have a clear vision of where they want to go, how to get there, or even where to start. First of all, you absolutely have to know what it is that you want. Then do some research on how to get there. There is an overwhelming number of work at home opportunities and business startup programs that you can investigate online. Just type those or similar terms into your internet browser to see the results that you get. However, be careful about the programs that you choose to participate in; we will talk more about that later. Just take the time to research and ask questions before you jump in.

Another way for you to stay focus and succeed online is to set your goals. Goals are an important part of your overall vision. For example, if you wanted to quit your job in one year, you have to have a plan on how to aggressively replace your current income. Developing your why, vision, and goals with the right Affiliate Programs will absolutely put you on the fast track to replacing your current income, and quitting your day job. Once you set your mind and heart in the right direction you will succeed at anything you choose to do.

So, lay the ground work for your future first by doing the things that I am laying out for you here.
It is equally important to Choose the right types of Affiliate Programs to join. Subscription Affiliate Programs, in my opinion, is the best companies to join, because they offer immediate income possibilities. When someone signs up for a subscription program and pays their monthly or annual fee you will receive immediate residual income as long as they remain paid members. Subscription programs will pay you residual income for years to come.

Starting A New Affiliate Program Can Be A Challenge-Learn More Now

Want to start a new affiliate program but not sure whom to approach? Well, there are a number of ways in which you can get access to high quality, efficient affiliates - if you know where to look. Here's a first hand primer on how you can get the best affiliates. Before you actually start hunting for the perfect set of affiliates, you will need to tune your mind into thinking like one.

That way you can prepare your affiliate program to cater to their requirements. It will also prevent you from receiving any surprises or shocks in future. Most top quality super affiliates are concerned with the quality of the product they are promoting. They know that if they associate with a poor quality product they not only risk their reputation online but also earn less in terms of incentives.

That's why ensure you have built on a solid, high quality product to promote. Make sure to establish a good incentive package that rewards affiliates well. Otherwise you risk losing out on top quality talent and just finding the mediocre affiliates. Make sure to have a good performance bonus package and perks as well. No affiliate will want to join your affiliate program if they find you have never built affiliate sites!

This is one of the first things most affiliates will ask you. So start building your own affiliate sites to get access to more qualified affiliates. You as an affiliate program owner will obviously need to track the affiliates' performance. For this there are plenty of tracking software available. However, make sure to use software which doesn't invade the affiliate's privacy and that he or she is comfortable with.

Else you risk losing them in the long run. In order for your promotional efforts to be successful, you need to adequately train your affiliates. You also need to provide them with easy access to all possible promotional and advertising material. From banner ads, to textual copy, to links to specific sections of your site etc. - these will all help in propagating your product better. Get feedback.

It is always a good idea to ask for your affiliates' feedback on a continual basis. That way you know your expectations and theirs and also get to understand their concerns. If they have any problems, you should be ready to sort them out. If you want access to high quality super affiliates, you'll want to notch up your conversion rates on the site

Any serious affiliate worth his salt will hate being taken for a ride. If they find out your site's sales conversions are very slow, they'll abandon your program and move on to something more lucrative. Make sure you tweak and fine tune your site to improve sales conversion rates.

It maybe extremely time consuming but communicating with each affiliate program on an individual basis may actually work. It's because serious affiliates usually disregard such emails as spam. Therefore if you want your email to stand out favorably, consider contacting them personally and personalize the email content. Make sure to include the website owner's name because you want to show that you made the effort to search for their name.

Some Advantages Of An Affiliate Program

There are many advantages to having an affiliate business over a business where you sell your own products or services. These include not having to have a merchant account or deal with the hassles of customer service. You can also often set up your promotions, and once you get effective promotions created, you can basically put your business on autopilot, leaving you plenty of time for other things.

Although all of these things make building and running an affiliate business more advantageous than other business models, it's still to your advantage if you're an affiliate marketer to build a list. Many people online are skeptical. Because there are so many scams occurring online, many people are worried about being taken. The truth is, the more credibility you have, and the harder you work to build a relationship with your readers, the more you will increase your bottom line.

First, by building a list, you can recycle the traffic that you receive to your site. Even though some will buy through your link when you refer your visitors directly to the merchant's site, most won't buy, and you've lost that traffic. Also, when you refer the visitor to the merchant directly, the merchant will have a chance to get the visitor on his/her list, giving the merchant additional opportunities to market repeatedly to your potential customers.

By selling multiple products, even if they're not your own, you can increase your sales. It makes it easy for you to go out and find the very best products to offer in your business. People love information, especially online, and you can offer unbiased reviews, or reviews on the best of the best with products online.

Fourth, the biggest advantage of getting others to subscribe to your list is that these potential customers are targeted. They're looking for what you're offering. The difference between targeted and untargeted traffic is conversion. A targeted visitor is more likely to convert to a sale than a non targeted visitor.

Although there are many reasons you should build a list, the bottom line is your bottom line. By marketing your offers to those who are interested in what you offer, you're more likely to make a sale. Create a business name and contact the two listed stores and inquire about the affiliate program. Now your first sale will be to yourself and your friends and family members.

The requirements are not hard to meet and when approved you'll be given access to another section of the stores website to view the below wholesale prices. This can become a very profitable side business if you so desire.

Please watch out for perfumes stores that advertise wholesale prices and are charging you full retail. Also some perfume brands have main distribution points. Those brands will be cheaper at the main wholesale store than any where else.

No matter what type of online business you are trying to operate, having an affiliate program will get you set up in the right direction for a more successful future for years to come.

More To Learn About An Affiliate Program

While there are plenty of legitimate online businesses that you can start or you can take part in you need to avoid those scams that tell you about making millions with only a couple hours of work each day. An affiliate program can get you guided in the right direction if you pay close attention to this article and look closer into other sources as well.

It simply is not going to happen and the only one that will be making money is the scammer who placed such ads in the first place. Yet too many of these business ventures fail because they are not well planned or the person have the belief that they can just get rich quick without having to do any work.

When you sit down at your computer to surf the internet you have the access to almost anything you could possibly want to buy. This is one of the main reasons why millions of people take a look around online each day. On the other side of this coin are the entrepreneurs who know there is a great deal of money to be made with a successful online business.

With a successful online business though you can have the freedom to work when you want from your home. You also have the opportunity to make a very good living at what you enjoy doing. If you do not have your own product to promote you can sign up for various affiliate programs. These allow you to market products that other people have for sale and then earn commissions from those sales.

You do have to implement some excellent marketing strategies though in order to generate sales online. Consumers like to compare prices and information before they commit to a particular purchase. Make sure they are able to find what you have to offer so they can seriously consider buying it. They more you promote the benefits of what you have to offer as well as the convenience, the more likely they will be to respond.

Of course you can develop your own goods or services to sale online as well. Products that can be delivered online such a study course materials and e-books are a great way to earn income without having to invest in supplies or shipping costs. Many people who shop online enjoy the convenience of instantly being able to access the materials they buy instead of having to wait for them to be delivered by mail.

You will find people from all walks of live working online to make a living. There are housewives, college students, retired adults, and those with a college education who are tired of the rat race out in the workforce. Having an affiliate program could be all that you need to earn more in profits.You need to take a close look at how much time you want to spend working online, your skills, and your own self discipline. Good luck with making more money!