If you're selling a product or service online, you need affiliates. Quite simply, affiliates are the key towards that million-dollar payday. Who wouldn't want a battalion of thousands of affiliates who will help sell their products on the World Wide Web?
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Introduction
So, you have decided to try out affiliate marketing.
Congratulations!
Affiliate marketing, without a doubt, is the quickest and
easiest way to make some profit on the World Wide Web.
Aside from this, affiliate marketing can boast of the following
benefits…
· Minimum to zero financial investment to start out with
this earning stream;
· A variety of programs to choose from;
· Unlimited number of programs to join;
· Extravagant commission schemes ranging from 20% to
90% of the selling price;
· Get paid as you produce results. You’re not handcuffed
by time, you can work at your own pace;
· No limit as to how much you can earn.
Because of these amazing benefits, millions of online users
have tried their hands in affiliate marketing.
But I am telling you right now, with the help of this guide
you are reading, you will be able to succeed in this field
even if it’s just your first time of trying it.
How?
You can succeed through the easy 7-step program that will
be introduced in the following pages.
Allow me to reveal to you this 7-step program:
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1. Choose a subject
2. Choose a good affiliate program
3. Create a website
4. Formulate a USP
5. Create and distribute a viral product
6. Write and distribute articles
7. Implement an email marketing system
I don’t believe in complications. For me, making money
online is easy. Making money online via affiliate marketing
is even easier.
I don’t believe in gurus who make simple things difficult just
to make them look good.
Internet marketing, particularly affiliate marketing, isn’t
supposed to be hard.
With the 7-step system we will be discussing, we will
simplify affiliate marketing into doable, pragmatic stages
that you can actually employ in a day’s time, per affiliate
product you will promote.
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Step One:
Choose A Subject
Making money online, and even in the real world, will seem
less of a chore if you enjoy what you’re doing. Many
veteran Internet marketers will tell you that, first and
foremost, you should try to pinpoint a subject that you like…
something that you are actually interested in.
Imagine creating a dog grooming business when you don’t
even like dogs.
How will that venture fare?
Without the love and the passion you can invest in a
business, it will never reach its full potential. Furthermore,
you’ll easily get bored with it. And once you get bored,
maintaining your business will be worse than work.
The same applies for an online business.
You should find a subject matter that you love, or at the
very least, a topic that you like.
There are many fields that you can concentrate on.
You like dogs? Maybe you can consider the broader subject
of pets, or a more specific breed like Chihuahua. Better yet,
concentrate on a more particular branch, like dog health or
dog care.
Your choice of market will depend on a variety of factors:
· How well do you know the said market? Passion will
bring you a lot of benefits, so might as well choose a
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·
·
·
·
market that you are passionate about from the very
beginning.
How interested are you with the said market?
Knowledge is an ongoing commitment. You have to
update yourself CONSTANTLY so as not to get left
behind with the latest trends and tactics in your
particular industry. Might as well choose a market that
you are interested in, to make the constant search for
knowledge more enjoyable and fulfilling.
What is the outlook for the said market? Naturally, you
wouldn’t want to focus on a dying market, where the
products you are trying to pre-sell have saturated the
digital shelves. You want a HUNGRY market, one which
will be able to sustain profitability for a long, long time
to come. This brings us to the basics of economic
success…
How big is the demand of the said market? This is the
first component of economic success, that demand
should be high.
What is the size of the competition in the said market?
This is the second component of economic success:
that supply should be low.
Low Supply + High Demand = Profitable Market
This is the ONE FORMULA you should remember when
choosing a market. It’s the basic rule of economic success.
It’s the secret of so many high-profit businesses throughout
the ages.
You see, high yielding enterprises are not born overnight,
and neither are they born out of whim.
They are products of meticulous study and consistent hard
work.
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And it all begins from selecting the perfect market for their
ventures.
There are many online tools that you can use to determine
the variables at play with the formula above.
To determine demand, simply go to www.nichebot.com .
Type in a subject you have in mind. You will then be taken
to a page where a number of keywords and key phrases are
suggested, together with the number of times they have
been searched for in the search engines.
You will want to choose subjects with high numbers of
searches.
My personal determinant is at least 1,000,000 searches per
month. This will assure me that there are a substantial
number of people very much interested in the said subject.
Now, finding a sub-topic that commands many searches is
not enough. You need to determine how many websites are
catering to it, since you’ll be operating on the Internet.
Run a search of the sub-topic at www.google.com . Look at
the number of web pages that appear, as indicated on the
top area of the results page.
If the subject commands 1,000,000 searches per month and
there are 2,000,000 websites catering to the it, then the
supply outweighs the demand and the chances of succeeding
as an affiliate in such a field will be slimmer.
But if the subject commands 1,000,000 searches per month
and there are only 2,000 websites catering to it, then you
have for yourself a goldmine!
This is how you find a fertile market on the World Wide Web.
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Step Two:
Choose An Affiliate Program
Once you have determined a market you want to cater to,
it’s time to choose the profit-generating machinery of this
moneymaking process.
You have 2 choices:
1. Either you choose an affiliate program; or
2. You join an affiliate network
Let’s discuss them individually.
An affiliate program is one where the merchant directly
employs an affiliate system to hire affiliates. The affiliates
will deal with the merchant DIRECTLY. There will be no third
party, no broker to speak of. The merchant will be the one
to distribute affiliate links, give away paraphernalia to help
in promoting the products, and ultimately, pay the affiliates
their commissions.
An affiliate network, on the other hand, is a system which an
affiliate can join. Upon enrollment, he will gain access to
hundreds, if not thousands, of products from different
merchants. He can choose which product to promote. The
affiliate network serves as the broker between the affiliates
and the merchants.
There are pros and cons for each choice.
An affiliate network is an excellent choice for people who
can’t decide on what product to promote. With the myriad
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of choices presented by affiliate networks, and with the
liberty to choose any product at any time, affiliate networks
offer great opportunities for would-be affiliate marketers.
The problem?
Thousands, if not millions, of people share the same thought
about affiliate networks.
This means thousands, if not millions, of competitors for you
for any product you will choose under a particular affiliate
network.
The secret to online success is actually quite simple. It can
be summarized through the equation below…
high demand for a product + few competition =
maximum profit
This is true for any business.
Affiliate networks may offer a hot product, but if millions of
affiliates will promote it, you chances of succeeding will be
severely curtailed.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t succeed if you’re
enrolled under an affiliate network. With the succeeding
lessons, you will learn how to elevate your game and
emerge triumphant in the field of affiliate marketing even if
you will be competing against millions of other affiliates.
Now, on to affiliate programs…
An affiliate program, quite obviously, will offer fewer
products for you to promote. You’ll be limited to the
merchant’s products only.
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However, affiliate programs employ fewer affiliates. This
means less competition. And this further means greater
chances to succeed.
Not satisfied with the sales rate of a particular product under
an affiliate program’s banner?
No problem!
You can join multiple affiliate programs! There is no limit as
to how many affiliate programs you can join.
Better yet, almost all affiliate programs are free to join.
They won’t charge you a single cent for your membership.
After all, you are the one who will be helping the merchant
sell his products. You are the one who has to be paid!
Now, there are good affiliate programs and there are bad
affiliate programs.
How do you know which to avoid?
Be on the lookout for the following signs:
· Offering a product that is of inferior quality. This
product may fill up a need somewhere, but because of
its poor quality, refund requests will pour in. You may
be able to refer some sales, but the refunds will take
away your commission. Worse, you might lose
credibility amongst your prospects for leading them to
a bad product.
· Offering a product that is difficult to sell. This is self-
explanatory. You won’t be able to realize your
commissions if the product you’re tasked to pre-sell is a
“hard sell.”
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· The affiliate program has a history of failing to pay its
affiliates. Nothing is more frustrating than working for
something but being deprived of the rewards for some
reason or another.
· The affiliate program has a dubious history in its
dealing with its clients and partners.
· The affiliate program is struggling when it comes to its
finances.
· The affiliate program is being operated by a person or
persons who are quite hesitant to introduce
themselves.
If you see an affiliate program with any of these
characteristics, run the other way.
Now, how do you determine the right affiliate program?
Basically, the right affiliate program should possess most, if
not all, of the following characteristics:
· A hot-selling product. Personally, this is my number
one concern. I will not be able to earn as an affiliate if
I cannot pre-sell any products, right? Hence, I always
look for programs offering products that have a proven
value in a particular market, or at the very least,
products which offer a lot of promise.
· Gratuitous commission scheme. This is only secondary
to the factor above. The minimum commission rate for
me is 50%. Anything lower may take more
consideration. This shouldn’t be a problem though, as
most affiliate programs offer 50% commission per sale
these days.
· A program that is well known for its credibility. Who
would want to associate themselves with flash in the
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pan, fly-by-night establishments, right? You want to be
a winner? Stick with a winner! You will need to rely on
recommendations and your own exercise of due
diligence to find such an affiliate program.
· A program that has an excellent post-sales service. In
affiliate marketing, refund requests are your enemies.
You may be led to believe that you have bagged a sale,
but if a refund is requested later on, you won’t get any
commission. A program that has excellent post sales
support will be able to minimize such requests, and
consequently, will be able to protect your interests.
As far as affiliate networks go, www.cj.com ,
places to start with.
For affiliate programs, www.turboaffiliates.comwill give you
some mighty fine choices of great selling products, as well
as a commission rate that can’t be beat.
Start hunting!
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Step Three:
Create A Website
Some Internet marketing gurus will tell you that you can
pursue affiliate marketing even without the benefit of a
website.
That’s true.
However…
Having your own website will make things easier, and will
multiply your profit tremendously!
A website is your headquarters in cyberspace. If real life
businesses have their brick and mortar stores, your affiliate
marketing business will have a website as its virtual office.
This is the value of having your own website, in a nutshell: a
place that will be identified with your business, a central
place where you can lead people so that they’ll be exposed
to your business message.
As an affiliate marketer, you can use your website to host all
of your affiliate links.
Now, why is this important?
Because as an affiliate, you will be given an affiliate link per
product. Your prospects SHOULD click on your specific
affiliate link so that any purchases they make will be
credited under your account.
Affiliate links are what tells the affiliate system which
commission goes to whom.
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Since you will be dealing with hundreds of products, you will
have an equal amount of affiliate links. This can be quite
tricky. If you’re going to promote them individually, each
affiliate link will require its own campaign.
But…
If you have your own website, you can have one main
campaign to lead your prospects to your headquarters where
all your affiliate links can be found. Everything will be
centralized. Everything will be easier.
When you have decided to build your own website, you will
need two things:
1. a domain name; and
2. a subscription to a web hosting service
Your domain name is your address on the World Wide Web.
The URL turboHQ.com has “turbohq” as its domain name.
When choosing a domain name for your affiliate marketing
campaign, please bear in mind the following guidelines:
· The domain name should be relevant to the field you
are engaged in.
· The domain name should be easy to remember.
· The domain name should be catchy.
· As much as possible, choose the extension “.com” or if
it is not available anymore, choose “.org,” “.info,” or
“.net.” These are the acknowledged extensions that
people never forget about.
You will also need a web hosting service. The best one I can
recommend isturboWWW, which boasts of everything you
could ever want with a partner for your online business.
Check it out for yourself and see what it’s about.
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Basically, you should be looking for 3 things from the web
hosting service you are considering. These are:
1. Storage space – or how many files you can store in
your account. Do not settle for anything less than
50MB.
2. Bandwidth limit – or how much data transfer can be
accommodated by the web hosting service. Do not
settle for anything less than 15GB per month.
3. Excellent technical support – your website is your
business partner. You will want it to be live all the
time. In the event that it’s down, the web hosting
service should provide IMMEDIATE assistance to bring
it back up, as your business relies on it.
You will also need an autoresponder service.
One thing which is of utmost importance, which we will
discuss in detail in a latter step is email marketing.
Basically, much of your success will depend on how big and
how responsive your mailing list will be.
What’s that? “Mailing list?” you ask?
Indeed, you will have to build a mailing list to convert casual
onlookers into leads. Your sales will come from your leads,
after all.
And what makes email marketing possible is a subscription
to an autoresponder service.
I kid you not when I say that an autoresponder service is
one of the most critical investments you will make in your
journey towards the Promised Land of affiliate marketing
triumph. So it is important that you choose a fantastic
autoresponder service to give you solid ground to stand on.
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I can only recommendTurboResponders, which many claim
is the best autoresponder service available on the market
today.
Grab a subscription right now, if you wish, as later on, you
will discover how absolutely vital it will be for your affiliate
marketing campaigns.
Knowing all of this, creating a website should be easy.
If you know basic HTML programming, then things will even
be easier.
If you don’t, well, there are many WYSIWYG HTML editors
out there. Your copy of Windows XP comes with MS Front
Page, which is a powerful tool that will help you create great
looking websites even on your first try.
If you want something simpler, you can get a powerful HTML
editor for free fromhttp://www.nvu.com .
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Step Four:
Create A Website
Earlier, I told you that we will be discussing a technique that
will greatly help you compete against thousands of affiliates
promoting the same product.
We will be tackling that right now.
Answer me this…
Why should people buy from you instead of buying from
others who are promoting the same product?
Surely, your offer must have something special, something
unique, something fabulous that will separate it from the
rest.
This distinguishing factor is what we call the unique selling
proposition or USP.
The USP, plain and simply, is the secret of the Internet
marketing millionaires. Somehow, they have formulated a
unique selling proposition that made the members of their
target market take notice and compelled them to buy from
the said successful NETrepreneurs.
So I’ll dare say this…
Your affiliate marketing success will greatly depend on the
potency of the USP you will be able to come up with.
The USP states that you should be able to personalize an
offer to make it better than the rest. Hence, you may be
selling the same product to the same market, but if you can
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add something that will make your offer better, you’d
naturally stand out amongst your competitors. People will
notice you more and they will buy from you instead of
buying from others.
In short… the USP is tantamount to putting your own twist
into things.
Take for example an affiliate program offering an eBook on
wedding speeches. There are 1,000 affiliates promoting it,
with you being one of them. The eBook sells for $50, and
commission is pegged at 50%, or $25 per sale.
Now, how can you successfully make people click on your
affiliate link instead of other’s links?
Add something that will make your offer more valuable.
There are countless, countless ways by which you can
accomplish this. The limit is really your imagination. Let
those creative juices flow and see for yourself how far this
tactic can take you.
One of the most popular USP applications is the act of
adding bonuses to the offer. If you have other products that
you would like to give away to people who order through
your affiliate link, then announce it immediately.
This will add to the value of your offer. When compared
with the bare offers of other affiliates, yours will truly shine.
People will order from you.
People will thank you for putting up a wonderful package.
And people will trust you enough to order from you again.
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There are many sources for the bonuses you can include.
Let’s take a look at some of them:
· Products which you have created yourself. Want some
Manual for some fantastic ideas. You can also refer to
Jimmy D. Brown and Ryan Deiss’ fantastic series,
· Products which you have caused the creation of. These
are products you have asked a freelancer to create,
and all the rights of which have accrued to you upon
completion of the transaction. Want to protect your
interests when it comes to your dealings with
freelancers? Do refer to the Outsourcing Survival Kit,
the first eBook on the matter of digital contracting of
tasks for a fee.
· Products which you acquired with their master resale
rights or private label rights. Knowing the different
kinds of rights is a must in doing online business. Arm
Explained, the definitive tome for such a subject.
· Joint ventures. Others may already have fantastic
products which will perfectly complement your offer.
You can enter a partnership with them. How? Do refer
to JV Broker 101 for a comprehensive discussion on the
matter.
Want more ideas?
Okay, so let’s say you’re in a mall, and you’re looking for
some new clothes to wear. One shop’s offering a nice pair
of pants for $100. Another shop is offering the same pair at
a highly discounted rate of $90.
What shop will you choose?
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You’d naturally buy from the one which is offering a big
discount, right?
The same goes in affiliate marketing.
If you can offer the products you are pre-selling at a lower
price, then you’d be able to win over more prospects.
Wait. I know what you’re thinking…
“But they’re not my products. I don’t set the price. How
can I offer discounts?”
Indeed, the price for the products you will pre-sell are more
or less fixed by the affiliate merchants, but this shouldn’t
mean that you cannot offer discounts for them.
Where will the discounts come from?
From your prospective commissions, of course.
Suppose an eBook is being sold for $50, with the
commission rate pegged at 50%, or $25 per sale. You can
offer the same ebook for $40, and take away the $10 from
the commission that will eventually be counted in your
account.
Quite a number of affiliate merchants recognize this tactic,
and they are willing to enter into a special arrangement with
you.
If not, you can always offer a cash rebate to the people who
order through your link. You can promise them a certain
percentage of the money back once you receive your
commission from the affiliate merchant.
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Yet another derivative of this tactic is offering discounts for
future purchases. By that time, you will have received your
commissions which shall answer the discounts you will offer.
Yes, this technique will cut down on your profit.
But with the competitive nature of this field, it is an essential
sacrifice. One step backwards, two steps forward, so they
say. The rewards you will gain will make such a sacrifice
very much worth it.
What we have enumerated above are just some of the more
popular and potent USP implementations today. They are
tried and tested tactics that are being employed by the top
affiliates of today.
But you are not limited to them only.
You can come up with a USP of your own.
You can emphasize the word “Unique” in Unique Selling
Proposition.
You can add your OWN personal touch on your offers to
make them totally different and totally special. Then, you’d
be able to capture the interest of the members of your
market, and such is the start of a fruitful affiliate marketing
campaign for you.
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Step Five:
Create A Viral Product
Armed with your affiliate links as well as your USP, you are
ready to announce to the world your entry into the playing
field.
And how else should a winner like you announce his arrival?
With a bang, of course!
Here’s a great tactic that I employ for every major product
launch that I promote.
I create viral products.
What’s a viral product?
Basically, a viral product is a digital product – capable of
being distributed digitally – that is of outstanding value.
This digital product promotes my affiliate link. It can be a
timely eBook or special report, the pages of which contain
my affiliate link. It can be a software program where my
affiliate link will appear in the user interface.
Now, here’s the clincher…
I distribute the viral product for free.
Yes, for FREE.
A product of high value, distributed for free!
What’s my purpose for that? What results do I expect?
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Well, suppose you receive something valuable, for free.
Wouldn’t you feel special? Wouldn’t you feel lucky?
Wouldn’t you feel happy? Wouldn’t you want to share such
feeling with your closest friends? You family members? The
people you chat with in your favorite online forum?
This is why it’s called a “viral” product… because like a
“virus,” it spreads quite quickly, at an exponential rate at
that.
What if every person who gets to enjoy my viral product
refers it to 5 of his/her friends?
1 prospect can quickly become 5 prospects.
5 prospects can quickly become 25 prospects.
25 prospects can quickly become 125 prospects.
And so on and so forth.
It can become a juggernaut of a cycle for the first few days.
And often, such lasts for many, many months, if not years.
Heck, I’m still generating clicks from a viral eBook I
distributed 3 years ago!
Creating a viral product is actually easy.
Ask yourself, what are you good at?
If you can create software programs, create software
programs.
If you can write, write eBooks and special reports.
If you have a flair for videos or broadcasting, create a video
or audio product that can be downloaded.
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If you can’t do any of these, hire a freelancer from websites
like www.elance.com, www.rentacoder.com and
Package the created product well and upload it to your
website.
Voila!
Promote the viral product on your landing page and the
people who visit your website can download it.
Just make sure that the following guidelines are observed:
1. Make sure to CLEARLY remind your visitors that they
can download the said product for free. People are
generally hesitant to download anything on the World
Wide Web, believing that there is no such thing as a
free lunch in the real and the online world.
2. Make sure to CLEARLY remind the people who will
download the said product that they are free to
distribute it to other people. Sometimes, that
reminding push goes a long, long way.
The usage of a viral product is part and parcel of the
powerful promotional strategy known as viral marketing.
Viral marketing is basically word-of-mouth advertising in the
virtual world. You want people to talk about the product you
are promoting to generate that much needed hype.
Viral marketing has the following elements that are worth
studying:
1. Viral marketing makes use of existing networks. There
is no need to create your own web of contacts.
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2. The business message must be easy to seed. It must
be made apparent at the earliest stage. A convoluted
message would just make the viral marketing
campaign useless. If your business message, for
example, is the promotion of your website’s link, make
it appear conveniently and immediately.
3. The business message must circulate naturally. The
goal is to reach as many people as possible. The
means to achieve that goal is to promote persistent
circulation of the business message. Circulation must
be facilitated with minimal interference from the
business owner. The message must replicate on its
own. We should keep these in mind as we formulate a
viral marketing plan.
4. You must have a value proposition. Let us illustrate
this maxim through an often used technique. Suppose
your business offers a software package. How do you
promote it through viral marketing? You could use the
strategies suggested in the preceding sections to offer
a free trial of your software for a certain period. This
is your value proposition. As more and more people
get exposed to your software, they’ll come to know of
its worth and spread the word to their friends. Soon,
after their trial period expires, they will have to order
the full version. This is your contingent proposition.
From the latter, you will derive the profit to replace
what you have spent in your initial investment. Once
Return of Investment, or ROI, is achieved, everything
else is your net profit, and you’ll have lots of that as
people will continue flocking to avail of your product,
thanks to the exponential character of viral marketing.
5. You must have a contingent proposition. Do not lose
sight of your bread and butter. The point to viral
marketing is to sell your goods and services. Your
goods and services are your contingent proposition.
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Once your value proposition has lured the attention of
your prospective clients, it is time to win them over to
purchase your contingent proposition.
6. You should provide benefits for the participants. One
thing that predominate viral marketing campaigns is
the constant use of the word “free.” As many
marketing resources have stated, the said word is
probably the most powerful weapon to attract
customers. Offering free goods or services to potential
clients is an old and established rule in marketing, both
offline and online. It makes good use of basic human
inclinations: the golden rule. Do unto others what you
want them do unto you. Potential clients who benefit
from the freebies you distribute will feel that they have
to repay the kindness you have shown them.
Observing these principles of an effective viral marketing
campaign will ensure a fruitful experience for your website.
excellent piece of work that will serve as the viral marketing
bible for many generations. If you wish to master this
powerful form of advertising, you owe it to yourself to give
Jimmy’s book a shot.
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Step Six:
Writing And Distributing
Articles
In the previous step, we have discussed the sheer efficiency
of viral marketing once a prospect downloads your viral
product from your website.
But here’s the deal…
You must first lead people to your website.
How else can they find your viral product?
Furthermore, even without the benefit of a viral product for
download, people who are led to your website can still be
exposed to your business message. They’ll still be able to
see your affiliate links. They can still be referred to the
affiliate merchant’s sales page.
The best way to lead people to your website is through a
process called article marketing.
Article marketing involves the submission of articles to as
many article directories as possible. There is more to it than
just that, of course.
You might ask how a process which seems so simple could
generate a lot of traffic for your website. That is a very valid
question, but do consider the following benefits offered by
article marketing.
· Article directories figure prominently well is SERPs.
Hence, having your link displayed in the articles you
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submit would mean that your link will be exposed to
the millions of visitors who visit the said article
directories.
· Article directories have high PR. Having an article
published, with an inbound link to your website, would
give the latter a boost in its own PR.
· If the article you submit is of excellent quality, it will
have a good chance of getting picked up by eZine
editors and other webmasters. This means more
inbound links for you, and this will mean more visitors.
· There are so many article directories on the World Wide
Web. Suppose you submit the same exact article to a
hundred of them; that would mean a hundred inbound
links guaranteed. But what if you submit ten or twenty
articles? Again, traffic is a numbers game.
· Articles are low cost investments, and for most, they
actually require zero costs. This is an excellent option,
considering that one article submitted to just one
article directory could be generating traffic for your
website for many years to come.
Sold on article marketing yet?
Here are the steps you should follow…
1. Pick a topic relevant to the subject of your website. As
with our running example, if your website is dedicated
to dog grooming, dog grooming tips or dog grooming
items are good topics to discuss.
2. Research on your chosen topic. Try to discover
something novel about it that hasn’t been discussed to
death in other channels.
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3. Write an article that will share the information you have
pinpointed. The length should be between 350 to
1,400 words. Anything less would be too short to
successfully convey what you want to convey.
Anything more would be too long to sustain your
readers’ attention.
If you are not that confident about your writing
prowess, or if you simply don’t have the time to write
an article, you could hire a freelancer to do the job for
you. The usual rates will range from $2 to $30 per
article. Price should only be a secondary consideration
next to quality, however. Writing is one of those
services where you get what you pay for most of the
time. You can look for freelancers in the places we
have discussed in the previous sections of this guide.
Don’t proceed with this option blindly, however. There
Outsourcing Survival Kit, a comprehensive tome, which
is the first of its kind to deal with all manners of digital
outsourcing as well as the steps you should take to
protect the interests of your business.
4. Include a resource box at the end of your article. Your
resource box should contain a concise introduction of
yourself and your business, as well as a link to your
website.
5. Then, it would be time to submit your article to the
many, many, many article directories on the World
Wide Web.
Remember to always include your resource box, because
such will contain the link to your website.
Regarding the link you will use, well, you can choose either
of 2 things:
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1. The link to your website where all of your affiliate links
are promoted; or
2. The particular affiliate link itself, albeit, hidden via tools
like turboURL.com. People generally don’t want to click
on affiliate links.
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Step Seven:
Implement An Email
Marketing System
Here’s a fact that every affiliate marketer should know…
On the average, it takes 12 contacts with a prospect before
he will decide to purchase what you are offering.
What does this mean?
Well, if you manage to refer a person to the affiliate
merchant’s sales page the first time around, chances are, he
won’t buy whatever it is that’s being offered. As a result,
you won’t win any commission.
It will take 12 tries, on the average, before he will decide to
make a purchase.
The question, then, is this:
How can you ensure that you will be able to contact your
prospects at least 12 times?
The answer lies in a system called email marketing.
Am email marketing system is also called a follow-up system
because it enables you to “follow up” on your leads. Veteran
Internet marketers use a follow-up system to capture the
contact details of their visitors so that they can somehow
convince them to visit their websites again at a future time.
A follow-up system captures the email addresses of visitors
and collects them in a subscription for a mailing list.
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The heart of every follow-up system is an excellent
autoresponder service. An autoresponder service would
allow you to prepare your messages beforehand and deliver
them according to the schedule you will set. Additionally, an
autoresponder service will also allow you to personalize your
messages, well, automatically. Your recipients would be
referred to by their given names, and in certain occasions,
the autoresponder would even greet them on their
birthdays. These, added to the act that an autoresponder
service would take care of the subscriptions on auto-pilot,
makes it an essential investment for every online business.
But not all autoresponders are built alike. Some are simply
better than others. I would like to recommend
TurboResponders service, which has been garnering raving
reviews since its inception. Simply, they don’t come any
better than TurboResponders, plus, you’ll be able to avail of
its benefits at a price that won’t be a burden to your budget.
Once they have subscribed to your mailing list, you can start
sending them emails with offers of your products. You can
even inform them of updates to your website so that they
may decide to check it out.
How does this work, in actual practice?
You will be leading prospects to your website. Your website
should have a capture device where your visitors can leave
their email addresses. Their email addresses will thereafter
be stored in your autoresponder, and the email marketing
system will take care of the rest.
The challenge lies in how you can make them leave their
email addresses.
Once you have set up your autoresponder to handle your
mailing list, you just have to come up with interesting offers
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to encourage your visitors to sign up for your list. This can
be done in a variety of exciting ways.
· You can offer free gifts to entice your visitors to
subscribe to your list.
· You can offer to deliver a newsletter containing
information about the subject they’re interested in.
· You can conduct a contest, with their subscriptions as
their raffle entries.
· You can offer access to other meatier portions of your
website in exchange for their subscription.
· You can offer them discounts on your products if they’d
join your mailing list.
There are, of course, more ways to bait your visitors into
signing up to your mailing list. By employing a little
creativity, you’re sure to come up with innovative ways to
lure visitors into your follow-up system.
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Conclusion:
Form Partnerships To
Increase Your Profit
There you have it.
Seven easy-to-follow steps to ensure your success in affiliate
marketing!
But you don’t have to stop there!
No!
You can always strive to increase your profit.
How?
Let’s put it this way: two heads are always better than one.
Two or more sets of resources are always better than one.
Two or more sets of prospects are always better than one.
Earlier, I told you the secret to Internet marketing success:
high demand for a product + few competition =
maximum profit
Now, I’ll tell you the true secret to guru-like success in this
industry:
Joint ventures
That’s right. Joint ventures, fondly called JVs in Internet
marketing lingo.
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Joint ventures are partnerships between two or more
Internet marketers for the success of a particular campaign.
There are many benefits to this. First, it reduces incidental
expenses. Second, it reduces the risks since there is an
input of more ideas and the exercise of more checks. Third,
in case of failure (which is rare,) it reduces the damage
incurred as it shall be borne by more than one person.
Needless to say, JVs have become a very lucrative model for
most online businesses.
As you become successful in affiliate marketing, always
remember that your success shouldn’t stop there. Affiliates
rely on a continuous influx of leads. And you can generate
more leads if you team up with other online businessmen.
My members atTurboMembership.com know that
tell them how important joint ventures are. I
brotherhoods. Your partners will be your brothers.
care for each other. You will go out of your way
other. And you will all enjoy the glory together.
I always
call JVs
You will
for each
TurboMembership.com subscribers gain exclusive access to
a special section ofTurboCommunity.com where they can
meet people who are also looking for JV opportunities.
Often, I facilitate the partnerships by introducing the parties.
You don’t want mere success, dear friend.
Oh no, not at all.
You want…
…SUSTAINABLE success…
… Success that will last a long, long time.
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