Niche Affiliate Marketing 101
To be able to join in the affiliate marketing world, you are not required to have a specialization regarding a specific subject. Affiliate marketing is no rocket science. Niche affiliate marketing means promoting someone else’s site and gaining profit from it. Don’t think that this online business is automatic – no sir. Niche affiliate marketing also requires determination and discipline. You will need to have basic tools to be able to deliver the goods to your affiliates. Of course that is figuratively speaking – what I meant was you must always bring more people to visit your affiliate’s site.
The more visits your affiliate site gets, the more rewarding it will be for you. That’s how affiliate marketing works. So before you even begin planning joining the niche affiliate marketing world – think twice. Are you ready for the tough competition? Yes. Since niche affiliate marketing has been around for years now, a lot already ventured into its exploits.
You will encounter tigers and as a beginner you are no more than a pussycat to be dealt with easily. That being said, you will need artillery. Fire power. You need to equip your resources well so it can compete online. Fair and square. So how do you do that?
Let’s have an example. If you have a blog, the least you can do is to make your blog worth reading. It doesn’t matter what your blog is about – just be sure you have a target audience and it will appeal to them. Also, add banners to your website. This banners (not to mention they are attractive to the eye) can really increase the attraction power of your blog. Not to mention this banners will be your key to back link your niche affiliate marketing partner.
Here’s the logic, how would you expect others to visit your advertised site if your own site doesn’t have enough visits alone? That is a no –no. Since niche affiliate marketing has been around for years now, a lot already ventured into its exploits. You will encounter tigers and as a beginner you are no more than a pussycat to be dealt with easily.
That being said, you will need artillery. Fire power. You need to equip your resources well so it can compete online. The least you can do is to make your blog worth reading. It doesn’t matter what your blog is about – just be sure you have a target audience and it will appeal to them. Also, add banners to your website. Since niche affiliate marketing has been around for years now, a lot already ventured into its exploits. You will encounter tigers and as a beginner you are no more than a pussycat to be dealt with easily.
That being said, you will need artillery. Fire power. You need to equip your resources well so it can compete online. The least you can do is to make your blog worth reading. It doesn’t matter what your blog is about – just be sure you have a target audience and it will appeal to them. That is the key to niche affiliate marketing.
In short, niche affiliate marketing is not as hard as it sounds to be. It is up to you how you will approach the market and how you will make niche affiliate marketing work for you not the other way around.
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How to Be an Affiliate Marketing Rockstar?
What exactly is affiliate marketing? It is a technique posing as a business opportunity that lets those with entrepreneurial spirit explore the world of passive income through marketing products for other businesses. You can earn through commissions.
So if you think you'd like to give affiliate marketing a try, how do you ensure your success in this field? Here are some very important tips you should follow:
- Choose your niche well
One of the most important factors to consider in doing affiliate marketing is choosing the best affiliate company or products to market. It can make or break your earnings. If you have a certain field that you're most interested in, the easier you can go through the process of deciding what affiliate program to join. So start making a list of your interests and see what affiliate programs come up from that list.
- Create a website that gets followed
One of the best ways to make the most bucks in affiliate marketing is through the creation of well-designed websites. Make sure that your site is easy to navigate and compels targeted visitors to convert - either to sign up under you as referrals or to purchase the products you are marketing. A quality landing page that has a call to action for your targeted visitors to do what you need them to do has excellent content that can either be texts that reviews the product, a video tutorial that lets visitors learns how to benefit and use the product well and a very conspicuous opt-in form.
- Use the power of freebies
Useful content is what you can use in making the word free mean money to you. When you offer free content, like say, free reports, when the right people get hold of this report, it can translate to more referrals or purchases.
- Learn how to get targeted traffic to your site
You can't benefit from your well-designed website, no matter how good your content and freebies are if you don't have the right visitors. So how do you drive targeted visitors to your site? You can do off-page search engine optimization or also known as link building. Whether use blogging, social networking and word of the mouth just to get the attention of the right people.
There are different ways on how you can successfully make people go to your site through this means - article marketing or the use of written content and submitting it to directories for publishers to pick it up and drive people to your site, you can set up and maintain social network accounts and let people know about your affiliate sites, or you can tap on your contacts - especially the new media savvy ones like popular bloggers and or community managers to spread the word about your sites.
If you follow all of the abovementioned bits of advice, it will be hard for you to fail as an affiliate marketer.
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Understanding the Key Elements to Building a Solid List
Once you go into affiliate marketing, you will find that one of the key concerns you will have to focus on is building your leads. Leads often come in the form of e-mail addresses, behind which are real people with very real potential to become your customers, subscribers or members. Having a solid list of leads is assurance that you will be capable of reaching a ready market and generating income from there.
The importance of affiliate marketing leads
Companies with a product or service to sell spend billions of dollars on advertising alone. That's right – billions. The purpose of spending such a huge amount of cash is mainly to build buzz about a product, expand the market and ultimately, bring in better sales.
In affiliate marketing, the cost of advertising is comparatively small and is paid for by the affiliate company. So as an affiliate, that is no longer your concern. Your only job is to look for a market to promote to that will respond to you positively so you can earn an income in return.
Unlike in a real world business, this market will come in the form of affiliate marketing leads. The quality of these leads, along with the type and number of positive responses they offer will determine whether or not you'll succeed in affiliate marketing. If you hear someone say, 'the money is on the list', he or she is actually referring to the list of leads. Without this, you cannot hope to sell, much less earn.
Building your affiliate marketing leads
It's not rocket science, true, but affiliate marketing can be tricky nevertheless. It's a proven business model and many affiliates have had considerable success in their chosen programs. However, like all businesses, there are also certain factors upon which your success in building your list of affiliate marketing leads rest. Consider these factors carefully:
Your reputation
As a new affiliate marketer, you will find that it will take a while before you can build your affiliate marketing leads. All new marketers have gone through this since enjoying the patronage of a solid number of followers will not happen overnight.
To attract a solid list of affiliate marketing leads, you will have to become a recognized business entity in the industry. Without a reputation, potential leads will find it difficult to trust you or at least do business with you. Faced with a choice between buying from a popular marketer versus an unfamiliar one, wouldn’t you rather buy from the person you know than from a total stranger?
The same is true with your affiliate marketing leads. They will need to recognize you as a reliable merchant or affiliate before they agree to buy, participate or become one of your recruits.
Web traffic
Another key element that affects the number of affiliate marketing leads you can obtain is the amount of traffic your site receives. A high web traffic figure is beneficial in two ways – it allows you to obtain comparatively larger affiliate accounts and increases your potential of building a bigger number of affiliate marketing leads.
Without a good number of traffic to your website, you might have to either focus on using strategies to build it first or join a networking service offering affiliate programs instead.
The affiliate product
There are two things that affect how well you can build your affiliate marketing leads. One is the product's value and the other is how well you yourself understand the product.
The choice of an affiliate product is critical to every affiliate. An affiliate product that has a proven or at least a potential for good sales will be far easier to promote and generate income from. It will also make it easier for an affiliate to build leads with, since prospects will be more willing to respond to it.
A good understanding of what makes the affiliate product attractive and valuable enough is also key to attracting more leads. Being able to explain why and how a product works on your website or articles, for example, will help you sell it better, especially vis-à-vis other products competing for the same market.
The niche or target market
One common concern among affiliates is market saturation – that point in time when a specific segment of the market becomes flooded with the same (or at least similar) products and services. So much so that it becomes increasingly difficult to sell, much less to convince prospective buyers to consider the product or service you're trying to promote.
You can avoid this, however, by focusing on generating affiliate marketing leads from specifically targeted segments of the market or niches. Consider selling or promoting products that appeal to a specific group of people who have a common yet largely unmet need. Competition for this market is relatively low and with the right kind of strategies, you'll find that this niche can be especially lucrative.
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How to Choose a Niche for Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing came about in the early stages of the 20th century. It was like a little spec when it started and it proved itself to be effective therefore it expanded and now everybody seems to be enjoying the benefits of affiliate marketing.
If you are just new to the industry you might be asking yourself: What is affiliate marketing? Well, derived from the word itself – affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company that has this product or service they would like the public to know about through the power of online advertisement or promotion. Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed.
Having this said, so what do you need in order to plunge in to the world of affiliate marketing? To tell you frankly, you might be surprised to know that it really doesn’t require much. Aside from a decent computer, you would just need an internet connection and of course a bit of your time to this chosen online business.
Where to start? Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed. That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online. The more traffic you have on that website – the better.
Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisement or promotion. Let’s say you have at least 5,000 visits a day in your website – that will have a corresponding equivalent to your affiliate marketing capability.
That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online. The more traffic you have on that website – the better. Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisement or promotion. Having this said, so what do you need in order to plunge in to the world of affiliate marketing?
To tell you frankly, you might be surprised to know that it really doesn’t require much. Aside from a decent computer, you would just need an internet connection and of course a bit of your time to this chosen online business. Companies will gladly pay certain individuals that could actually showcase their goods online through blogs, articles or in any manner that their products will be exposed. That being said, it is obvious that you should have at least a website online.
The more traffic you have on that website – the better. Since affiliate marketing is an affiliation between you and a certain company, their product or service must be known to the public through online advertisements or promotion. So if you want your affiliate marketing to be successful, you need to have an established website first then the rest will follow.
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Promoting Your Affiliate Product Sites Made Easy
Promoting your affiliate sites can simply start by enticing your website visitors to try out this particular product you are endorsing. If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage. Here’s an example.
You are currently promoting an Xbox website which caters to online gamers. The products range from Xbox accessories to online downloadable games. Your blog is about your everyday living experience, sort of a journal like website. So how would you shift your blog so it could help your affiliate to boost up its product’s sales? It is pretty simple. You could make your entry for one day something like – you are bored and tried to look for something to do. Luckily your cousins arrived and look what they have brought – an Xbox! So you hurriedly setup the console and played to your heart’s content! You must emphasize how you have enjoyed the experience, hence, now you are longing to buy yourself that same console. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. You know the drill – just make sure that you always say good things regarding your affiliate.
Here’s another example. Same thing – you have a blog and your affiliate site is for a Nintendo Wii. You could make your entry for one day something like this. You are bored and tried to look for something to do. Luckily your cousins arrived and look what they have brought – a Nintendo Wii! So you hurriedly setup the console and played to your heart’s content! You must emphasize how you have enjoyed the experience, hence, now you are longing to buy yourself that same console. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. You know the drill, you have to detail the good testimonies you have regarding the website you want them to visit.
If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. Promoting your affiliate sites can simply start by enticing your website visitors to try out this particular product you are endorsing. That’s when you will introduce the affiliate website that you have. You will then mention there how they will save if they go to these certain website and order. If you are running a blog, you can simply shift your entries t the product’s advantage.
In this manner, promotion of the affiliate sites will be much easier. No pressure on your part and the effect will be colossal. You can simply make the most out of your advertisement by simply using your blog to your advantage. It is like telling a story and at the same time, enticing to your target audience. Now that’s what I call effective blogging marketing.
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Harness the Power of Offering Freebies to Your Affiliate Site's Visitors
In affiliate marketing, the use of freebies can be especially beneficial, provided of course, that you understand how to deploy them strategically. Find out how to use the power of offering freebies to your affiliate site's visitors and reap the rewards:
Freebies should be integrated into your marketing campaign
Freebies can be quite powerful as marketing tools for affiliate marketing. If visitors to your website find that free stuff is available, they will stick around and be more willing to come back for more but only if they find it relevant to their needs – the very reason they came to visit your website in the first place.
Consider each affiliate marketing campaign you perform and find out how to use freebies strategically. Just because something is free doesn’t automatically mean that people will visit your affiliate website and grab what you offer. There has to be a relevance between the freebie and the main product or service you are promoting.
Let's say your main product is an e-book that teaches the secrets of the affiliate marketing trade to affiliates. A good freebie to offer with this campaign would be a short report on the top 10 mistakes that affiliates make that cause failure in affiliate marketing. Or you could offer a freebie in the form of a script that could help affiliates track their own stats.
Remember that the power of freebies when offered in affiliate marketing is only limited to its relevance. The free stuff should be something that can supplement the main product or enhance its use. Otherwise, your visitors will simply have no reason to try to obtain it.
Offer something better
Just because you're offering freebies to your affiliate site's visitors doesn’t mean you should allow them to completely ignore your premium offers. If you let this happen, forget about earning an income from your affiliate site.
Remember that all those free stuff you offer are part of your strategy to attract more visitors and affiliate prospects to your website. If you find out later that you're dealing with visitors who are mainly freeloaders, you might want to rethink your career as an affiliate marketer and switch to becoming a charitable foundation instead.
Always offer your affiliate site's visitors some form of incentive to persuade them to purchase, subscribe or sign up for membership. Offer a product or service that is considerably better than the freebie as an alternative. So instead of just providing a link they can click to download or obtain your free stuff, you could also say something like:
"Get our free version now OR buy the premium/complete package for just $$$. This is a limited offer and will expire soon. ACT NOW!"
By imposing a time restriction, you also impose a sense of urgency and persuade your affiliate site's visitors that if they want to take advantage of a better offer, they should act immediately.
This is one power that freebies have over other types of promotions, which makes them very effective when used in affiliate sites. Plus, you can even expect a conversion without performing any follow ups.
Find out the best freebies you can afford.
There is no logic at all to giving away freebies if you have nothing to gain from it. When affiliate marketers and business owners offer free gifts to their site's visitors, it is a carefully crafted strategy and not just some careless act of generosity.
When you do offer freebies, you have to have something in return, if not now then at least later. Learn to harness the use of freebies for your affiliate site's visitors carefully. It's a proven strategy and can be a very valuable component of your affiliate marketing arsenal.
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The Power of Testimonials in Promoting Your Affiliate Sites:
Someone's good word can be incredibly powerful. As a consumer yourself, wouldn’t you rather purchase a product that has been recommended to you by a friend even if it is unfamiliar to you? Given a selection of similar products, wouldn’t you rather try one that has had some glowing reviews even if you've never heard of them before? Such is the power of testimonials when used in promoting affiliate sites.
These days, testimonials are a common strategy for building credibility and generating buzz about a product or a company. The world's largest corporations spend billions of dollars in harnessing the power of a good word alone. In affiliate marketing, testimonials are regularly utilized to promote an affiliate's site, attract new customers and recruits and compete directly with another known brand.
Why affiliate marketers use testimonials
The role of testimonials in promoting an affiliate marketing site is to try to influence consumers' buying decisions and behavior. Carefully chosen testimonials can be very effective in convincing prospects to try the affiliate product, service or membership. It has such power that many affiliate marketing sites regularly publish testimonials from satisfied customers on their home pages for visitors to view.
Many of the affiliate marketing programs in the industry today are fairly new while others have been operating quietly under the radar. Their relative anonymity can work against them, particularly since the affiliate marketing field tends to be very competitive.
To stand out, affiliate marketing programs try to increase their credibility factor by inviting famous personalities to speak for them through testimonials. While this can be very effective particularly if the celebrity has a large fan base, it can also be quite expensive. Not every affiliate marketer can afford to pay a celebrity just to place their name on his site.
To compete, affiliate marketers turn to their own customers and members, specifically people who have had sufficient experience in the program and those who have experienced success. A fully satisfied customer's testimonial, if it's well-written and based on a true experience and event, can be as convincing and effective as that of any celebrity.
Using the power of testimonials for promoting an affiliate's site
Building your credibility can be tricky, particularly since the affiliate marketing industry continues to evolve. However, if careful strategies are employed, there is a high likelihood that you can succeed as an affiliate. Consider the following factors:
Specifics
Testimonials exhibit much more power in promoting your affiliate's site if they are expressed in more details. If a testimonial from a customer or another affiliate states that the program is 'excellent', it should be followed by a specific description of the program's most useful features – what makes it excellent, how it has helped the customer or affiliate, why it's reliable, etc.
Skepticism
Believe it or not, skepticism is healthy when used with testimonials for promoting your affiliate's site. Words such as, 'I wasn't convinced at first, BUT…' or 'I have always used XYZ product and didn’t think of switching to another brand. However, your product has ____ and ____ features that convinced me it was so much better.'
Even with the stated objection, a testimonial can be quite powerful if it is followed by a positive statement.
Keeping it real
Avoid using fake testimonials. 'Designer' testimonials are easy to write according to the specifics you require but someone will get wind of the fact and expose you. Once you're found out, you lose your credibility. That simple act could haunt you for the rest of your life as a discredited affiliate marketer.
A few good words
Try to be selective with your choice of testimonials. They can be quite powerful when used for promoting your affiliate's site but over-use can work against you. Find the best ones, especially the well-written and detailed testimonials and use these instead. Or, you could take the best sentences and phrases and post those in place of a whole paragraph.
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Are Your Free Reports Too Sales Pitchy?
The great sales pitch can be a bit overrated, seeing that majority of the most seasoned affiliate marketing customers and prospective members tend to be skeptical and jaded. When giving out free reports to promote your affiliate products, enthusiasm can cause you to produce a sales pitchy report, something that could be taken the wrong way by your prospects. If you want to make a good impression, writing a free report that smacks of too much sales pitch is just NOT the way to get people to purchase your affiliate products.
Why sales pitchy free reports are ineffective
There are several reasons why sales pitchy free reports are not recommended for promoting your affiliate products. For one, they sound rather suspect, are usually too colorful to be believable and, if they are especially badly written, are peppered by punctuation marks and bold letters that shouldn’t be where they are.
They also sound too desperate to be credible, sounding as if they were written with the sole purpose of making a quick sale. Furthermore, they usually do not present the whole picture to the reader, focusing instead on promoting a product profusely without considering how it can be useful or relevant to potential customers. Sales pitchy free reports usually lack the declaration that states its true value to its readers.
If you've read sales pitchy free reports before, you probably know exactly why you treated them with disbelief. If you've thrown away or deleted a sales pitchy free report you didn’t even bother to finish reading, you will understand why that's NOT the way to promote your affiliate products.
Writing the right free reports without being sales pitchy
When you write free reports, consider them as part of your sales campaign. This means that they are essentially advertising and as such, should be able to gently push prospective customers into performing certain desired actions. Here are some very important things you have to remember when using free reports to promote your affiliate products:
Free reports should make a good first impression
A well-written title is an excellent technique to ensure that you get a hold of your readers' attention and encourage them to read further. If the title is bland, your readers will either skim through the report and miss the good points or give up altogether.
Free reports should avoid the 'general public'
A common mistake among marketers who write free reports to promote their affiliate products is that they tend to write for just about everyone. Remember that your affiliate products have specific market demographics. Find out what these are and write directly to them.
Free reports should include details
Words such as 'excellent', 'good', 'amazing' and 'incredible' always find their way into free reports. While there is nothing wrong about using them, they tend to be too generic and ultimately, sales pitchy.
Instead of using these words or their synonyms again and again, try to use details and specifics instead. Review that free report you have written and check out generic words. Instead of saying that the affiliate product is 'an excellent deal', say 'you get 25% off your purchase'. Instead of merely saying that the purchase is 'risk-free', say instead that you offer a '100% money-back guarantee'.
There has to be a sense of urgency
A good, non-sales pitchy free report should include a statement regarding the effectivity date of the promotion. When promoting your affiliate products, state in clear terms when the product will be sold for the special price and for how long. By restricting the product's availability, you will be able to gently persuade your readers and turn them into real paying customers.
So are you still writing those embarrassing sales pitchy free reports?
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What You Should Know About Affiliate Commission Payment Schedules
Getting paid
Your earnings as an affiliate come in the form of commissions. This is a set percentage or portion of the total price of an affiliate product or service that you helped promote or sell. In many cases, it can also come from a portion of the monies generated through the efforts of downline members in your team.
The payment of commissions to affiliates is ruled by a schedule. This can vary from one affiliate program to the next, although a minimum amount and cut-off date are generally imposed.
If you're wondering why affiliate programs do not automatically send you a check for every sales income you generate, it's quite simple, actually. Affiliate programs need to maintain a standard when it comes to paying their affiliates to make sure that the process is seamless, glitch-free and fair to all. A program without a commission payment schedule risks becoming disorganized and erroneous.
Finding out the schedule of commission payments for your affiliate program
When you sign up as an affiliate for a program, it's important that you check their FAQ section. Affiliate marketing programs often provide the most basic information about themselves on their website. Their FAQ section should clearly state the schedule of commission payments they have imposed for their affiliates.
If the information is unavailable, you can ask your sponsor (if you have one) or your affiliate program. The schedule of commission payments to affiliates is an important consideration when choosing an affiliate program. Do not sign up for an affiliate program without this information so you will be able to avoid disappointments later.
How often is the payment disbursed?
The schedule of commission payment varies, depending on the preference of the affiliate program. The affiliate pretty much doesn’t have any control over this matter. Schedule of disbursement can range from bi-monthly to monthly payments. Some, such as LinkShare, disburse commission payments on a weekly basis, a considerably shorter amount of time.
What methods are used for affiliate commission payments?
There are three methods generally used by affiliate programs. These include: electronic payment processing (such as PayPal), checks and wire transfer. The length of time it will take for your commission payment to reach you will depend on the transaction method.
If the payment is coursed through electronic payment systems, this will usually take as little as 24 hours. Checks (usually delivered via postage mail or courier) usually take from 3 to 7 business days – longer if the affiliate is located in certain areas. Wire transfers take from 3 to about 6 business days.
Is there anything that will affect the schedule of affiliate commission payments?
Generally, the schedule of commission payments for affiliates are pretty much set. However, there are certain things that might cause delays. One of the most common is whether an affiliate's earnings have reached the minimum amount.
Affiliate programs often impose a minimum earned amount per pay period ranging from $10 to $100. If an affiliate earns less than that, his current earnings will be carried over to the next pay period until such time that he will meet the minimum required. Only then will his payment be released.
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Top 10 Proven Ways to Drive Targeted Traffic
When you're involved in affiliate marketing, easily one of the most major concerns you'll have to face is driving traffic to your site. And not just any traffic – you'll need targeted traffic. Here are the top 10 proven ways you can drive quality traffic to your affiliate marketing site and increase your income-generating potential:
E-mail campaigns
Used carefully, e-mail campaigns can easily drive targeted traffic to your affiliate marketing site. This can be done by providing highly relevant and valuable information on the body of the message and then offering a link that will bring the recipients into your site.
You can do this two ways: one is by providing the full content in the e-mail message and then offering a link inviting the recipient to view more similar write-ups on your site. Another is by giving only a portion of the content and offering the rest on the affiliate site. A linked e-mail signature should also be included.
Articles
Informative and how-to articles, especially well-written ones, are proven traffic baits for affiliate marketing sites. Include links to similar or additional information within the content body that can only be read from your site and provide additional links on your signature.
Newsletters and e-zines
People love information, particularly those about subjects they are curious about or are involved in – which explains why targeted methods to drive traffic to affiliate marketing sites work best.
Offer e-newsletter and e-zine subscriptions, making sure that links bring recipients to your site. Use a separate landing page to handle the subscription process for your visitors' convenience.
Blogs
Other than your affiliate marketing site, use a blog to get in touch with prospective customers and members. Blogs are considerably more personal and lighter in tone than most affiliate business sites and they can be a great source of information, news, advice and tips from you to your prospects. Include a link from your blog to your affiliate marketing site.
Social bookmarking sites
These sites are a rich source of targeted traffic that you can drive to your affiliate marketing site. Your market demographics are also easier to define so sending out invitations to potential leads and members is a lot easier.
Discussion forums and boards
By leaving useful and thought-provoking comments on discussion boards and forums, you encourage other members to react and send you a reply. You'll be able to build a networking relationship from here. Make sure to sign with a link back to your affiliate marketing site.
Guest blogging
You could drive another blog's captured traffic to your affiliate site by becoming a guest blogger. If you can write well and can offer unique and useful content, the site's readership will find you interesting enough to follow you to your own site.
Allow bookmarks on your web pages
If you have content, you can drive traffic to your affiliate marketing site by allowing your readers to bookmark certain pages. This will help promote those pages and your website to other people who might be interested in the same subjects.
Host a contest
Locate your target market and then promote a contest through ads or e-mails. All details must be found on your affiliate marketing website so you can drive traffic there. Registration must also be performed on one of your landing pages. Just make sure to offer prizes that visitors who will be coming in will find useful.
Freebies!
There's nothing like a nice gift to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate marketing site. It's easy to implement and can be relatively cheap. Furthermore, you offer these visitors an incentive to sign up for whatever campaign it is you're promoting.
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Techniques for Keeping Track of Your Affiliate Referrals
Offline tracking techniques
Just because you're in affiliate marketing doesn’t mean all your affiliate referral prospecting methods are limited online. Offline activities can be incredibly useful for generating leads.
If you're the type of affiliate who has an active social networking life, you probably make use of conferences, trade shows and meetings to mine affiliate referrals. If you do, then make sure you are organized enough to take advantage of all the prospects you get in touch with during these occasions.
An excellent way to do this is to obtain a prospect's business card. That piece of paper should hold enough information for you to use later to get in touch with that person. If you attend multiple events or are constantly generating leads online, make a few notes on the back of the business cards so you never forget important information about the person, such as the event they attended, what they said and other business-related stuff you might have discussed.
Keep all business cards collected specifically for your affiliate marketing program separate from your other business cards. This will prevent confusion later when you begin communicating with these people. Don't be afraid to use labels and to make notes – this will help ensure that you keep track of all your affiliate referrals and never forget critical information and data.
Online tracking techniques
One of the fastest and most convenient ways to track affiliate referrals is to use online resources. Some of these include:
An affiliate referral tracking application
Once your referral activities begin in earnest, you'll find it difficult to manually track the number of referrals you bring to your affiliate company's website. You'll need a reliable application to perform this efficiently. Some of these referral tracking applications may be downloaded for free, although you might prefer premium editions if your affiliate business is big enough.
These applications are quite easy to use so you can conveniently keep track of the activities of your affiliate referrals. Many of these applications even offer extras, such as features that allow you to monitor your banner exchanges, start pages and affiliate links – essentially the kind of activities you'll been doing in order to promote your website.
Your affiliate marketing program's tracking system
Majority of established affiliate marketing programs have their own tracking system for their affiliate's referrals. Check your program for this. You'll usually only need your own affiliate ID in order to gain access to your stats.
Your affiliate program is able to do this because the affiliate links you post on your web pages are coded. This usually comes in the form of a tracking cookie. Each time your visitors click on that link and arrives on the affiliate company's website, their tracking system will register the unique code coming from your site.
Activities related to this code will be kept in the company's system which you can view at any time.
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Web Hosting Affiliate Programs:
If one of your goals of being online is to earn an income, still one of the best methods to consider is signing up for one or two affiliate programs. Experienced affiliates are some of the Web's highest earners and with enough training, support and willingness on your part, becoming involved in an affiliate program may just be one of the best decisions you'll ever make. And now, here's another way to boost your income online: web hosting affiliate programs.
What are web hosting affiliate programs?
These are programs that sell web hosting services through members, called affiliates. The market for website hosting is one of the fastest growing industries today, thanks to a robust Web economy and the continuous appearance of numerous websites, both corporate and personal.
How do web hosting affiliate programs work?
They pretty much work in a similar manner to the average affiliate program with the exception that the products they are promoting are web hosting plans. An affiliate earns when his referral purchases a plan from the program.
A good step for a web hosting affiliate would be to create a standalone site or blog that promotes web hosting and attract traffic to that site. However, posting affiliate links consisting of banner ads and text links from an unrelated website could also work.
Who can benefit from web hosting affiliate programs?
From the customer's side, virtually anyone who has a website or is planning to build one will find web hosting services useful. From the affiliate's side, it varies greatly – beginner and experienced affiliates, internet marketers, webmasters, web consultants and bloggers will find this opportunity very promising.
How much commission can I expect from web hosting affiliate programs?
Web hosting affiliate programs offer some of the best wallet-friendly commissions in the industry. Commission rates are great, ranging from around $50 to $100+ per successful business referral. That's considerably larger than other commissions paid through affiliate programs selling more traditional products.
What's the success rate for affiliates in web hosting programs?
This is a very competitive segment of the industry, which means that once you sign up, you better have a good strategy to back you up. If your idea of earning from these programs is posting an affiliate link on your website and leaving everything to chance, you won't earn much. If you have a strong game plan, however, a web hosting affiliate program will work well to your advantage.
Some of the web hosting affiliate programs available today include:
Yahoo!
Yahoo's web hosting affiliate program rewards you for the volume of referrals you bring in. Earnings can range from $60 to about $70 for every successful web hosting customer you refer, although you can also make as much as $100 for each referral if you bring them in by volume.
And here's more: Yahoo! will pay about 20 percent out of the total sales generated from every domains customer you refer.
LunarPages
If you have your own website, you can set up an affiliate link to LunarPages' web hosting program site. You'll earn $65 each time you refer a new customer. You can earn more by referring advertisers to the program. Each new customer referred by these advertisers will bring in an additional $5 per.
Web.com
Web.com is another excellent web hosting affiliate program, offering $80 in commission. If your sales reach over 25 in one month, you can add 12.5%. Over 50, that increases to 50%.
DreamHost
DreamHost offers you two choices for the type of commission you'll earn: one-time credit for every referral you bring to their web hosting affiliate program or you could choose to earn recurring credits for payments made by your referrals to DreamHost. One-time payments will earn you up to $97 while recurring payments give you 10% off the payment amount of your referrals.
DreamHost is also one of the web hosting affiliate programs that offers a two-tier payment scheme. If your referral brings in their own referrals, you'll earn a one-time payment of $5 or 5% of these referrals' payments to DreamHost.
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Articles your affiliate marketing sites should have
The past few decades have bore witness to the internet being one of the best ways to earn money. Improved communication and safer money transfers make it easier for both the sellers and the buyers to indulge themselves in the act of buying online. Thus, the boom of Affiliate Marketing. The main reason why affiliate marketing has become so popular lies on the simple fact that all you have to do is apply for an affiliate program, pay for the program’s fees (if there are any), establish your pre-seller site, and write away. Simple, isn’t it?
Not quite. A number of affiliate marketers do not witness success (or any sales at all) because of the part where they “write away.” Writing for your affiliate marketing site does not require the skills of a Pulitzer Prize winner, but those of a smart affiliate marketer. Your articles need to have certain qualities that would utilize online resources best, and, of course, turn prospects into closed sales. This article brings you five types of articles your affiliate marketing site should have, if you want to increase your sales (which I know you do!).
REVIEWS
People want information. Small is the probability of having a person enter your site and establishing a sale the first time around. They probably didn’t even notice the “sales pitches” you have placed all over your site in the first place—the main thing that must have been going through their minds is that they need the product, and fast! Generally, people hate hard core sales pitches.
They want to know more about the product. So give your prospects what they want. Give them honest and sincere information on your affiliate marketing site in the form of reviews. Be honest with your reviews. Place any cons that might come in buying the product. And since this is an affiliate marketing program, market your product as well. Do so in a way that “promotes” the product and not “sell” it.
BENEFITS
Prospects want to know the features of a product the first time they get around to wanting to buy it. If the features of your products are to their liking, they would want to know more about the products. Let them know more of the benefits, instead of features, that come in buying your product. Your product is not the only one in the market, and it probably has other competition out there that have as good, or even better, features than the one you’re selling. But if you can provide your prospects with more benefits than the competition can, the more likely will these register as sales increase.
COMPARE
If you are confident of your product’s ability to sell in the market, do product comparisons. Also, do so in the fairest way possible. Do not highlight all the cons of the competition while highlighting your own product’s benefits. Highlight the benefits of the other product, then compare in such a way that your product comes out on top. Be smart in selecting which benefits of the competitor’s product you are going to highlight.
If the competitor’s product has qualities that yours can’t beat, then opt to ‘overlook’ that quality, and focus instead on the other product’s benefits which your product can beat. Make sure sales come your way, and not the competitor’s.
TESTIMONIALS
Your prospects need to know that real people are using your products. Find people who can attest to the benefits of your products in the real word. You might want to keep the contact information from previous sales. It would be good if your previous customers can provide you with photos of themselves, alongside the products if possible. Once you can convince your prospects that your products are good enough for real people, your sales have nothing else to do but increase.
NEWS BRIEFS
Keep your affiliate marketing site fresh with news briefs. You might want to include promos, developments, and previously unknown information regarding the product (such as “studies show that this product (benefits of the product)” or “Top Marketing groups regard this product as one of the most revolutionary products of the 21st century”). Keep your news briefs concise—do not bombard it with too much information. If you happen to have a dozen new information regarding your product, post them on your affiliate marketing site as a week’s worth of news briefs.
These types of articles can be used all at once, or in a combination. Choose what best works for your affiliate marketing program, or product, and you can be on your way to claim sales commissions that just keep on increasing.
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Products Make the Affiliate Marketing World Go Round:
Affiliate Marketing has become a relatively easy and convenient way of earning money, thus, attracting quite a number of followers. For those who are new to the business, they have quite a lot to learn before they get to reap the bigger fruits of affiliate marketing. In fact, there’s so much to learn, it is quite difficult to focus on where and how to start on your own affiliate marketing venture.
The focal point of affiliate marketing, or of any business enterprise for that matter, is the product. No exchange ever happens if there is no product involved. For those who are new to affiliate marketing, choosing a product to promote might make their head spin like crazy.
The following tips regarding what kinds of products an affiliate marketer should promote are perfect for beginners. For those who are more experience in affiliate marketing, however, do not fret. You might also get a few tips from this article (or this article might just confirm what you already know, which isn’t all that bad, either).
The first step in choosing a product to promote using affiliate marketing is not being too specific just yet. Focus on a certain group of products you might find interesting enough to sell, and soon, we’ll get to the part where you choose the specifics of what you’ll be promoting.
For starters, CHOOSE A TYPE OF PRODUCT YOU BELIEVE IN. Promoting in itself is a great task, perhaps, the main focus of all your affiliate marketing activities. For those who aren’t exactly experts at promoting just yet, you might have to rely on your belief of the product above anything else—the more you believe in the benefits your products have to offer, the easier it would be to promote them. Anyway, if you, a real human being, find your product good enough, you might discover that other human beings find it good enough, too.
For those who are simply starting out, you might find it easier to PROMOTE A PRODUCT THAT IS ALREADY POPULAR. Promote those with brand names that stand out. Competition might be fierce, but since your product has already been able to establish a name on the market, it would be much easier to sell. A few newbie affiliate marketers think that promoting lesser known products would be easier due to the smaller competition.
They can’t be any more wrong. The fact that they are newbies promoting unknown products makes for the worst combination of all. Yes, competition might be fierce, but if you are just as fierce with your marketing strategies and promotions, you will eventually find yourself earning just as well as more experienced counterparts.
DO A “MARKET RESEARCH.” It sounds like an expensive activity to undertake, but it isn’t. All you have to do is be observant. Try to observe people around you: family members, friends, strangers passing you by on the streets, and people you ride with on the public transit. What products are they using?
Put yourself in their shoes and try to think what kinds of products they might like to purchase. Ask them, if you have to. Try to observe how they react to certain product names, and how they do not when it comes to others. You might find yourself flashing a light bulb once in a while. Take advantage of what you have learned. They might come in handy as soon as you gain the information, or at a much later time.
Once you know what kinds of products you would want to promote, it is time to narrow down the list. This might be, initially, a tad confusing, but once you have established the categories of products you would like to promote, this part becomes much easier to undertake.
If you were lucky enough to know the specific product to promote given the tips above, then you might want to try SEARCHING FOR YOUR PRODUCT THROUGH YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH ENGINES. If you have already set your heart and mind on promoting a certain product, look for it, and try to find out whether the product can be promoted through affiliate marketing.
However, if you are like the rest of affiliate marketers just starting out, and, well, still confused on the specifics of the product you would promote, you might want to JOIN AFFILIATE MARKETING NETWORKS. In this case, search engines are as much your friends as the first case. Find marketing networks that have large product databases, and preferably, do not have any membership fees.
Once you know what products to promote, there should be no turning back. Everything else will fall into place. Though the next steps to finalizing your affiliate marketing venture aren’t exactly walks in a park, at least they are now focused towards a single goal, and that it to successfully promote the products you have just chosen.
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What to highlight in free reports to increase your sales in affiliate marketing
Free reports can contain everything and anything under the sun about your products, however, doing just that might spoil your chances of ever closing sales with your ever choosy prospects. In order for your free reports to bring you the results you want, and that is to increase your sales, you must focus on highlights instead of on complete information regarding the products your prospects might either already know or aren't interested to know. Highlighting the right things will eventually make your prospects say “yes” to your products.
We like to buy products that are beneficial to us, therefore, you should HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFITS YOUR PRODUCT OFFERS in your free reports. The chances that your prospects already know of the advantages of buying your product are high. It is more likely that these benefits are the reason behind their subscribing to your free reports.
But it wouldn’t hurt to constantly remind them of what they are missing out on, and what they can gain if they buy your product. Just remember to repackage the benefits you highlight once in a while, for no one likes reading the same things over and over again. Lastly, remember that although more benefits mean increased sales, don’t overdo and exaggerate.
Next, you might want to INCLUDE TESTIMONIALS in your free reports. Your prospects need to be reminded that your products can make real people happy, and that it can make them happy, too. Highlight testimonials you feel your prospects can relate most to. Again, no one likes to read the same things over and over again, and so vary the testimonials you place on your free reports. Another mistake affiliate marketers do with their free reports is that they bombard it with too many testimonials, especially if the product is worth testifying for. Highlighting 3-5 testimonials per free report is good enough.
Prospects sign up for free reports because they want to know more about the product, so HIGHLIGHT ANY DEVELOPMENTS ON YOUR PRODUCT in your free reports. Highlight any upgrades your products might have recently experienced, recent findings regarding the features and benefits of the products, and reviews reputable people, groups, and organizations have made on your product. Again, be varied. You’ll never know what developments will catch the eye of your prospects, and bring you the increase in sales you have always wanted.
However, knowing what to put in your free reports is not enough. Your reports should contain certain characteristics that would turn your prospective buyers into buyers. If you want more sales than just a meager month’s worth of groceries and bills, then you should also take note of the following characteristics your reports should have in order to optimize sales.
USE AN ACTIVE VOICE. Tell your prospects what to do, not what they can do. Instead of saying “If you buy this product now, (benefits here),” say “Buy this product now and (benefits here).” This little change can make a lot of difference in your sales. Just make sure you place your commands at the right places.
ADD A LITTLE “SPUNK.” Make your prospects love the things you put in your free reports. Make them laugh, cry, or think. A lot of the right attitude can go a long way, and your prospects are smart enough to determine attitude, even if it’s written. If you make them feel good enough about reading about your product, you might finally get that increased sales you have been longing for.
BE FOCUSED. Do not write about search-engine optimization when you are promoting your products. That also goes for writing about multiple products in one report. Focus on one product only, and make your free reports in such a way that would make your prospects focus on buying your product.
Free reports, again, are one of the best ways to increase your sales, that is, if done correctly. Remember that the goal of free reports is to convince your prospects that your products are what they need or want. If you have to, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes, and focus on what they might like to see in the free reports. Combine that with the tips named in this article, and voila! You have your own recipe for increased sales through free reports.
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Location, Location, Location:
There are so many ways to promote products in the marketing affiliate world. Some marketers have even gone to the extent of establishing ridiculous and weird promotional strategies for their products. Although it might be true that these strategies work, for the better part, to successfully promote in the affiliate marketing world need not be that extreme. All you need are to establish the right kinds of non-extremist strategies of promoting, push through with them, and you will soon have success at the tips of your fingers.
It is an established fact that affiliate marketers do not sell as much by trying to convince prospective buyers to purchase your product just once. Affiliate marketing finds its success in follow-ups and consistent promotions, and what better way to do this than free reports?
Prospects subscribe to your free reports due to the following reasons: first, is that before subscribing, they aren’t exactly sure if they want the product just yet, however, they might consider buying if they found something about the product that would be of benefit to them; and second, is that they are planning to buy the product, however, they want to know more about it before they do. Either way, your free reports have goals, and those are to promote your product and convince your prospects to buy them.
This might lead you to think that by making your free reports, you should focus on the content and nothing more. However, the positions of your free reports on your affiliate marketing sites are just as important as the content. Of what use would the content of your free reports be if your prospects have no means of getting to them? The strategies you employ in positioning your free reports should be as extensive as the strategies you employ in making them. This article will guide you through the most strategic places for you to position your free reports on your affiliate marketing site.
POSITION YOUR FREE REPORTS AT THE UPPER PART OF YOUR PAGE
Prospects have the tendency to be impatient, and if they have to get to the bottom of a page before they could have access to your free reports, you might as well say goodbye to future profits. Place your reports where your prospect buyers can easily see them. Anywhere on the upper part of the page is fine, however, many would suggest that placing free reports on the upper left part of a page is more conspicuous. Place your free reports where they can easily be seen, but aren’t too distracting (too much distraction might make your prospects hate your site and lead them to never come back).
POSITION YOUR FREE REPORTS AT STRATEGIC LOCATIONS IN YOUR ARTICLES
Take note of the word “strategic.” Strategic does not include placing links to your free reports at every end of your sentences. Placing 3-5 links to your free reports throughout a 500-word article should be good enough. Make sure your links also fit well. It would be such a waste of a good article and good free reports if you don’t know how to position them. Position links to your free reports in a consistent but not bothersome manner. Consistency is good for the impatient prospective buyers, however too much of it might just piss him or her off.
PROVIDE LINKS TO YOUR FREE REPORTS ON YOUR CONTACT US PAGE
Some would say “no” to this, but if you do this correctly, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The main objective of a “contact us” page is to contact the affiliate marketer. However, it wouldn’t do any harm to place a little link that would provide means for the affiliate marketer to contact the prospective buyers through free reports. If you do decide to place links to your free reports in your Contact Us page, remember what the page is made for. Never ever forget, or you might risk chasing prospective buyers away.
Positioning your free reports throughout your affiliate marketing site is all about strategy. Location, location, location. Too little of those powerful links might lead to your prospect buyers to simply overlook them, and too much might lead them to simply run away and never come back. So strategize, and strategize well.
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